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SCS advice for newbies, please?

AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
Honest statement, I consider myself a newbie. Seriously, I used to play bg2 a lot in my earlier days, then I spent countless hours on NWN online RP servers, recently I came back when I heard about the Enhanced Editions, rushed through bg1 now almost finished bg2 and felt like I lack the challenge... wow I'm such a badass.

So I decided to poke about some mods and saw some of you guys talk a lot about SCS, which I never heard of before. Got it running yesterday, started a new bg2 game with a figher/mage and got my ass kicked seriously hard. For the first time in bg I felt hopeless and totally out of control.

My god, these guys quaff potions one after another, they shoot spells at me I never even considered useful. My wizard's protection spell was usually stoneskin only, party buff remove fear and prot from evil was more than enough for most encounters, I used true sight only to get those liches 5 seconds faster when they used mislead, and now I spend most of the time reading the dialogue window to find out what the hell just happened. Forsooth, @DavidW, you know how to shove someone's pride up his arse, this is hilarious :D

Can you guys tell me, from your experience with SCS, which of your habits from the vanilla game you had to break to stand a chance against SCS?
Post edited by Antagonist on
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Comments

  • ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781
    removal spells are super important. mages will auto cast protection spells so you can't just rely on interupting anymore. i am in a rush. i could say more in a moment
  • ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781
    @twani i am glad you mentioned doing the city quests first. i was going to mention that. i had a lot of trouble with the keep on my playthrough because I went straight there after getting Neera. the experience from things like the slavers in the slums come in handy.

    1- i don't know if you did the default install, but if so be ready to not find all the items you usually do. SCS moves robe of vecna and shield of balduraan to TOB, for example. also +1 weapons are renamed excellent and are treated as normal weapons with the stats of +1 weapons. this does not count for special weapons of +1 enchantment, just the actual +1 weapons.

    2- you need to realize when a fight is too hard. i actually could not, no matter how much I tried, beat the adventurers in that one inn in the promenade. it wasn't until later that I came back at a higher level and finally took them out, taking a beating in the process

    3- some exploits are fixed. you can no longer do things like fireball off screen and expect no retaliation, or pull a group 1 by 1. only case I noticed it wasn't fixed was Firkraag, but that is probably because he autocasts spells and the script may require seeing me. It was only a test I reloaded and beat him in an actually not cheesy way. i was kind of surprised tbh

    4- spell books are random. you think you know your enemy inside and out? WRONG! be ready for anything in your current game. i wasn't actually aware of this myself. the crooked crane lich for me liked summoning a pit fiend, but I hear of versions that don't do that and were actually more effective. can't remember the specifics there

    5- have at least 2 mages. no mages will make this almost completely impossible. i did that in vanilla before, but in SCS you wouldn't survive long enough for the protections to wear away. 1 mage would make it possible but you can only bring down protections one by one. 2 allows them to take down 2 protections at a time, so have one doing physical and one doing magical to make them totally vulnerable

    6- the ai has changed. archers might just targets your mages rather than that tank up front. i often times noticed enemies focusing on my fighter/thief bhaalspawn, so thieves or main characters may also be a target

    anyway, I think that is about all I have. i am actually pretty nooby myself if you consider how long I have been playing (i only beat the sage once last christmas) but I am very quick to learn, and I am handling SCS on just my second full run pretty well. i made the mistakes to go to the keep and the shadow temple right away, and I paid in a lot of reloads. the finals bosses are bigger challenges than ever, as you will learn. I remember the shade lord being an easy encounter that I would win in one go, but then suddenly it must have taken over 20! those fights that were easier than should have been will surprise you, and your tactics will change. i used a bunch of fireballs to kill the shades and the altar, but even then there is the problem with SCS mages. i was too low a level to actually take down his defenses and had to wait them out. my best advice would be the removal. you will need that.
    AntagonistDzuk5
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    edited January 2014
    Scouting says @Twani? Sounds like I'll really have to start doing this, though even in pure EE I came across some creatures that saw my hidden thief. I'll keep in mind not to play by heart anymore :)

    Hahah @ChildofBhaal599 now that you mentioned it... What I did was that, during the installation, I chose literally all the nastiest options available(skipping only spawn-undead maxed out script, to prevent spawning freakin' liches).

