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Making Legacy of Bhaal Mode FUN

AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
edited July 2016 in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
So starting my 3rd playthrough of BGEE I was left dissatisfied.

My first playthrough doing insane was pretty easy overall.

Second time I added SCS. Things got better but inevitably Sarevok fell just as easy if not easier than my first playthrough. Like both times for Demon knight and Drizzt I was able to melee them down with Strength Potions and Haste.

So I tried Legacy of Bhaal. Well first things first especially with SCS sprint bears. OH MY LORD LOL.

So I'm like okay.... I'll turn on the XP LUA mod maybe that will make things interesting with no cap. But then you of course run into issues with OVERLEVELING HLAS by the time you hit BG2. so that really isn't an option.

One thing that I found troublesome was GOLD. Gold was pretty useless by the time you hit Cloakwood. Buying mainly potions.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO without further rambling my 3rd and hopefully satisfying difficulty including SCS + LoB with increased enemy damage turned up is as follows which requires use of EE keeper. I'm not going to summon mass monsters. outside what my single mage can do if I even have him do it. I'm NOT making premade characters outside the NPCS.

I considered an importing from a Final-Save or Black Pits. But to hell with that imo.

~ 1. With the insane enemy thac0 Protection item restriction with BGTweaks is removed.
~ 2. Hostile Rests are disabled to prevent farming of any gold or XP (ankhegs, Wyverns, Sirens)
~ 3. EEkeeper turned into a Store Buy items and deduct Gold based on their purchase value rounded up
~ 4. By default starting Profciencies are 6 Warrior, 4 Thief/Cleric, 2 Mage. Allows purchase of ranged, Melee, and a style skill. No more than 2 in a slot at lvl 1.
~ 5. No Cap on Proficiency placement. Shouldn't be OP considering Enemy AC and only Warrior classes get APR.
~ 6. Reputation offers no discount

My EE Store

Full Plate +1 10000
The Night's Embrace +3 10000

Girdle of Stone Giant 20000
Girdle of Hill Giant 16000
Belt of Inertial Barrier 16000
Paws of Cheetah 6000
Gargoyle boots 32000

Bastard Sword +2 6500
Two handed Sword +2 6000
Composite Longbow +2 6000
Heavy Crossbow +2 6000
Case of Plenty +1 2500

Legacy of the Masters 8000

Gorm's Arm +3 14000
Corvyr's Blessing 3000

Edventar's Gift 7000
Amulet of Power 6000
Improved Cloak of Protection 20000
Cloak of Protection +2 12000
Amulet of Protection +2 12000
The Guard's Ring +2 12000

Any thoughts / suggestions?

I'm sure gold will be invalueable instead of useless to enhance characters to withstand the difficulty.
Allows Ranged and Melee play instead of FULL ranged kiting gameplay
Allows you not to have a summoner fest.

All good points in my book. I may likely log my journey in this thread if interest is shown.
Post edited by Anaxie on

Comments

  • AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
    edited July 2016
    The Journey begins.

    NPC is a planned Fighter/Thief Rolled a 96 18/88 Strength, 18 Dex, 18 Con, 18 charisma. a good start.
    Hes going to be the Thief and the Tank at the same time HOPEFULLY. Time to make use of that shield spec +4 Missle AC bonus. He's gonna need it.

    Holy crap i killed 2 SCS sprint black bears on first map.
    and 4. Found a use for potions of speed. Xzar makes a good kiter.

    a Horde of 8 Gibberlings just proved more satisfaction tactics wise than SCS Sarevok. Ohhh this is gonna be good.
    Post edited by Anaxie on
  • AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
    edited July 2016
    Finished Coast way. Dear god I've never encounted so many gibberling packs.

    I'm at 48 total party kills just from the First 2 zones.

    Oh man robbing little homes for 20 gold is actually very rewarding now. gimme your daggers!


    I'm going to laugh. I ALMOST BET. the gnoll pack will kill Drizzt on their own if they all have buffed HP and Thac0.

    HAHAHA they did.

    Rescuing Viconia from the Fist is... not so simple
    kited away from viccy and got 2 Dread Wolves. WENT BETTER THEN EXPECTED!

    Got balls now. my fighter/thief tanked the 3man Fist Patrol. Wasn't even worried about his well being.

    EXCELLENT

    Mowing through hobgoblins and ghouls now. LoB aint so bad. Dont even have my EE Gold loot added yet.
    Post edited by Anaxie on
  • randomhero890randomhero890 Member Posts: 86
    I like your idea and I agree with you that even on insane with SC tactics installed, the game is stil too easy. A player would need to purposefully avoid using certain tactics (such as using summoned monsters, using all ranged classes, "remembering" where big enemy fights are and pre-buffing and using aoe's from out of range) in order to retain a challenge. Then there's the issue of knowing where the best and easily-attainable items are. Like you mentioned, soon gold becomes a non-factor and bg1 has a lot of really powerful items for aale that a level 1 can buy if the player knew how to make gold

    LoB seemed to be designed for fully geared max level chars from a completed game. I was planning on doing this in a new LoB run and was worried about passing the HLA levels. My plan to avoid that was to export them just before I hit those levels, record their stars and gear, and use EEkeeper to reduce their level, spells/etc, and stats back to those before taking them into bg2

    What I think would really help LoB would be for someone to do a mod which cuts the hp gains for enemies in 1/2 in LoB. That's my biggest issue, especially because the spell system in this game was not designed for enemies with 100+ health. The hp gains (and to lesser extent, the saving throw gains) makes mages/etc the absolute worst class in the game and archers the absolute best (when archers were already borderline OP)
  • AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
    edited July 2016
    The thing with LoB you have to use ranged to start. IT BREAKS making characters.

