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Just how hard exactly is SCS for Baldur's Gate 1 EE?

IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
Hello fellow gamers!

I am almost ready to embark on my 2nd and very likely last play through of the entire Baldur's Gate Saga (including Dragonspear now) and the final dilemma I have is whether to play BG1 with SCS or not. BG2 is far away still so no need to answer that.

Here is the game plan:

- I intend to play a no-reload game (or at least minimum reload game) as a human male sorcerer (playing fully as myself, the way I am and behave in the real world) on DnD hardcore rules
- For game 1 and Dragonspear I intend to have the canon party
- For game 2 and Tob I will get rid of Minsc and most likely take Yoshi/Imoen, Jaheira, Aerie, Keldorn and Haer'Dalis
- I intend to play with realistic resting restrictions
- As I consider myself a reasonably intelligent and tactical person in real life I expect my character to stay far away from enemies like Demigorgon, Aec Letec and Kangaxx because to me they just spell instadeath and I would never fight something like that.
- I intend to clear most of the content available, avoiding only enemies I consider too deadly to engage
- I know roughly how the game's story goes, I know most important encounters since I've already played the game once. But I've forgotten many details.

Now I have had some experience with SCS before but it ended quickly with Silke completely obliterating my party in Beregost. I had no way to deal with Stoneskin/Horror combo (Imoen's magic missile wand didn't get timed perfectly) and that was game over for my entire party.

I would like to play SCS with mostly improved AI and some item nerfs (specifically acid arrows and stuff like that).
I won't opt for any upgraded encounters, except maybe shadow druids.

So if anyone of you guys with experience playing SCS would be kind enough to answer the following questions I'd be really happy:

1) Are there many other mages that are much more powerful than their original versions? Because to me Silke was incomparably more difficult than her original. A bit more powerful and smarter is cool though.
2) My preferable game play style is invisibility scouting, summoning, wands, archery and the like. I do plan to have a few warriors but charging head on is not my style at all. Is this still viable in SCS? Can an archer still take down Davaeorn with boots of speed and that potion that makes him immune to all spells of level 5 or below? Do things like that still work, do they work sometimes or not at all?
3) How much harder is the final battle with Sarevok if I don't install the optional upgrade of that battle?
4) Are there non-casters that got buffed noticeably?
5) reserved
6) reserved

That's mostly it really :)

Thanks in advance!
BanArd

Comments

  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    edited April 2016
    There're many components in the SCS mod, each of them modifies a certain aspect of the game. You can choose what to install and by doing so you choose the difficulty you'll get yourself.

    For example, if Silke was too powerful for you, maybe you chose the pre-battle buffs for mages component.

    From the readme:

    "SCS plays fair. I've made a fairly sustained effort to ensure that SCS opponents fight by the rules and don't use powers denied to the player (other than obvious things like dragons' breath weapons, liches' ability to see through invisibility, etc!) This is probably most notable for spellcasters - SCS mages don't randomly get uninterruptible spells, improved casting time, free Alacrity, or the like. (In fact, I've removed these powers from creatures in the vanilla game occasionally, though I haven't done so systematically.)
    SCS is almost pure AI. SCS mucks around rather little with the core powers of creatures, and hardly at all with their abilities, resistances, saving throws and the like, beyond correcting a few errors in the original game. Its main focus is on getting creatures to do as much as they possibly can with their existing abilities. In particular, its targeting is very careful - hopefully you'll almost never see a mage do something stupid like cast repeated spells at someone immune to that spell.
    SCS is quite low-key in its changes Where SCS does modify something other than AI, it usually does so in a relatively undramatic manner - adding a few more creatures, giving a creature a couple of other magic powers in keeping with powers it's already used, and so forth. It doesn't give new ultra-powerful spells to creatures who didn't have any magic before, or give creatures massive damage resistances, for instance. (Again, there's not necessarily anything wrong with doing this, it's just not what SCS is about).
    SCS is very customisable. Feel free to install whichever combination of components you like - there is a separate one for each major AI / tactical change."

    Overall, the SCS mod greatly improves AI and makes the game interesting and your enemies - smart.

    If you're afraid to be overwhelmed by the SCS, then choose only basic impovements, like

    Smarter general AI
    Better calls for help

    You can read about each component here - http://www.gibberlings3.net/scs/
    Aerakarlolien
  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    I read the readme before. But I don't recall having any of these questions answered, that's why I posted them here :)
  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    And I don't think I chose the prebuff component cause I thought that was gonna be too hard. She was able to cast stoneskin though and then I was buggered :/
  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    And I hope you don't think that I just wanted to be lazy by posting this here instead of looking it up myself. I really looked into it and felt I didn't find the answers I wanted. I might've missed some but then that was an oversight :)
  • MMMMKMMMMK Member Posts: 30
    edited April 2016
    I only finished about half of BG with SCS installed, so I can't be too helpful. The biggest change in difficulty in my opinion is in "improved calls for help" especially in, for example, the Bandit Camp and areas with lots of enemies that you could have previously killed off in small chunks. It's insanely fun, though.