    What surprised me, after talking with Gaelan I went to get some equipment for the start, which was usually Tarnor's party in the sewers. I never EVER lost this battle, even if I went there right in the very beginning. NEVER. And now I am barely able to survive a a couple rounds, I feel like they have seriously boosted AC, even though my charname elf is a Figher7/Mage8 with freakin ThAC0 5 she can barely hit them, while the rest of the party is getting pelted with arrows, bullets and Fingers of Death. Is this just potion and spell buffing? I feel like they are double my level.

    Now that I read your comment I think I'll really have to skip this one.

    Potions I guess finally become useful eh?

    What about spells? Did your spellbook change that much? From the first impression it seems I'll have to customize it specifically for each battle. Any spells you never used before that suddenly became essential to survive(either arcane or divine)?
  • ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781

    Scouting says @Twani? Sounds like I'll really have to start doing this, though even in pure EE I came across some creatures that saw my hidden thief. I'll keep in mind not to play by heart anymore :)

    Hahah @ChildofBhaal599 now that you mentioned it... What I did was that, during the installation, I chose literally all the nastiest options available(skipping only spawn-undead maxed out script, to prevent spawning freakin' liches).

    What surprised me, after talking with Gaelan I went to get some equipment for the start, which was usually Tarnor's party in the sewers. I never EVER lost this battle, even if I went there right in the very beginning. NEVER. And now I am barely able to survive a a couple rounds, I feel like they have seriously boosted AC, even though my charname elf is a Figher7/Mage8 with freakin ThAC0 5 she can barely hit them, while the rest of the party is getting pelted with arrows, bullets and Fingers of Death. Is this just potion and spell buffing? I feel like they are double my level.

    Now that I read your comment I think I'll really have to skip this one.

    Potions I guess finally become useful eh?

    What about spells? Did your spellbook change that much? From the first impression it seems I'll have to customize it specifically for each battle. Any spells you never used before that suddenly became essential to survive(either arcane or divine)?

    yes that sewer fight is extremely hard. i didn't even do that for a while in but they killed some of the party and I need to resurrect them. you need to find the right path to take in SCS. some fights really will be too hard to start with. as I said the slums are still fairly easy and reward a good bit of exp. try to also do a bunch of quests that require minimal combat, such as Jaheira being poisoned if you have her in the group. maybe even do a bit of thievery if you are desperate for equipment. that one house in the bridge district is a pretty good target :)

    the most I did with the spellbook was use entire spell levels on removal spells. you need such spells for just about every mage so you can run out quite easily, and then it becomes almost impossible.

    maybe you could also avoid getting into mage fights until you have some removals. since i wen't to the keep first at least I didn't have to deal with mages, but the spirit trolls were a huge pain, as well as the final fight
    Antagonist
  • PeccaPecca Member Posts: 2,174
    I'm new to SCS too, though I have played vanilla games for many years. In vanilla I usually played fighter type oriented groups, with two mages as a backup. With SCS however, mages matter above all. Now I play with core group of 4 spellcasters (with F/M PC) and it makes the playthrough a lot easier. My favourite spells so far are web, greater malison, chaos and cloudkill. I won a lot of tough battles using these, literally without a scratch (TorGal, the sewer fight). I never used Malison or Chaos in vanilla, but now they are awesome. I'm still quite low level however, so I'll have to see if they remain useful.
  • TwaniTwani Member Posts: 640
    I don't think I ever used the cleric spell Doom in vanilla, thinking. I've used it more then a few times in SCS- anything to get saves down.

    I'm with @ChildofBhaal599. Do the slaver quests first thing. Get your nice talking sword that hits stuff good. Slowly explore outward. Don't forget the circus. That sewer party is tough, but if you avoid them, you can probably rescue H'D (I wouldn't go running in to his portal, though: that's pretty tough). Do the Fallen Paladins quest. I often do the Unseeing Eye earlier then I used to, though it's definitely a tough fight (don't force it- go the diplomatic way if you can find it in character to). Do the quest for Renel- the thieves stronghold at the end can be a difficult battle, but IIRC, there's still only one mage to worry about. Just, er, watch out for backstabs. Get the injured man and go and do the Harper Hold for Xzar. Go solve the Bridge District murders.

