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Leaving the Underdark With 29 Hit Points.......

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  • tbone1tbone1 Member Posts: 1,985
    Oh damn, that's right. Sorry, nevermind.
  • BorekBorek Member Posts: 513
    edited September 2017
    hmm, maybe your mod changes the potions from working, that is frustrating. Do some of the Demons gate in additional enemies or not? I could see that being a problem if so, otherwise you're going to need to analyze which abilities are causing you the most problems and adjust your strategy accordingly.

    Some things to test are whether the previous room is blocking item charges from working, do the demons use dispel magic and if so more than once, which spells can be placed in sequencers and what order you need to use them.

    Couple of tips off the top of my head, Spell Immunity does NOT adhere to the usual 1 spell per round rule and acts as if you have IA cast, so you can cast that immediately you enter then start on something else, maybe an actual IA or a time stop. If items work then use Staff of the Magi for it's Spell Trap, that will absorb many of the spell like abilities of the demons and convert them back into Spell slots for you, obviously it won't last that long but should give an early edge.

    At least a few of the demons have fear and/or charm type spells, so use your minor sequencer to buff with resist fear and probably a Luck, you can use a Contingency to buff on enemy spotted with up to 6th level, since Prot Magic weapons probably just makes them chunk your Ranger then i'd say a couple of options would be Globe of Invulnerability, Fireshield Blue (cold will affect them more than Fire which they are all immune to), with your Edwin having so many HP's Stoneskin maybe not worth it.

    Speaking of Chunking the Ranger, find out which Demons are seeing through Invisibility and maybe see if you can burst them down early so you can then use illusion spells like Simulacrum to double your firepower, also worth testing to see if Spell immunity:Divination works for Edwin to block them from revealing him, and Cloak of non-Detection for the Ranger, although you will need to see if you can maintain enough summons to turn the tide. If you have Gate then it's a long cast but a Pit Fiend will last well since at least some of the lesser demons will be unable to damage it, if not then Summon fiend may be a decent distraction, you can cast Protection from Evil to prevent them targeting you or the ranger.

    You said before that even 3 ADHW's from a chain contingency were not dropping anything, so maybe try 1xLR, 1xPierce Shield, 1x ADHW cast on enemy spotted, that SHOULD drop the target demons MR by around 58% plus strip a defensive buff if they have 1 and land the ADHW, which should kill or severely damage at least 1.

    Spell Sequencer lets you put in 3 up to 4th level spells and Spell trigger up to 3 6th level, you could use them to buff but may be better to use at least the Spell Trigger to quickly cast 3x Lower resistance to make your most threatening enemy fully vulnerable to spells early on. As for 4th level spells in the spell sequencer then i'm a fan of 3x Skull Trap, but depends what strategy you are using as it can kill summons and will be resisted by the Major demons a lot.

    Another option is reliant on you having Imprisonment learnt, it's 1 of the few spells that has no save and completely ignores magic resistance, so you can use it to remove 1 or more of the most troubling demons from the fight.

    Since your Edwin has so many HP's then wasting slots on buffs that prevent damage is probably unwise, concentrate on spells that prevent status effects taking him out the fight and/or turning damage back on enemies, like the various spell turning versions, Blue Fireshield, Globe of invulnerability, Spell immunity. All those demons are immune or highly resistant to fire so you want to use non-elemental damaging spells and summons that are not going to be instantly killed.

    Obviously 1 Planetar isn't going to be enough and if you flop it out early it'll just get wrecked w/o having much impact, so you're going to want to make a strategy that drops a few of the toughest enemies early on, then gets you some distraction summons out so you can work on dropping the next few before you unleash the Planetar and it has a decent chance to stand it's ground.

    *editted in*
    Just to add if the Glabrezu's are stunning you should be able to protect yourself with Spell Immunity:Conjuration.

