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My painful LoB + SCS adventure

 TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
After about a dozen attempts, Tazok and his entire camp lies dead at the hands of my half-orc FMT. Goddamn...



Because I have Kivan I couldn't kill the party in the tent then fight the bandits outside separately, and I had to kill Tazok as well. Not that I'm complaining since that gets me an extra pair of Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. He went down like a chump anyway.

I was pretty overleveled (if you can't tell from the hit points) but I don't think it would've made that much of a difference aside from maybe losing a couple of party members. I used about 8 Webs and spammed the hell out of the Wands of Fear and Monster Summoning. Baeloth was definitely the hero of this battle thanks to his access to Web and Haste.

The closest attempt I managed, directly before this one, my computer *AAAARRRRGGGHHHH-* overheated. I'm almost certain I would've gotten it if that hadn't happened, but I had to go and simmer off for about half an hour due to the frustration I had built up before getting this clean victory.

Davaeorn is next. Wish me luck. I have enough trouble beating SCS Davaeorn alone.

Fun Fact: I had forgotten all about Baeloth before I entered Larswood and decided to pick him up because, what the heck, I had a free space so I might as well. He ended up being invaluable in enabling the victory. I'm actually reluctant to replace him now.
Post edited by TheArtisan on
lunarKuronaJuliusBorisovGreenWarlockAerakar
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Comments

  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    I can only imagine how painful it must have been. Congratulations!

    Next goal is conquering Ust Natha in LoB mod with scs2!
    JuliusBorisov
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017
    @lunar Haha. That depends on whether or not I make it that far. I've never even tried regular SCS Ust Natha once, but I'll have to do it this time because this is the 'do the most difficult thing possible' run for me.

    Another thing: is it normal for LoB Drizzt to never attack? Because I turned him hostile just to see how fast I'd get wiped and he just... didn't attack at all. I saw 'Drizzt: Attacks X' in my combat log but he never attacked, like he had 0 attacks per round or something. I eventually killed him after 10 minutes of swinging and reloaded because it was stupid.
    JuliusBorisov
  • ArctodusArctodus Member Posts: 992
    LoB Drizzt is bugged. Since LoB adds more attack per round to enemy, and Drizzt already has the unhasted maximum of 5, his APR are out of whack and he just stands there, waiting for death to come...
    JuliusBorisov
  • gismorumgismorum Member Posts: 9
    Arctodus said:

    LoB Drizzt is bugged. Since LoB adds more attack per round to enemy, and Drizzt already has the unhasted maximum of 5, his APR are out of whack and he just stands there, waiting for death to come...

    Another testament to the fact that LoB is mostly a mode belonging to another game, copy-pasted into BG, that received little to no official testing. (hello candlekeep rats) o:)

    - I still have my hopes up that LoB gets a revision and some tweaks -

    Granted, I don't know how LoB plays with SCS, as I tend to avoid non-cosmetic mods, but they could have made something great out of this, even without altering or rewriting the creature AI.

    Think along the lines of Diablo or JRPG's new game+. They could have implemented better versions of all base items along with new unique magical items, mobs or bosses or cool events that only appear on LoB, and so on. :p
    NoobaccaArtona
  • ArctodusArctodus Member Posts: 992
    Well, LoB is what it is : a stat tweak to buff up the enemy. It's working exactly the same way as HoF mode in IWD and it's working as advertised.

    I'm soloing all BG games (BG1, SoD, BG2 and ToB) with LoB+SCS with a plain fighter. I'm into BG2 right now and the Drizzt bug is the only one of this kind I've come across so far. I've heard this bug also affects the Ravager in ToB, but I'm not sure because I've haven't made it that far yet.

    The New Game+ idea could be a nice, but I think it's way out of the scope of the Enhanced Edition goals. Doing what you said would be an enormous task, requiring to rewrite most of the game. Take LoB for what it is, a stat tweak that makes even gibberlings a serious threat. :p
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I agree it's unrealistic to expect them to rewrite the game to better implement LoB. The vanilla BG1 and BG2 games took the decision that the game difficulty would make virtually no difference to the creatures met and changing that would require a lot of resources.