    Forcing a baseline procificncy change allows you to be verstile and have a melee and range option. Now which ever skill you push future ponits into the the persons skilled group role.

    My fighter HAD to use bows. but hes already slowly transitioned into a front liner to make archers move and fall back (when your in their face) and to tank several enemies now. He will fill out this role further as I make purchases towards his role. Big ass shield and armor. Which is about 30,000 Gold later.

    a lvl 50 cap WITH LoB in ToB will likely still be tough as nails.

    My opinon. Remove XP cap entirely and dont level past 3 million XP and just store it or adjust it with the in game console. Whatever you set GIVE XP to reduces/increases it to that value.

    Or don't /level up when/if you pass that amount I guess.

    That would avoid BG2 HLA conflicts I presume.

    For first time though my Fighters are using a shield instead of DWing that AC is and missle AC is clench.

    ~~Confirmed

    XP Cap 3 million never exceed it as a level up for import. EASY because the game bugs out and you can't finish leveling up with HLAs in BGEE. 2,999,999 XP 1 short of Lvl14 for a F/T lowered XP Value to the LAST level up so a loss of about -400kISH XP. So if you worry about HLAS just stick with that rule. Assuming you use Nightmare Mode XP.
    Post edited by Anaxie on
  • AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
    edited July 2016
    I consider squirrles and bats little XP power ups.

    +2004XP badabing

    Oh shit nevermind they attack back and still have that stupid high HP.

    Tanked a pack of half Ogres. Was actually fun.
    Post edited by Anaxie on
  • randomhero890randomhero890 Member Posts: 86
    Regardless of what level it takes, your ability to still do LoB gives me hope ;)
  • AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
    edited July 2016
    those triple packs of ankhegs that spawn.

    just wiped 4 packs of those without needing to heal the PC.

    still wearing shitty old Plate mail. Not Full Plate.

    Gonna be REAL strong after vendoring some shells.

    Legacy of Bhaal is overrated so far. If you think it takes ages to kill stuff (it doesn't)
    If you think its to hard at start (It is BEWARE OF BEARS)
    If you think OMG archers suck! They will get someone shield spec with piercing girdle.

    All in all I havn't really had any issues yet. Hell I already have Drizzits scimtars because he couldn't beat the Gnolls. HA

    Issue I see is it WILL be hard because strong fighters. Especially potion buffed SCS ones. and mages and thieves are going to be VERY challenging. Mages will survive to get spells off unless you really bring the pain as opposed to non LoB mode. hopefully it brings what I've been looking for. So far it has.

    Pretty much my goal is to play with the Nightmare XP. I'll shut nightmare XP off when I'm 500kish off 3 million. So I don't bug out the leveling BGEE screen and can import to gain all HLAs. I gain proficienices in secondary weapons and very minimal amounts of HP above lvl 10. So power creep isn't really relevant Pre BG2

    I can say though it feels like it's made to be played with a Final Save import or a Nightmare XP enabled game. Any other playstyle. Idk. whats more enjoyable donig nightmare XP getting a very challenging tactical game with 60 hours + playtime. Or Vanilla XP lvl 1 LoB with 9 months of grinding gameplay and summon chessing and archer ring around the rosey kiting. Ehhhh.

    Current Party PC / Shar'teel / Jaheria / Khalid / Viconia / Kivan.

    Gonna use Jaheria and Khalid for the a few northern zones since Jaheria is the only person who can use Twinkle+3 at the moment then ditch Jaheria and Khalid For Edwin and Minsc. Once Dyna is rescued and sent to the Friendly Arm. I'll ditch them forever and pick up my BFF Dorn. Dorn gets demoted to 2nd Row with Viccy. Shar'teel is Frontlining Shields with me.


    ~ Update

    Forgot about Kagain who is Kitted as a Dwarven Defender meaning +17 HP PER level. But then again he isn't a part of SoD. I'll just manage without him because if I can't manage without him now. SoD is gonna be HELL.


    :( i killed Farmer Bruns Horse and Chickens in the name of free XP
    At least he got his sons dead body

    hmmm..... Dare I try to make a full run WITHOUT a mage..... HMMMMMM
    Post edited by Anaxie on
  • AnaxieAnaxie Member Posts: 79
    edited July 2016
    ............ Annnnd run shutdown.

    Was getting Neera to steal her bag. This happens.

    Odd bug. if you remove a party member and quick save then load they erm..... advance to level 20 without XP change but require lvl 21 XP value for next level.... annnd hp gets weird kiven went to 320hp.

    backtracked to Friendly Arm and all the other NPCS I threw away were lvl 18-20.

    Sigh what a downer.

    ~ As suspected. The additional proficiencies screwed the NPCS up.
    It appears NPCS are flagged to not recieve the +80 HP
    EVER SINGLE THING sloppily gets it. Cats/ Bats / Chickens / Gibberlings / Sarevok. No matter who they are +80HP!

    The MAJOR game breaking issue I'm having with LoB mode and likely won't play now as a result.

    ANY CHANGE including picture to an NPC after the game has started. once they are out of party and you save and Reload. BOOM you get the highest level cap instantly pre 3 million XP. If you load again they go back to normal level but still retain +80 hp.

    Broken and not gonna play it. Guess I'll stay happy with Insane + SCS
    Post edited by Anaxie on
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