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Best way to protect your party from magic, without arcane use

MrNoobyMrNooby Member Posts: 131
So for my current playthrough, I'm doing a minimalist run.

I'm actually still going through BG1 - but I'm playing a fighter->swashbuckler (using EEKeeper to be able to do that), probably going to dual at 13.

Anyway, I'm not going solo, but I'm going to be using a relatively small party, using only my favourite NPCs.

For BG1, it's just me, Jaheria and Imoen, and in BG2, it'll be me, Jaheria, Yoshi->Imoen, and Minsc, who will be an archer using EEKeeper.

So, until I get Imoen in BG2, I'm stuck without any arcane spells, only a little divine from Jaheria, so my question is, what will be the best way to protect my party from magic?

Also, even when I do have Imoen, what is the best way to go about protecting my party? I'm playing on insane, but I really don't have that much knowledge about casting.

Comments

  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    Usually in my party I allow only arcane casters, single class, dual or multi, and the reason is not a terrific arcane power, is protection. Everybody can become invulnerable to phisical, elemental and magical attacks. An arcane caster can protect himself very well, ie PFMW or spell shield, and can protect others to some extent.
    Whitout arcane magic depends on if and which mods you have installed.
    I actually play whith tactics that is cheating a lot, many enemies cast whith the script realliforcespell that means 0 casting time and can target untargettable characters like the ones under improoved invisibility, in other setups enemy mages maybe start buffed, maibe have a better AI but "respect the rules of the game and in unmodded you can exploit a pour AI so defend yourself even better.

    Some basic hints, but if and how well they worck depends on your setup.
    1- Tactical superiority, if you scout you can buff yourself, call some summons whith cleric and arttifacts to suck the enemy magic and you decide how and when the battle starts.
    2- Kill him before he can damage you.
    3- If you can not kill him outright, ie the enemy is a mage whith stoneskin and you can not backstab him, try to disrupt him. there are weapons that deliver elemental damage through stoneskins and oter means to do it. or Try to dominate him, there is a staff that cast a domination WHITH NO SAVE and only few enemies are immune to that domination, is one of the most powerfull yet must underrated items of the game.
    4- Try to use summons to suck the enemy magic, there are staves that summon elementals, artifacts to summon a spider, an efreti and a genie and so on.

    These are active protections, if they fail the second line of defence are passive protections that negate or mitigate the effects of the enemy's magic.

    5- Buff your saving throws as much as you can, potions, rings, amulets, all is good.
    6- Try to make yourself resistent or immune to magicaal and elmental damage and to crowd control magic. also here use all you can find, and even in unmodded game there is a lot. There are potions and divine scrolls that make you resistent to elemental damage as well as rings and other equipment. there is a belt that reduces at 50% the damage you take, there is a cloack that transform youself in a immune jelly and so on. Read the description of every item and expand your knowledge of the game.

    Maybe you know it but there is a difference between magical resistence and resistence to magical damage. The first means that if you have lets say 50% resistence there is a 50% chance that the spell is completely blocked, the second works like elemental resistences, mitigate magical damage, ie MM or ADHW.

    7- Tactical superiority again.
    ie You must face a powerful red dragon. You know that he will debuff you whith remove magic and then toast you whith a powerfull firre breath. Buff your tank whith elemental resistences and send him..... fighter debuffed and toasted, good breckfast for evil lizard :smiley:
    Buff your hasted tank, send him away, face the dragon whith another character that sucks the debuff spell, or a summon, and only then send to battle the tank as you run away whith the debuffed one (that immediaely afrer the debuff dinks a oil of speed to be out of range before the dragon spit the megafireball.
    Again all depends on your mods, which spells and effects they change, how better they make enemies AI.
    But no matter how much they do, your HI (human intelligence) have always the potential to be superior, even the best AI that can be scripted and modded in this game has hudge limitation.
    Expand your knowledge, on equipment, game meccanichs and everithing.
    Every battle can be won whitout cheating or using cheap tactics (note that I use cheap and not cheesy, i think that there is a lot of misunderstanding about cheese, there is no universally accepted definition of it and IMHO there is good cheese that exploits in genial ways the game scripts and mechanics and bad cheese that lead to cheap tactics that soil all the fun of the game. And some things that are considered cheese by some others in my boock are not cheese at all, may be are plain cheating, may be are using OP spells and items).
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    Sorry, i forgot an important point

    6bis- Become untarghettable. invisibile characters can not be hitted whith direct spells, like MM or breach, only whith aoe spells like dispell magic or fireball. Whith i mprooved invisibility the character remains untargettable also after he attacks and become (partially) visible. And a merchant sells infinite (in vanilla, but maybe also in EE) rings that grants you 1 improoved invisibility Xday.
    This don't work against creatures that see through invisibility as innate power.

    Also sells a shield that reflects ranged attacks, some magic is regarded by the game as proiectiles, ie fire arrow, and is reflected! A mage that sends a sequencer whith 3 fire arrows to a character welding that shield often kills himself.
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