    However, they had a free hand with designing SoD and in that game the game difficulty does affect the number and type of creatures met as well as their base statistics. If you want a shock to the system then try playing SoD on LoB :D.
    ArctodusislandkingAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277


    Drasus's goons have been dealt with. Regardless of the difficulty, Kivan is still an absolute beast.
    KuronaAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    Davaeorn was surprisingly straightforward and felt like essentially his regular self with a lot more hit points. He went down to arrows in the end.


    KuronaBlackravenAerakar
  • islandkingislandking Member Posts: 426
    I cleared the bandit camp using invisible cheese :) , in middle of the map, there’s a building ruin where you can place all party members safely inside with two-man gate sentry of course, then I just toss summons and fireballs at the bandit siegers.

    My computer struggles when I was fighting Kaishas(invisible cheese again :) ), I was intending to find out how many werewolves she can summon, it took me LONG enough to realize that the answer is infinity ;) . Imagine piles of piles of werewolves’ piling corpses by then.

    GreenWarlockAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017

    FINALLY



    Let me start this off by saying that I absolutely LOATHE this fight in every way imaginable. It is probably my least favorite battle in the entire game. The odds are entirely stacked against you - you're forced to enter through a tiny stairway and go straight into battle and with enemies dealing double damage, if you let Aasim (cleric) get off his Unholy Blight, bye bye half your team as Unholy Blight deals about 80 damage on LoB mode. About 20 of my reloads alone were probably because the b@$%$# took three arrows to the face and still managed to get the cast off, wiping out the more fragile members of my party instantly. The fact that all my party members are good-aligned didn't help.

    The fighters - not a problem. Use of summons and Web makes them easy pickings as my archers slowly whittle them down. The two assassins that start of invisible? Not a problem. I had multiple casts of Detect Invisibility at the ready. Alai, the fighter/mage however - I reckon he killed more party members between my various attempts than the rest of the enemy party put together, not counting all the cheap kills from a 50% uninterruptible cast of Unholy Blight. He's wearing the Ring of Free Action so Web and Slow do not work on him, and his saving throws must be insane because I cast Blindness on him about five times in this final attempt and none of them worked. By comparison, Zhalimar who is usually one of the biggest threats becomes a complete non-factor after my second attempt at blinding him. It reached the point where I adopted a 'shoot on sight' strategy to kill Alai as quickly as possible before he became a problem, and even then I was lucky because he was weakened from, by sheer miracle, his hammer breaking.

    Naaman, the annoying confusion spamming mage, thankfully wasted most of his arsenal on my summons and for some reason never bothered getting closer into my vision range, so I was able to deal with him after I took out every other enemy with ease, though I used the few Arrows of Biting I had left because, after all the suffering I went through, I was not about to take any chances. After it was finally all over I actually had my PC stomp all over his fallen enemies' corpses out of sheer spite, because this fight filled me with sheer, unadulterated rage. Arrrrggghhh.

    Thank the gods it's finally over.

    @JuliusBorisov @Tresset Mods can move this to the Challenges and Playthroughs section if they want as it looks like that's what I'm making this thread into. What happened to moving our own threads?
    Post edited by TheArtisan on
    BlackravenAerakarGreenWarlock
  • islandkingislandking Member Posts: 426
    edited April 2017
    @Artemius_I I just cheesed zone-rezone to lore that group one by one downstairs, guess I like to play unfair :)
    First one following me is the invisible assassin, next is the cleric, next? I don't remember clearly for then I just charged my (invisible) team to the severely weakened, no-more-castings-of-detect-invisibility-left group upstairs and ambushed them, I still feel satisfactory, sinister I am >:)
    Blackraven
  • HarpagornisHarpagornis Member Posts: 1,658
    If you want it even a bit more painful join our LoB + SCS Solo Challenge:

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/62202/the-free-for-all-lob-scs-solo-challenge/p1

    Nice writing so far - keep up rolling! ;)

    P.S. @Grond0 is right that SoD is even better - or harder - thanks to quite solid AI and the huge numbers of enemies who constantly try to swarm you. It gets much easier once you have played through several times (say hello Nymph Cloak) but at least my very first SoD run was quite painful too! :D
    islandkingArctodusBlackravenAerakar
  • KahenrazKahenraz Member Posts: 70
    What is that interface mod you're using?
    Arctodus
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017
    @Kahenraz

    That would be the amazing Dragonspear UI++ made by @Pecca
    PeccaBlackravenArctodusAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017

    Prat's band of... well, prats fell at our hands.