    What not to do? Oh god, the planar sphere. The planar sphere. You mentioned you were looking in to atweaks, @Antagonist, so it's going to be doubly hard. There are evil, evil, evil mages that have no qualms with timestopping the heck out of you, and then there are fiends that bring more fiends and then more fiends and then more fiends and then it's just tears. Valygar, bless him with all my heart, does not care how long you delay towards going to his little sphere, and will gladly tag along with you forever without going to it if you want him to. So... keep that for later. Keep that for a lot later. Of course, that means inevitably you will end up facing pit fiends, but, well, maybe you'll have HLAs? Live in eternal hope.

    Personally, I freely admit to installing a lot of NPC mods and flitting around doing their quests, as well as the quests of the NPC's in the game (Jaheria is poisoned! Mazzy wants to beat up Gorf!). XP is a precious, precious thing. I generally keep Yoshimo around, and use the mod that gives his XP to Imoen and take her (of course, not sure if that mod is updated to be compatible with BG2EE yet).

    I sort Windspear as generally the most dangerous of the areas outside the city (that room of undead!), and do that one last. Trademeet, Nalia's Keep, Umar, Windspear. Sometimes I switch it up. Any of them can be completed first, but some will give you more trouble then others.

    Always, always, always be prepared to retreat. You can come back later. If you try a group five or so times and it doesn't work, I generally have my party retreat for the time being and just come back at a later time. Sure, I could keep forcing it and probably eventually get lucky, but that would be getting lucky. I want to be skilled, not lucky. ;)


    As for me, part of the reason I scout ahead is so I can justify things to myself. I don't, in general, like to cheese. SCS has a lot of components that make enemies smarter and less likely to cheese. However, let's say I'm scouting in the sewers. I notice that band of crazies. I can reasonably decide that the band is going to be hostile, because every other person in this series is hostile to me, seriously. So I cast cloudkill in their direction.

    (SCS enemies are generally smarter about things like that, and usually will run out of the cloudkill chasing you. If they don't, I send my hardiest fighter in, because otherwise I feel like I'm cheesing, and I don't like to do that.)

    Now, I always know that party is there, as a player, but I try to generally act like my player character doesn't know. You don't have to play the same way; that's just how I roll. And it is generally a good idea to know what's coming up ahead.

    (Beware, if you're used to 'cheese' tactics- which does mean different things to different people, so, whatever on that, go for it- setting traps in Dragon's lairs just doesn't work in SCS. They notice.)
    nanoAntagonist
  • SerpionSerpion Member Posts: 67


    yes that sewer fight is extremely hard.

    If you go to direct fight? Probably.
    If you start with hold (web+entangle+stinking cloud+grease+slow) and AoE (clouds, fireballs, insects) then NO.


    Just start battle then that party are neutral. BTW I think that attacking neutral parties should drop your reputation!
    AntagonistChildofBhaal599Ardul
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    I don't like all of the item tweaks because sometimes my character builds rely on one etc but I don't use the shield of balduran.

    What I did this time around was steal a ton of scrolls and master thievery from maevar, the guy upstairs when you start the slums, and then steal all the scrolls on the scroll merchant in waukeens for exp. also stole a weapon or two from copper coronet to have azuredge. Then I did slavers and then circus. It really helps to have cloudkill early on.

    After that I got hexxat and went to nalia's keep.

    It's really hard to beat ust Natha and I has to console the fight down a bit with the SCS options. I almost got it with some cheesy positioning but I was around 3-3.5 million exp when I tried it and just didn't have enough level 7 priest and hla Mage slots. Maybe with a sorcerer to have wish rest I could have done it but I didn't consider doing wk for wish before spellhold because I like having imoen.

    I've been playing on insane which is basically an exercise in frustration... Random rogues will chunk my characters resulting in reloads, and I've noticed that level 3 4 6 Mage spells have generally all become defenses. even now about to go to hell and over 6 million exp on most of my party, I barely got through suldanessallar without resting, the dragon fight followed by the Mage fight in the temple took a lot, because I was out of protection from magical energy and 2-3 characters would instantly die from the mage's horrid wilting on sight contingency. Neera and imoen especially.

