I suck ass @ MotB combat.

[RK47]

Fuck it bro,
just SETCON 999
SETSTR 999

on console

 

[Warden]

Fuck it bro,
just SETCON 999
SETSTR 999

on console

It's easier actually for him to learn d&d a bit better than to learn how to activate the console.. :/

 

[Heresiarch]

'Safiya alone can destroy everything in sight' is the biggest truth in the whole thread. Improved Empower Spell mixed with red wizard feats is soooo overpowered (and fun).

Apparently as said above, why DefJam101 you can't seem to win any fight at all is because you miss many of the basic rules. I know why none of your spells work - because the enemies have spell mantles up, and you don't know how to beat it. I know why you can't seem to survive at all - you don't know that you can use Etherealness, then buff yourself up with spell mantles so you can take 2 or 3 hits of big spells without any damage. I know why you can't seem to hit or do any damage at all - your fighters don't have the blind-fight feat, and apparently you don't use any feats like knockdown at all.

And never, NEVER let the AI use spells on their own.

Seriously, you should throw all the "the OC is shit" impressions right out of the window and play the OC THROUGHLY first, or you'll never truly understand how to fight undead, how to beat mages, how saving throws work, etc. And believe me, some of the MotB fights are pretty brutal. Just tackling around the OC for 3.5 hours is far, far too little experience necessary for your survival in MotB.

 

[Longshanks]

Now I think about it, I would play the OC just because I can use Neeshka. She's hotter than Imoen.

Is this sarcasm? Neeshka is quite possibly the most annoying NPC ever. That voice :evil: .

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

All you need : http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 22154.html

 

[Midwinter]

And never, NEVER let the AI use spells on their own.

I second this. In fact, one of the first things I did when I started playing the OC was disabling all AI options. Combat plays much better when you hit pause every few seconds to direct your characters personally. Of course this demands that you know all their feats, spells and abilities, but when you let the AI do all the work for you, you'll probably never learn.

You should also learn to buff and how to remove buff spells from enemies. Always shield your casters with spells like Improved Stoneskin and (Greater) Spell Mantle as soon as possible. Then start removing their protection with Spell Breach, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, etc. There are many other counterspells for specific situations: True Seeing counters invisibility effects, Dismissal counters summoned creatures...

I'll add my voice to the others: NWN2 OC isn't so horrid. Okay, the first part of the game made me vomit a bit as well, but it gets better when you meet Khuelgar and finally make it to Neverwinter. Khuelgar has a great quest, by the way.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Now I think about it, I would play the OC just because I can use Neeshka. She's hotter than Imoen.

Is this sarcasm? Neeshka is quite possibly the most annoying NPC ever. That voice :evil: .

No, she was cuutsie-moochy! (and now everyone will shun me)

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. NEVER take the recommended kits or level ups. Also, if you plan to play a belligerent barbarian, play it before you play a character that has a lot of dialogue-skills and "soft" skills (Lore, Spellcraft, etc).

 

[Mareus]

I haven't read the whole thread, but did you try to play a bit with AI of your characters? If you have the AI set on default, it may well mean you are having a hard time because of that. You should completly turn it off and guide your characters step by step with pause, or you can customize it so it's easier.

When I play, I turn off options with which your characters heal and drink potions and cast magic by themselves. The rest I think i leave ON. When you combine that with some commands you get by long R Click, and with some manual tactics the game is pretty easy.

Also don't forget to use lure tactic. Basicly you set an ambush infront of the doors and send one character to lure the enemy. You put your fighters to the front and your casters to the back. Works like a charm every time.

PS. Play the NWN2 frrst so you get the hang of it. Don't listen to some people saying it sucks, because it is really a decent game that beats 90% of other RPG's out there.

 

[Lumpy]

DefJam101 from how you describe the difficulties you're having with the game it sounds like you must be missing something very very basic about the mechanics, neither nwn2 nor motb are anywhere near that difficult, especially on easy.

Yeah, something's wrong here. I mean, I suck at combat in general, and my tactics in MotB consisted of buffing with stoneskin and spamming whatever spells sound the coolest, and still MotB was not very hard on Hardcore.
As a Warlock, do you have Eldritch Chain, Vitriolic Blast, and Dark Foresight?
Buff yourself with Dark Foresight. Have Safiya cast Extended Greater Stoneskin on herself, Extended Stoneskin on your character. Then, spam your Eldritch Chains and Safiya's Empowered Disintegrates on the enemy Wizards, then deal with the harpies. Use health potions when necessary.

 

[Heresiarch]

Now I think about it, I would play the OC just because I can use Neeshka. She's hotter than Imoen.

Is this sarcasm? Neeshka is quite possibly the most annoying NPC ever. That voice :evil: .

