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Monster level and turn undead in Legacy of Bhaal mode BG2EE 2.3

ybducuybducu Member Posts: 11
in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
Does anyone know if/how monster levels are altered in LoB mode? I read somewhere that monsters get 12 more levels but I couldn't find any Beamdog confirmation. I'm specifically wondering how that affects the cleric's turn undead ability. Because if this is true a cleric under level 20 probably can't turn anything...

Comments

  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    Yes, monster levels increase dramatically under LoB. I can't remember by how much, but yes, it very much affects Turn Undead. It's quite difficult to turn in LoB, and perhaps rightly so considering it's a very convenient way of circumventing the extra HP if you chunk them via TU.
  • ybducuybducu Member Posts: 11
    edited April 2017
    Ok thanks for the reply. Do you have a source for that or did you just test it yourself in game?
    I agree that blowing undeads up left and right in that mode wouldn't make much sense, but rendering the ability completely useless (not able to at least fear) for 2/3 of SoA is maybe a bit too much...
    Anyways, I do enjoy the mode sofar.
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859
    ybducu said:

    Ok thanks for the reply. Do you have a source for that or did you just test it yourself in game?
    I agree that blowing undeads up left and right in that mode wouldn't make much sense, but rendering the ability completely useless (not able to at least fear) for 2/3 of SoA is maybe a bit too much...
    Anyways, I do enjoy the mode sofar.

    I don't have any experience with LoB, but I believe it's essentially just a copied version of Icewind Dale's HoW mode, which I *AM* familiar with. If that's the case, then yeah, you're going to need to be substantially higher in level to blow up undead. I don't think it's necessarily a flat +12 levels, but it's something like that, and you essentially aren't going to be hitting high enough levels to pop top-level undead unless you're playing solo or some such.

    It's not completely useless, though. Later in the campaign it'll still be a good way to deal with nuisance undead, and it's still great for solo / duo runs. If you play through twice you'll have it on your second time through. (HoW mode and IWD in general was designed to be more conducive to multiple run-throughs.) But if they didn't dramatically raise enemy undead levels, it would completely break the game. Turning undead at a low level would result in a ridiculous amount of easy XP, which would give you a bunch of cheap levels, which would let you turn more undead, which would get your more XP, which would get you more levels, and on and on down the line.

    (Note: again, I have no direct experience with LoB mode, all of this is conjecture based on my experience with HoW mode.)
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,470
    I can confirm that LoB gives +12 levels - so you're not going to be turning any undead in BG1 / SoD o:). There's some basic information about the difference LoB makes here:
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/54970/honest-discussion-about-legacy-of-bhaal
  • ybducuybducu Member Posts: 11
    Ah thanks. Still wondering where that guy got those numbers from though. :)
    But from my experience in BG2EE 2.3 I can confirm that monsters have a lot more hp and attack more often and more accurately. Basically every single fight you need to buff up, have a tank with mage defenses and debuff the mobs. It's slow but not un-doable. The hardest fight I've had so far was the entry into the planar prison. I wanted Haer'Dalis asap so I went there immediately after chateau Irenicus. I haven't seen things like smarter casting mages yet like SCS does.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,470
    If you want to check stats on a monster in the game you can just use ctrl-Q to add them to your party. Doing that in both LoB and core allows you to see the impact of the changes.
  • ybducuybducu Member Posts: 11
    Oh that's awesome. Thanks! I knew about ctrl-q but never actually used it and didn't know you'll actually see their stat sheets.
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