    I've really abused 100 magic resist on viconia by giving her the human skin too.

    Memorize lots of ruby ray, warding whip, secret word and breach. Keep breach etc on your fighter Mage and invis potions and oils of speed. Get the rod of resurrections early, several times only my Charname survived Mage fights by oil of speed and invis potion running around to wait out pit fiends etc. the pit fiend sees invis but if you are out of sight of the summoner it won't follow you around a corner.

    I like axes early on for this type of run because azuredge and the two axes from CC and nalia's keep are the early weapons that go through stone skin to interrupt. Also, insect swarm and summon fire elementals are great if you have a Druid. Creeping doom is even better.
    Antagonist
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    @Twani, yes I mentioned I want to add aTweaks, but after the beating I received the decision has been quickly made to delay using that mod, until I make myself fairly comfortable with SCS,

    The most surprising thing for me, referring to what you said about the reduced cheesy tactics effectiveness, is that I never used them and I thought that would prevent me from getting such a serious beating, because I practically slaughtered everything on the way through my recent wild mage run. Okay I admit I used the shield of cheese, but beholders are the least of my worries now. :D

    @kryptix lol no, I will probably not farm my xp from scrolls, I don't feel like my party fighters will get more effective in battle because their fellow wizard wrote down some scrolls, not my type :D

    I noticed I lack slots in my spellbook, because the existing ones are full of defenses, and at this moment I don't even have access to 5th level spells. Just like you mentioned, I'm trying to get as much speed and invis as I can. For the first time in my life I think I'll give Jaheira and Aerie a try, I never fully developed these characters, but I think Aerie's huge spell reserves and Jaheira's druidic spells might just come in handy. Insect swarm that you mentioned is the spell I literally never used.
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    @Antagonist

    Fighter heavy works in SCS (Kill them before they kill you is an awesome strategy for it actually) except that theres no good way to kill mages. Make sure you drop by WK for the potion bag and grab Hexxat for her bag of holding first, you will want to carry around a lot more consumables than your used to. Maybe also consider raiding level 1 of WK for the ammo bag and infinite +1 ammo. Maybe even Usano's blade for an early +4 (but that fight is NUTS in SCS without HLAs of your own, you will pretty much be running around the level trying to split them up to 1 at a time...

    You really can't fight mages in SCS without at least Secret Word and Breach, so even if you don't want to exploit scrolls, maybe consider kicking everyone except for your mages and have them have a "study session" to level up a bit on scrolls which is somewhat realistic. Charname would still get the exp but before you have level 5 spells, its a pure exercise in frustration to try to beat mages (even the random ones from street encounters can kick your ass unless you reload until they fail a save against Emotion:Hopelessness :))

    Actually I did the Guarded Compound relatively early and the final try where I won I had to knock out the mage with emotion right away then I trapped the fighters in 3x web while fire elementals and cloud kills took them out. I had that fight down to only the mage or mage + rogue 4x and kept dying to pit fiends etc...

    Until you have 8-10 attacks per round on a fighter, pit fiends are pretty much impossible and will teleport next to your mages and 1 shot them...

    Just run until they unsummon.

    Jahiera is strong early in SOA, then weak for a long while (it takes her forever to get level 15 as a druid) then ridiculously strong again. For the longest time she just doesn't have enough spells. I did get her to 15 druid by the end of SOA though. She also becomes one of the best front liners because of iron skins + armor of faith and dual wielding spectral brand with belm.

    Getting Celestial fury in the hands of a good backstabber is also an early way to take out a lot of the frustrating mages in SCS. Traps work great too.

    I don't like using Aerie, but she could probably be good with Chain contingencies with cleric spells in them. The key is buying enough time to get them off.

    At the end of the day, something to take down protection from magic weapons is vital, to do that you will need true sight to get through improved invis, then ruby ray for spell immunity, pierce magic for resistance and more spell buffs, remove magic once your really high level, and finally breach.
  • ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781
    Serpion said:


    yes that sewer fight is extremely hard.

    If you go to direct fight? Probably.
    If you start with hold (web+entangle+stinking cloud+grease+slow) and AoE (clouds, fireballs, insects) then NO.