    Spells per level i consider worthwhile to memorize for this room:

    Magic Missile, Protection from Evil
    Blur, Glitterdust, Acid Arrow, Luck, Resist Fear
    Haste (if you use animate dead), Skull Trap
    Fireshield:Blue, Minor Sequencer used in advance (Resist fear+Luck be my choice), Teleport Field, Greater Malison
    Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Animate Dead
    Contingency preloaded, Pierce Magic
    Mordy Sword, Spell turning, Project Image (depending if SI:Divination+SI:Abjuration works with your mods), Spell Sequencer preloaded
    Summon Fiend, Spell trigger preloaded, ADHW
    Spell Trap, optional Imprisonment, Gate, Black Blade of Disaster maybe if you want to go melee route with Tensors+ Improved Haste and use triggers/sequencers to buff with.
    Post edited by Borek on
    semiticgoddess
  • ifupaulineifupauline Member Posts: 405


  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    @semiticgod

    "and you can still drink potions in a dead magic area by right-clicking the potion in the inventory screen and choosing "Drink Potion."


    Oh my, that's really naughty.
    A real "pro tip".

    Thankyou. :)
  • Joan_DaroJoan_Daro Member Posts: 112
    If your maze is edited by SCS then notice this:
    Every time you enters the room, the game spawns a new set of enemies in addition to what is already there.
    So try to finish everything in one attempt, or you'll have to face duplicated everything (except for Tahazzar / Ka'rashur himself, of course).
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Joan_Daro said:

    If your maze is edited by SCS then notice this:
    Every time you enters the room, the game spawns a new set of enemies in addition to what is already there.
    So try to finish everything in one attempt, or you'll have to face duplicated everything (except for Tahazzar / Ka'rashur himself, of course).

    Not quite sure I follow.

    If I kill everything in a room the room stays empty when returning (finish in one go lol, I had no idea where I was, trial and error all the way).

    The SCS isn't working at all properly though...........
  • Joan_DaroJoan_Daro Member Posts: 112
    edited September 2017

    Joan_Daro said:

    If your maze is edited by SCS then notice this:
    Every time you enters the room, the game spawns a new set of enemies in addition to what is already there.
    So try to finish everything in one attempt, or you'll have to face duplicated everything (except for Tahazzar / Ka'rashur himself, of course).

    Not quite sure I follow.

    If I kill everything in a room the room stays empty when returning (finish in one go lol, I had no idea where I was, trial and error all the way).

    The SCS isn't working at all properly though...........
    Sorry if I didn't make it clear. My English sucks.
    I mean, if you enter the Tahazzar or Ka'rashur room, start the fight and quit the room before you managed to kill Tahazzar or Ka'rashur himself, then the next time you enter the room, the game (SCS) will spawn a new set of all his minions.
    This only apply to the Tahazzar or Ka'rashur room.
    Grond0semiticgoddess
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    semiticgoddess
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    @Joan_Daro

    Thanks for the clarification. I'd perhaps like to do that sometime with a full party, see how many you could get for a laugh. Problem is the maze aspect, go back the way you came and you end up somewhere else.

    @subtledoctor

    Enhanced AI indeed.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Just thought I'd update this with an account of fighting Saladrex. And if I'm boring you, just skip this.

    Or to put it another way.
    "How not to fight a dragon"

    Because of the ridiculous situation with Edwin, I thought I'd mess around a bit. So decided to not use a Planateer or "time stop", just the normal summons of skellies and Mordie Swords and see what happened.

    Well, not a lot positive let me tell you.
    First off, that dragon is super fast and never runs out of breathe spells. Not really surprising. And even after a handful of lower magic resistance, resists magic rather well.
    None of my ADHW did more than tickle the brute, "emotion hopelessness", "feeblemind", "ray of enfeeblement" were saved against quite a few times. One time I managed to land a feeblemind, but couldn't do enough damage while he was incapacitated. So off we went again.

    Which left a big problem, an effing great dragon chasing me around like something from the "Benny Hill Show", all it needed was the music. Plus the summons chasing the dragon doing their best to keep up and put up a fight. But oh no, Saladrex obviously has some AI available because all he ever concentrated on was chasing Edwin.

    So round and round we went, Edwin being blasted regularly by the breath weapon inbetween using every offensive spell he had. Saladrex healing himself at will, renewing protections (not a problem could always breach) Edwin laughing in the face of death with his near immortality.

    And one thing I found out, (not that I hadn't realised that anyway, but at least I got the chance to test it) a mage can't slug it out toe to toe with a dragon. Eventually Saladrex slowed down, (I think he was getting bored by that point, I know I was), and I had no damage inflicting spells left.