    My god Prat is even more annoying than usual. Sirene has -12 AC vs. slashing weapons and she was still getting hit 80% of the time. Also, to hell with any mage that casts Chromatic Orb on this difficulty.

    Oh, by the way - Dynaheir is a Cleric/Invoker and Imoen is an Enchanter/Thief.
    Post edited by TheArtisan on
    islandkingAerakar
  • islandkingislandking Member Posts: 426
    @Artemius_I Just come to give a ahead warning that you should keep all +3 weapons as the final boss in SoD is immune to all +2 weapons and below, also give some Long Sword pips to your melee-er because right before you meet the final boss you have a chance to get a great +3 long sword which is very effective against the boss.
    Another tip if you struggle there: Spell Immunity: Abjuration :)
  • comebackhomecomebackhome Member Posts: 254

    After about a dozen attempts, Tazok and his entire camp lies dead at the hands of my half-orc FMT. Goddamn...



    Because I have Kivan I couldn't kill the party in the tent then fight the bandits outside separately, and I had to kill Tazok as well. Not that I'm complaining since that gets me an extra pair of Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. He went down like a chump anyway.

    I was pretty overleveled (if you can't tell from the hit points) but I don't think it would've made that much of a difference aside from maybe losing a couple of party members. I used about 8 Webs and spammed the hell out of the Wands of Fear and Monster Summoning. Baeloth was definitely the hero of this battle thanks to his access to Web and Haste.

    The closest attempt I managed, directly before this one, my computer *AAAARRRRGGGHHHH-* overheated. I'm almost certain I would've gotten it if that hadn't happened, but I had to go and simmer off for about half an hour due to the frustration I had built up before getting this clean victory.

    Davaeorn is next. Wish me luck. I have enough trouble beating SCS Davaeorn alone.

    Fun Fact: I had forgotten all about Baeloth before I entered Larswood and decided to pick him up because, what the heck, I had a free space so I might as well. He ended up being invaluable in enabling the victory. I'm actually reluctant to replace him now.

    Nice work man, I totally feel your pain from this here;

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/56819/scs-legacy-of-bhaal-fighting-an-entire-bandit-camp-in-one-confined-space-is-it-possible#latest



    That sound alarm/call for help turns a trivial encounter into a near impossible challenge. I've got respect for any fellow Baldurs gate player who's able to complete it.
    AerakarBlackraven
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Well.



    We're off to a great start.
    ronaldoBlackravenAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277


    That's much better.
    Aerakar
  • islandkingislandking Member Posts: 426
    If you have the Romantic Encounters mod, main character could end up in the same room alone with Slythe and Krystin, quite the combination with SCS if you ask me >:)
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    @islandking I need my PC to be female for that... and it's a problem easily solved with an invisibility potion anyway.
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017

    Tales of Balduran's Isle: Putting Down a Mad Dog

    Oh how I have dreaded this battle ever since I started this playthrough... long story short, I got slaughtered many, many times until I figured out a plan, then this stroke of luck happened (though I had a good chance even without it):

    Yes. YES.


    And that is that.
    BlackravenAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Tales of Balduran's Isle Part II: Putting Down Another Mad Dog

    My repertoire of silver weapons, as well as those proficient in them, was limited, so this took quite a few wands to get through.


    As an additional note: Detect Illusions is a great thief skill to invest in since enemy mages like to prebuff with Improved Invisibility and Mirror Image. My PC has 60 points and it's been able to turn most mages into arrow fodder. Good stuff.
    Aerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017

    Tales of Durlag's Tower Part I: Tourist Trap

    For a bit of unintentional hilarity, the hit point multiplier of LoB means the Demon Knight's fireball frenzy... doesn't actually kill anyone.

    They're all shocked speechless, though.
    AerakarBlackravenGreenWarlock
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Tales of Durlag's Tower Part II: Deadly Sins

    The fight against Pride, Avarice, Fear and Love is pretty tough. However, Wraithform makes Pride's heavy blows ineffective.