    Just start battle then that party are neutral. BTW I think that attacking neutral parties should drop your reputation!
    i absolutely agree on the neutral parties thing, but it is another thing about player choice. i myself make sure that they are hostile before I do anything except in a few cases (Firkraag my party would want to get the jump on). just because there is a random party in the tavern/sewers whatever doesn't mean I know they are hostile. you meet some good parties too. i usually do have my f/t hidden for an early backstab though.

    @Twani, yes I mentioned I want to add aTweaks, but after the beating I received the decision has been quickly made to delay using that mod, until I make myself fairly comfortable with SCS,

    The most surprising thing for me, referring to what you said about the reduced cheesy tactics effectiveness, is that I never used them and I thought that would prevent me from getting such a serious beating, because I practically slaughtered everything on the way through my recent wild mage run. Okay I admit I used the shield of cheese, but beholders are the least of my worries now. :D

    @kryptix lol no, I will probably not farm my xp from scrolls, I don't feel like my party fighters will get more effective in battle because their fellow wizard wrote down some scrolls, not my type :D

    I noticed I lack slots in my spellbook, because the existing ones are full of defenses, and at this moment I don't even have access to 5th level spells. Just like you mentioned, I'm trying to get as much speed and invis as I can. For the first time in my life I think I'll give Jaheira and Aerie a try, I never fully developed these characters, but I think Aerie's huge spell reserves and Jaheira's druidic spells might just come in handy. Insect swarm that you mentioned is the spell I literally never used.

    i found Jaheira and Aerie to be quite capable on my run, so I can recommend them for sure. just make sure you get jaheira the strength girdle and staff of rynn (if you don't have any other plans for it) and she can hit mostly everything for some serious damage. make sure you have somebody for flail of ages too. i had to spec minsc for the flail in my own party because the interruption is too good to give up. it is also effective to have viconia and buff her magic resistance that she can tank mages with ease, but that may be overdoing it on divine spells to have them all.
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    edited January 2014
    I rescued Vicky cause it was "the right thing to do" but we already got the mission from Helm's followers and Anomen is very eager to meet Keldorn(though I'm not ready for the Unseeing Eye so I'm not taking him just yet, to avoid his yapping about the quest and leaving my party). 3 divine casters in the party is enough.

    Charname elven F/M lass (my first multiclass ever I think), Anomen, Jaheira, Aerie, Keldorn, Jan or Nalia. And you guys will probably say Nalia, since PC and Aerie are multiclasses and will be slow to get access to necessary removal spells. Bags, ammunition, potions... all check. Keldorn or Anomen will probably get the flail, and charname uses long swords so sword of flame will have to do in the beginning.
    kryptix said:

    even if you don't want to exploit scrolls, maybe consider kicking everyone except for your mages and have them have a "study session" to level up a bit on scrolls which is somewhat realistic. Charname would still get the exp but before you have level 5 spells, its a pure exercise in frustration to try to beat mages

    You just gave me an idea that the party xp for scrolls can be somewhat explained, that the wizards instruct the party how those spells work and how to try to resist some of the effects, which is fairly acceptable in terms of roleplaying if not abused too much.


    Sorry if it seems I'm asking you guys to lead me by the hand, but I'd rather save some frustration in the beginning than give up because I was too quick to choose the nasty mode and play with a party I'm not quite familiar with, lead my a fighter/mage charname that I never played before :)


  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    Yeah I've noticed on this run that FoA is languishing on Viconia who can't use it any more after I used her strength girdle for Crom Freyr... She's using the 18 str mace and her holy symbol to hit 19... I guess I could buff her to fighter status for fights but that seems pointless when I have two fighter multi classes with 9-10 attacks per round...
  • vangoatvangoat Member Posts: 212
    I've got 4 playthroughs going at the moment and I have to say SCS is not too bad once you know more or less what to expect.

    The first time (usually) you leave the city you'll be waylaid by about 10 orogs plus a nasty little mage. Because the hasted orogs spawn right on top of your weakest characters they'll usually die immediately unless there's a stoneskin up (Which will last for maybe 1 round). This encounter feels lame and cheesy to me, how do big fat noisy orogs sneak up to the point they're right on top of you?
    I recommend either: a) invisibility and run way, or b) cloudkill will destroy most of the orogs then you just have the mage to deal with.