No it's not. I find her personality very adorable, and her voice doesn't bother me at all.

Maybe I have a strange taste at female NPCs - I actually really, really liked Aerie in BG2, both her voice and personality. o_O

 

[nomask7]

I recommend using Tony K's Companion & Monster AI:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... ent_page=1

It improves the AI so much that it makes micro managing your combats unnecessary.

 

[DefJam101]

DefJam101 from how you describe the difficulties you're having with the game it sounds like you must be missing something very very basic about the mechanics, neither nwn2 nor motb are anywhere near that difficult, especially on easy.

- If your weapons aren't doing damage did you listen to safya at the beginning when she taught you how to enchant your weapons? A base weapon isn't gonna cut it in motb. You need +2/+3/+4 etc weapons as well as some sort of added elemental damage.

- If you get taken down in one hit and you seem to lack all sorts of feats and abilities and your enemies' challenge rating reads as impossible...did you actually click on the level up button in your character sheet?

Is it the dnd mechanics or nwn2's system of icons and toolbars that you don't understand?

Either way you should read the manual. DnD is very simple and prepubescent-aproved. Read the manual to learn how to put spells in your quickcast menu, combat feats in the toolbar. Understand that when you're a fighter or a barbarian you'll want to raise your strength, as a sorcerer you'll want Charisma etc.

Since you seem to be pretty terrible at this and probably just want to breeze through the combat just get yourself one of the premade fighter packages. Always hit the "recommended" button during the level up screens. Assign feats and abilities to the toolbar. Equip +strength + constitution + resistance etc items and remember to enchant your weapons so they have a +x enchantment as well as extra damage of a certain type.

I haven't enchanted my weapon on this char, it's a +3.. but I wasn't aware you could add elemental damage onto that.

I'm using the premade fighter package... but I don't remember ever upgrading my equipment, I'll reload a save game and see if I can buy some more expensive stuff.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You also had quite weak equipment to start with anyway. An exported character gets to keep everything he is wearing, while losing weapons and the whole inventory. That might make it a tad bit harder too.

And DON'T use the default builds. They have absurdly bad skill, spell and feat selections.

 

[DefJam101]

DefJam101 from how you describe the difficulties you're having with the game it sounds like you must be missing something very very basic about the mechanics, neither nwn2 nor motb are anywhere near that difficult, especially on easy.

Yeah, something's wrong here. I mean, I suck at combat in general, and my tactics in MotB consisted of buffing with stoneskin and spamming whatever spells sound the coolest, and still MotB was not very hard on Hardcore.
As a Warlock, do you have Eldritch Chain, Vitriolic Blast, and Dark Foresight?
Buff yourself with Dark Foresight. Have Safiya cast Extended Greater Stoneskin on herself, Extended Stoneskin on your character. Then, spam your Eldritch Chains and Safiya's Empowered Disintegrates on the enemy Wizards, then deal with the harpies. Use health potions when necessary.

I'm telling you man, this stuff isn't working. I've used all of her buffs (stoneskin greater stoneskin, all this other shit) and I'm still getting hit for like 165 by this guy, and we're constantly paralyzed and can't do anything. Her spells that 'sound coolest' rarely work, they get interrupted or something... and if they do work, they barely scratch him.


Seriously, the fight plays out like this 9/10 times:

Load game, she starts casting some spells or something. Weird harpy ladies run up and attack me, I only do 4-5 damage to them. The sword she summons dies instantly, and her familiar doesn't appear to be doing anything. I ignore the harpies and try to attack one of the wizards, he resists all of my damage. I'm paralyzed and killed instantly, she dies in one/two shots. Occasionally she casts etherealness or something, which doesn't help much because she dies instantly when that stops.

I've tried casting some weird spell protection thing around us and that does help me stay alive for about 15 seconds longer, but we still can't damage the wizard and die in one shot. I'll try more today and see if there is any way to protect against the paralysis shit and make it so this guy doesn't kill me instantly and be invulnerable and... honestly, what the fuck.

 

[Ratty]

I suck ass @ MotB combat.

*What* combat? You don't mean the crappy pseudo real-time/turn-based jumble that BioWare and Obsidian keep cludging into their mediocre hackfests despite the fact that it's fundamentally deficient, counter-intuitive and utterly devoid of any potential to be even remotely entertaining? Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. Since I'm feeling magnanimous, I'll try to help you survive the Golgotha that is NWN2 combat.