    Avarice was a lot more problematic. Thankfully, I had a few casts of Detect Invisibility at the ready. Despite almost killing Kivan, he went down to a group effort.

    AerakarBlackraven
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017

    The End of the Road

    The rest of Durlag's Tower was... predictably boring. I kind of just breezed through the Demon Knight and Aec'Letec before finally moving on to the endgame. With three archers and a quiver full of various magical arrows, we had no fear of the clash against Sarevok.


    Off to a good start with Skeleton Warriors distracting the enemy melees while we pelt them with arrows.


    Angelo and Semaj fell quickly once their buffs were removed via Arrows of Dispelling.


    The end has come.


    Unfortunately, this is also where I get really sloppy and lose two of my archers, making the final clash much harder than it needed to be. Regardless, with summons, arrows and wands, we are victorious.

    Onwards to fight the crusade.

    Edit: For some odd reason, Safana did not enter my party despite the fact that I had Imoen. Perhaps it's because my PC is a thief? That's actually really annoying because I invested barely anything into Open Locks and absolutely nothing into Find Traps. Oh, well.
    BlackravenAerakar
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Siege of Dragonspear Adventures: Part I

    Welp, these LoB spawn rates are intimidating alright:


    I'll be honest, I actually had a really hard time with the beginning dungeon, though it was mostly my own fault for three reasons. Firstly, I spent all my gold on wands and ammo before fighting Sarevok which meant I was unable to buy potions or healing from the Flaming Fist healer. Secondly, I refused to rest throughout the whole dungeon for roleplay reasons. Lastly, Imoen walked off with two of my Wands of Fire and all my Chaos scrolls (not that they would've helped at all against the undead) because I stupidly forgot she had them. All in all that left me extremely battered by the end.


    Luckily I still had my Wand of Monster Summoning, or I might've had to restart from my Final-Save and take Imoen's items. Oh, and I had Kivan. It's a shame I'll have to let him go. Good thing there's still Corwin.


    Meh. I think I still like Kivan better but she'll do alright. Now I'm on the fence about who to pick up between M'Khiin and Voghiln. I could really use M'Khiin's spells and summons, but on the other hand Voghiln's song would be a godsend with my fighter-heavy party. Hmm...
    AerakarBlackravenArctodus
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Siege of Dragonspear Adventures: Part II



    The Coldhearth Lair may be one of the most difficult and frustrating fights yet. Besides the absolutely absurd spawns of about 20 undead in every encounter, the second to last area has two Skeleton Warriors that have nearly 400 hit points and 90% magic resistance. They hit for about 40 damage per strike, so melee is suicide, but they also have 90% missile resistance so shooting them down takes an extremely long time, meanwhile there are bonebats and drowned-in-blood swarming the whole party. I ended up having to use a few of my Arrows of Detonation which I had stored and never used before this encounter just to clear out some of the enemies so that I could distract the few undead that remains with my summons. It was an extremely painful and unsatisfying victory.
    AerakarArctodus
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited April 2017

    Siege of Dragonspear Adventures Part III: Featuring: A guide to pest control via murdering your FPS




    Look at all the pretty colors.
    AerakarArctodus
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Siege of Dragonspear Adventures Part IV: Slayer of Dragons and Illithids

    Morentherene ended up being a huge disappointment. Coldhearth's skeleton army was harder.


    The neothelid wasn't that much of a problem either, thanks to M'Khiin's summons helpfully distracting its telekinetic swords. Unfortunately, a frustrating bug that prevented me from saving led me to forget to make a screenshot.

    The Shadow Aspect was a much more capable opponent, although it was extremely annoying as well because there was a weird bug which caused it to spam Mislead even when I hadn't even reached it yet, preventing me from saving throughout the entire level.

    Now, I have no idea how I would've beaten the damn thing if I didn't invest in Detect Illusions. I simply wouldn't have been able to get rid of its Misleads quickly enough before it backstabbed my entire party to death, but thanks to having a free True Sight whenever I please, we were able to bring the thing down.


    Darskhelin was a fairly tough opponent, especially given we hadn't rested for a while. Thankfully, we still had a few Cloudkill and Chaos spells on hand. Getting thrown around by a Teleport Field was annoying, but to be honest it was actually more helpful for us than the enemy because of our ranged power.


    AerakarArctodus
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