    Windspear hills feels a LOT harder. The undead room isn't too bad, if you stick a tank with negative plane protection in the doorway, you can hack through them slowly. Rukh is absolutely brutal on low level parties. You will need true sight + multiple breaches and then good fighters to hack through him. If you leave it too long, you'll get extra Iron golems which can really mess you up with their poison cloud. Samia and co. are quite difficult now, mostly due to that damn mage. For some reason there's a freakin adamantite golem in Firkraag's room now. I have no idea why. I just run past him with haste and go and speak to Firkraag. I haven't even attempted to take down any dragons yet.

    Oh, if you grab Edwin and do the nether scroll quest.. watch out. Neveziah now acts like a REAL lich and will destroy you quickly. I got lucky I think because he summoned 2 demons who were more interested in fighting each other than attacking me. I basically had to run away a lot and make him waste spells on summons then slowly get him down.

    Mae'Vars quests are still easy, so doing them as the first stronghold quest isn't a bad idea.

    Druid grove isn't too bad either. Although you will learn to hate spirit trolls. Unholy blight can be brutal if you're playing a good party, plus they have a habit of going invisible every 2 seconds. Which is basically just annoying because when they reappear my characters just sit there like stunned mullets so I have to manually force them to attack again EVERY time. Get a melee weapon with fire or acid. Even if you have mazzy with fire arrows shooting 4.5 times per round, they'll either pass the save every single time or Mazzy will critical miss about 8 times in a row. Did I mention i HATE spirit trolls? If you do nalia's keep they will be EVERYWHERE and respawn :(

    Umar Hills seemed ok for me, but I've heard the Shade Lord can be very tough. I completed it with an undead hunter PC so it wasn't bad. As long as you can keep plane protection up it should be fine.

    Beware of Suna Seni, make sure in the early game your characters aren't half dead when travelling between zones, because they'll finish you off quickly.

    Mages: Insect plague still rocks, and it's basically worth having a druid just for this. They will shut down casters quick. If you pick up Dorn his poison weapon can hit through stoneskins which is also great. If you installed the inquisitor nerf like me, don't even bother trying to use Keldorn's dispel, it never works. Free true sight is great though. If you happen to get Jan, pump up detect illusions ASAP and it'll also make mages visibile.

    Haven't done planar sphere or the Bard/extraplanar quests yet because I'm scared.

    Oh, one more thing. If you take Jaheira, the harper attacks seem a lot more difficult, which is good, but slightly annoying (Particularly Galvery) because you have to click through about 800 lines of dialogue if you reload.



  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    I died more on those orogs and suna seni than almost any other encounter lol... Suna seni because I was stuck somewhere I couldn't rest, I think it was docks and going to the inn would result in jaheira cursed.

    Ended up getting lucky rolls on some failed saves by the Mage :)

    The orogs I just have everyone chug an invis potion and cloudkill from off the screen now because they chunked my casters every time...
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    This is getting creepy. Yes, I took the nerfed inquisitor dispel(as well as every other sadistic option available). No, I'm not gonna take Dorn. Yes, I'll definitely keep Jaheira with me. Yes, you mentioned you HATE spirit trolls :D Bleh, you guys just spoiled the orog ambush, but I guess I should be thankful. :)

    Okay, time to make use of all your advice, good luck to me I guess.
  • KottbullarKottbullar Member Posts: 1
    I would suggest dropping one of the divine caster. You want high level spells AND detect illusion.

    SCS for me has 3 distinct stages where its difficult :

    1. Early arms race:You need strong fighters and wands on your casters to clear most stuffs effectively. First you need you need to recharge that fireball and cloudkill wands you get from chateau irenicus. I personally allow myself to rob stores once of their goods without reselling. As long as you have say fullplates and +2 weapons for your fighters, you should be able to clear trolls to get both Belm and Foa. Simply buff your fighters with prot from fire, and just blast away with fireballs/scorcher. Any early mages you encounter along the way(sewer,yuantis, thief guilds), you can simply prevent from casting anything with cloudkill. Very few of them buff against acid damage, and if they try to move out, simply drop another one under their feet while you kill the rest of the lackeys. Backstabbing can also help solve many of the early game encounter. Also, use all those potions your picked up.