    The mages are certainly stronger, or, I should say that they're harder to kill, but I'm used to BG2/ToB scs so it wasn't anything new or especially difficult for me because they are also fairly low level mages. I can't speak to any of the specific stuff you asked about, though. I would recommend keeping mages from pre-buffing if you're worried about it being too hard, and you should know that the "tactical challenge" parts of the mod can be very difficult and even frustrating in general.

    As an example, I tried the Ruins of Ulcaster with and without the scs challenge installed and while I was able to beat their buffed up mobs it wasn't much fun for me personally, and the rewards were definitely not worth the hassle.

    *Editing to add that what scs does is force you to better understand how the game works (especially the spell system). You mentioned having trouble with stoneskin/horror. Well, Horror is very easily countered by both priest and arcane spells and some class abilities. Stoneskin can be Breached at higher levels (only in BG2 I suppose) but elemental damage also gets through the protections which means that you can disrupt their spellcasting even by doing small amounts of elemental damage (like from Varscona but there are tons of ways to do it). Or you can strip Stoneskin by hitting them a bunch with high APR weapons like darts or even just bows. Or sneak up and hit the wizard with a poison weapon before the fighting starts, ect.
    JuliusBorisov
  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    That is excellent advice MMMMK, great thanks :)

    I watched a video of someone playing SCS on youtube and it was very informative. There is one thing that puzzled me though. In the readme it says that mages can prebuff with long lasting spells such a stoneskin and melf's minute meteors. That makes great sense. However in the video I saw that assassin in the Nashkel inn prebuffed with 4 spells, one of them being bless which only lasts 6 rounds. That doesn't seem very logical at all. Is there a way to make sure that casters only apply defences that last 8 hours or more? Cause if not I think I will disable prebuffing completely.
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    2-you can scout, kite and use strategies as you want. Scs ai will do everything to make it difficult for you, though. If you scout invisible, mages/clerics will try to dispel your invisibility and enemies will try to cramp and corner you. (If you are invisible with the spell/potion but not silently moving with the thief skill!). If you kite too much the enemy will change targets. If you gulp a potion of magic blocking and charge Davaeorn, he will not waste spells on you (except maybe summons) and will prioritise his own survival above else, refreshing his buffs and going invisible when neccesary. While at the same time new guards will pour down to the level as long as he is alive.
    JuliusBorisov
  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    He gets guards even if I don't install the optional difficulty increase for that fight?
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    Iglosnof said:

    He gets guards even if I don't install the optional difficulty increase for that fight?

    I am not sure. I guess not.

  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    edited April 2016
    I am currently playing through with SCS for the first time.
    It does change the game, not impossible but certainly requires more patience, and adds a level of randomness which is fun.

    I would think the main issue for the OP is having the idea that they are also attempting a "no reload" run for the playthrough.
    If that means you restart when killed, then I reckon you aren't going to be able to do it until you know the game and the mod like the back of your hand.

    My main difficulty has been being ambushed by the bounty hunter groups traveling between areas. For the group of amazons, that actually meant that I had to scale the difficulty back for the fight (usully highest level) which I find far more unsatisfying than reloading and having another go at a fight.

    And not sure if I'm OP, but so far, both mines and the bandit camp, SCS has made the fights either ridicuously easy (suddenly finding everything dead and not really knowing how/why) or ridiculously hard.

    For instance, last fight at Cloakwood Mine, somebody or the other was getting killed over and over (and I play without ever resurecting or allowing party members to die), tried again and Daveron was dead within seconds and still not sure what killed him.
    Found myself kicking the dead body and saying stuff like "stand up and fight", all the buffs and prep and nothing to do, various summons wandering around asking awkward questions like " so what did you bother us for".

    At the bandit camp, tried to get caught initially and taken to the camp, dead within seconds after numerous tries and stratergies. Went away, leveled up a bit, came back, couldn't get caught because bandits gone, so had to storm the camp and killed everything without even seeing half of what I was killing because they all (from the tents and cave as well) ran into the webs/grease (stupid bandits) and got fireballed.
    Far, far easier than making your way through the camp and finally into the big tent.





  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    Thanks for the input :)

    I know most encounters in BG1 and I intend to avoid fighting enemies that look very powerful because that just isn't something my character would do.

    So I decided to install most components but almost none of the tactical challenges and no short term mage and cleric pre-buffs.

    Starting it tomorrow, hopefully it proves to be an epic run!
    jackjackJuliusBorisov
  • Jaheiras_WitnessJaheiras_Witness Member Posts: 614
    SCS mages will always prebuff with longlasting spells like Stoneskin, Shield and Melf's Minute Meteors.

    If you select the mages prebuff option (sounds like you haven't) they also additionally cast shorter lasting spells like Mirror Image and Minor Globe.

    Your setup should be fine, hope you enjoy it.
    JuliusBorisovjackjack
  • IglosnofIglosnof Member Posts: 119
    So there's one question that's still left unanswered:
    How much harder is the final battle with Sarevok if I don't install the optional upgrade?
    Are Angelo and Semaj high enough level to make my life really miserable?
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