    So for the first time, after pausing and going through my whole inventury, almost since BG, I thought "wands".
    Now if you play like me, I always invest in having fully charged wands. Not that I ever use them except for "cloudkill" and sometimes "fire" but you never know.
    "Frost" was the one that actually worked. But I had to be close, so not a strategy under normal circumstances.

    One question if anyone can answer, in BG you get the thin beam of ice, in BG2 you get the spread out snowflake effect. Prefer the BG one, seems to be more effective.

    This is the killer stat though, Edwin lost 5,000 or so hit points.
    LOL.

    So I did actually reload and then did the fight "properly".
    Plus, even with the Ring of Gaxx, how long would it take to recover?





    Grond0ThacoBell
  • tbone1tbone1 Member Posts: 1,985



    Which left a big problem, an effing great dragon chasing me around like something from the "Benny Hill Show", all it needed was the music.

    Please PLEASE tell me that you then recruited Jan just so you could slap him on the back of his bald head a la Benny and Jackie Wright.

    And if you can get Anomen and Viconia in one of Dave Allen's Catholic jokes, I can die a happy man.
    Grond0
  • BorekBorek Member Posts: 513
    hehe, that sounds like SCS had enhanced the Dragon, i don't recall him being that tough even on Max difficulty. Doing a current play-through myself as a Barbarian dualled to a Mage, and went CG so i'll see what the Demon room in the maze is like in a few days when i hit 24 Mage, although i'll be lacking spell slots compared to Lord Odesseron. I do have the HLA's from a 39 Barbarian to help out though B)
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Borek said:

    hehe, that sounds like SCS had enhanced the Dragon, i don't recall him being that tough even on Max difficulty. Doing a current play-through myself as a Barbarian dualled to a Mage, and went CG so i'll see what the Demon room in the maze is like in a few days when i hit 24 Mage, although i'll be lacking spell slots compared to Lord Odesseron. I do have the HLA's from a 39 Barbarian to help out though B)

    I find Saladrex the hardest dragon to fight after Draconis. Not so much room and he is fast. And I don't know why but he just ignored the summons and went after me. It's hard to get some space.

    The actual proper fight went OK. Edwin has 7 level 9 spell slots but SCS has decided that HLA can't be placed in the spell book. They come up as available spells but not in the book. Which is a PITA as only 1 planateer, 1 IA, ect.
  • BorekBorek Member Posts: 513

    Borek said:

    hehe, that sounds like SCS had enhanced the Dragon, i don't recall him being that tough even on Max difficulty. Doing a current play-through myself as a Barbarian dualled to a Mage, and went CG so i'll see what the Demon room in the maze is like in a few days when i hit 24 Mage, although i'll be lacking spell slots compared to Lord Odesseron. I do have the HLA's from a 39 Barbarian to help out though B)

    I find Saladrex the hardest dragon to fight after Draconis. Not so much room and he is fast. And I don't know why but he just ignored the summons and went after me. It's hard to get some space.

    The actual proper fight went OK. Edwin has 7 level 9 spell slots but SCS has decided that HLA can't be placed in the spell book. They come up as available spells but not in the book. Which is a PITA as only 1 planateer, 1 IA, ect.
    Yeah i think after this playthrough i'm going to look into SCS or other mods to increase difficulty, i don't really like LoB, just throwing more HP's on everything isn't much fun, but smarter AI does sound a challenge.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    @Borek

    SCS is very, very good IMO.

    What I am experiencing in this run is a completely effed up install (and without doubt my fault somewhere along the line) of various mods and game.

    This isn't SCS, it's some horrible Frankinstien's Monster which I'm sure the creator of SCS would be appalled to be associated with.
    I'm just playing through to see how mad things can get and laughing.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903

    Edwin has 7 level 9 spell slots but SCS has decided that HLA can't be placed in the spell book. They come up as available spells but not in the book. Which is a PITA as only 1 planateer, 1 IA, ect.

    This is an intentional but optional component of SCS; it's not a bug. It seems you installed that component without intending to. If you re-install SCS, you can choose to uninstall that component and make them into level 9 spells again.