    2. Underdark timing : Since you installed all the sadistic options, you need to delay going to udnerdark, period.

    3. Liches and beyond : This is solved simply by not attempting them until you have at least a good number of lvl 7 arcane slots(ruby rays), preferably lvl8s as well for pierce shields. This is why you should have at least 1 single class mage, so you can get these at a decent time.
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    Yep, I'm playing right now and noticed I'll sure want a pure mage, that's why I'm swapping Jan for Nalia asap. Clouds and stuff were never my style, I never used them at all so I'm already trying to kinda develop a new strategy against this new AI. So far I got the whole team assembled, Valygar and charname will be the mage hunters, I feel like he's going to be more effective than Keldorn, since I'm not going to get Carsomyr soon enough. :D
  • ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781
    i found liches manageable with level 6 spells. protection from magic energy was important for me so I could have one person in his sight that he drains his powerful spells on. I believe there was one thing that got in the way of that being perfect but I have Viconia and some MR items that her already great MR could become very reliable at protecting her from whatever it was. i did sacrifice some people to maze though if you time it for after stuff like fireball you could get some summons to take them. only time my lich plan failed was kangaxx and well, he just happens to need a very specific strategy :)
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    edited January 2014
    Nah I just went traps against all of the early liches, 2-3 traps plus daystar Sunray made them doable before their protections came up. Some liches actually seem to not see invis and let me invis up to them and while they cast true sight I cast sunrays :)

    I did do the viconia thing against the cc lich to get daystar though, I had a rod of resurrection, 2 mages with all prot magic energy memorized and just kept on sending viconia on suicide runs until he was out of spells... Daystar makes short work of everything... I might have to temporarily recruit her on all of my SCS runs now :)

    Also hexxat for her bag.

    Invis potions oil of speed and wand of cloud kill are very important for the early ambushes, I was very frustrated trying to just fight them head to head. I also bought off the cowled wizards due to my party makeup but that's up to you.
  • TwaniTwani Member Posts: 640
    See, and that's why I install Unfinished Business. No Suna ambush, with Valygar around! Win for everyone!

    ...Well, it's true.
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    So I started TOB today and got my ass kicked real hard by the trial in the pocket plane... Was irenicus sarevok and bodhi always part of that after the drow? I didn't expect it and got a timestop spell strike dragons breath comet on Charname :)

    I guess I'll have to try it again leaving one drow alive so that I can buff up for irenicus because the encounter is long enough for anything I put up to run out...
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    This is getting so entertaining! I had those orogs and slavers ambush me, so many spells prove useful now, I don't know what would I do without web and entangle. But who the hell is Suna?
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741

    This is getting so entertaining! I had those orogs and slavers ambush me, so many spells prove useful now, I don't know what would I do without web and entangle. But who the hell is Suna?

    The ambush in athkatla where you get a nice +2 short sword.
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    edited January 2014
    Oh that first one? I never noticed she was suna seni :D

    What surprised me, now every next ambush in athkatla ends up with the bandits running away, cool realistic feature :D:D

    "it's Katrina! We have to get out of here!"
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Hmm, I have unfinished business and she's standing around in the bar but I had that ambush anyways. Is that a bug?
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    Wow I didn't even know she was in the bar somewhere? Are we talking about the ambush with Arbane's Sword +2 to get? That very first ambush in the town? Or is it something added in the mod?
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    She stands around in the Coronet and has a portrait and everything but tells me to bugger off when I talk to her :d
    I got Arbane's sword from the ambush, dunno if that's the one.
    It's a fun mod, you should give it a go on your next play through :) I really liked the item that gives you a single use of limited wish early on, so you can get a head start on the quest or bust out a time stop in a pinch.
  • AntagonistAntagonist Member Posts: 139
    edited January 2014
    Unfinished business? Might check it out, if SCS doesn't eat me first.

    EDIT: Oh, now I found out, Suna is part of the unfinished and cut out from the game quest with valygar, that was brought back in Unfinished Business, so that would be a bug in your game, or event order went wrong maybe? She's the one with Arbane's sword from the ambush, I never even knew she had a portrait because I never noticed her in the Coronet before she attacked.
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