    Or just delete the item files in the override folder, which should revert them back to vanilla. If you installed SCS using BWS, deleting the item files is probably safer than using WeiDu.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    So finally my Charname and the game has had enough.
    Edwin is still going strong though.

    We struggled our way through WK, past all the seals and onto Demagorgon. I have no idea how to kill him with a mage so charname bravely volunteered instead of her usual hide in a corner and hope it all goes away.
    It didn't work.

    But then things were taken out of my hands by the game itself.
    Loading any quicksave loads the scene with a dead charname (and then of course we get the disintigrating hand and game over screen).

    So I thought, OK, games trying to tell me something, leave Demagorgon alone, what's he ever done to us anyway?
    The magic that is "power word; reload" isn't working here so lets do something else.

    So headed to Suldenesselar, least I could do is sort Irenicus out, help the elves (not that they deserve it) and I'm sure a soul would come in handy at some point.
    Nope, even if I don't die, loading a quicksave game sees charname dead and lying on the floor at Edwin's feet.

    Charname lying dead after we travelled to the Underdark exit and the camp, Charname lying dead at the entrance before we have fought anything, Charname lying dead after we have fought off the golems. Charname lying dead very awkwardly sprawled on the stairs leading to Demin's house.
    And it's even more annoying because except for the Golems (and I have CF and CF for them), charname has done her usual, "I'll just wait here and drink an invisibility potion while you go mess around, Edwin"

    So no quicksave, save games seem to be loading OK...for now.
    ThacoBellsemiticgoddessStummvonBordwehr
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    So, this made me think, let's say you had a mage who couldn't cast any spells (perhaps a half-orc mage who had 7 Intelligence or something) but who had a colossal amount of hit points. How many hit points would they have to have for them to be overpowered despite them not being able to do much? 500? 1000? 10000?
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147

    So, this made me think, let's say you had a mage who couldn't cast any spells (perhaps a half-orc mage who had 7 Intelligence or something) but who had a colossal amount of hit points. How many hit points would they have to have for them to be overpowered despite them not being able to do much? 500? 1000? 10000?

    Not sure I follow.

    During the dragon (Saladrex) fight I ended up with Edwin having virtually no spells left and trying to hit the bloody great thing with the Staff of the Magi.
    It wasn't very succesful.
    And I suppose if I'd waited long enough without trying the wand, Saladrex would have eventually killed him.


  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Well I finally finished SOA, hadn't played for a while because it did get tiresome with no quicksave and having charname always lurking in corners.

    Finished with Edwin on 11192 hp.
    Charname 37 hp.

    It made the hell trial where I had to do the whole self sacrifice thing mean a lot more.
    "What ya b'stards? Why are you taking HP from me, look at that one over there, loads to spare".

    I figured that I'm not very good at using a solo mage, too much like hard work. And that was with one who was virtually indestuctable, though a fallen planateer did get him once with a vorpal hit.

    Lots of new found admiration for those who solo a mage.

    Now to try and clean up this install.........I may be gone some time.
    ThacoBellKurona
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    At least a clean install is easy enough. All you need to do is have the launcher verify your game files. You won't even need to re-download the whole game that way.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    ThacoBell said:

    At least a clean install is easy enough. All you need to do is have the launcher verify your game files. You won't even need to re-download the whole game that way.

    yeah but no but yeah but.....

    What's "the launcher"? (sounds like a firework)
    How?
    Also want to keep v1.3, I think that's not possible with GOG anymore.
    ThacoBell
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235

    ThacoBell said:

    At least a clean install is easy enough. All you need to do is have the launcher verify your game files. You won't even need to re-download the whole game that way.

    yeah but no but yeah but.....

    What's "the launcher"? (sounds like a firework)
    How?
    Also want to keep v1.3, I think that's not possible with GOG anymore.
    Oh, yeah keeping 1.3 will really complicate things (unless you use Steam, but that would involve using Steam.). If you try to repair the install with any other service, it will also update it. You may not be able to fix your install without doing so.
  • BorekBorek Member Posts: 513
    Also bear in mind that many of the Mods have been updated to work with later versions, which is probably the root cause of your SCS corrupting. You'll need to check really carefully for a version of SCS that is compatible with your game version if it's not the most up to date.
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