First of all, never forget the following postulate: it is utterly impossible to enjoy combat in NWN2. Yeah, yeah, a lot of people will tell you that NWN2 combat isn't all that bad, that they actually had a good deal of fun with it, that it's more worthwhile if you set the difficulty level to Hardcore in order to make it more challenging... For the love of all that is holy, don't listen to those dipshits. They are precisely the kind of sick fucks your mother warned you about when you were seven. They are the kind of people who guzzle a dirt pipe milkshake because they heard someone talk about how cool it was on some creepy Internet forum (something like the Codex, only focusing on sexual deviance instead of RPGs... yeah, almost exactly like the Codex) and then, when they end up with someone's intestinal parasites burning a hole in their throat, they start recommending dirt pipe milkshakes to everybody out of pure, demented schadenfreude. So please, don't be suckered into drinking Obsidian's dirt pipe milkshake. Instead, follow my simple 4-step guide that will help you get the most out of NWN2 combat... which is precisely nothing.

Step 1) Consult an online guide and build a cookie-cutter melee tank with more hit points than the Cloverfield monster, DPS comparable to a stratosphere bomber and easy enough to play that even a mildly retarded Pigmy can master it within microseconds.

Step 2) Set the difficulty level to easiest.

Step 3) Turn off NPC AI. Ever notice how cumulative length of all Indiana Jones movies would be under 30 minutes if Indy didn't spend most of his time rescuing his friends and family members? Now imagine if Indiana Jones characters suffered from severe cases of CP and Down syndrome. Well, NWN2 NPCs are like that, only multiplied by hundred.

Step 4) If you end up facing an unusually difficult adversary (or a group of such adversaries), remember the following steps: 1. tilde (~), 2. DebugMode 1, 3. dm_god. Some would call it a cheat. I would call it an anesthetic. Because really, playing NWN2 without cheats is like undergoing cardiac bypass surgery without general anesthesia. When someone receives an anesthetic before getting their heart carved up, you don't see anyone screaming "OMG CHEATZ!!1", except maybe Orthodox Jews. Well, combat in NWN2 is no less painful, so don't be afraid to use the versatile dm_god painkiller.

There you go. There aren't many things less enjoyable than NWN2 combat (I can only think of a few, and most of them occur as a result of strolling through Gaza strip wearing nothing but high heels and a t-shirt with Mohammed cartoons painted on it), but hopefully my 4-step guide can at least numb the pain. And remember, whatever you do, don't forget the postulate: it is *not* possible to enjoy NWN2 combat. The fun factor simply isn't there. If you ever find yourself enjoying a battle in NWN2, you're probably unconsciously whacking off to Kaelyn's tits and confusing the (admittedly blissful) feeling of sexual arousal with battle-induced adrenaline rush. Or maybe your girlfriend/sister started sucking your cock without you noticing. Or you're turning into one of those creepy deviants I mentioned before... though this kind of follows from the previous two points. Either way, it's a surefire sign that there is something very, very wrong with you. Enjoy your dirt pipe milk shake and consider getting a vasectomy.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You need to dispel the defenses on that wizard. Use Mordeikainen's Disjunction if nothing else works. Then blast his ass with the biggest XdY spell you've got (Meteor Swarm is a good idea as it hits several times, potentially disrupting his next spell).

Also, Stoneskin has a limit of the amount of damage it can reduce at once. Spells usually do way more than that (and I think Stoneskin doesn't work against magic anyway). Use the Stoneskin to worry about the harpy-whores, who you need an enchanted weapon/silver (or was it Cold Iron?)/magic to bypass their Damage Reduction (which reduces your damage by a set number, reducing it to the 4 you mentioned).

The sword Safiya summons is most likely Banished or Dismissed by the enemy, so you should summon a new one. Also, summon the sword next to the wizards to disrupt them.

Yay for being a creepy deviant! (Though I wouldn't say NWN2 combat is excellent, it's still infinitely preferable to most shit out there)

 

[Korgan]

Actually, MOTB combat and ME combat are quite similar: forget tactics and BURN ALL YOU HAVE ONEONEONE. The spells/cooldowns are in both cases powerful enough to kill ANYTHING when used all at once. Sad but true.
Oh, and buff up. Haste, Stoneskin and Imp Invis have always been the stuff of pwnage in DnD. Can't go wrong with them.

 

[MetalCraze]

with MotB Burn All won't work.
the easiest tactics is to make your mage buff your party with EVERY defensive spell possible BEFORE the fight (the buff will stay for quite a long time) and only then BURN ALL.
I came into MotB with my mage from NWN2 - and man... is dat sum killin machine on epic levels. Meteor showers and other nuclear and low orbit ion cannon strikes with every hit bringing the maximum damage. I basically cleared the whole battlefield within 3 or 4 rounds most of the time. of course this made the combat very repetitive and extremely boring.

 

[Heresiarch]

Yup, my wizard along with Safiya can really demolish everything within seconds. Me + Safiya + Gann + Kaelyn = double meteor swarm + empowered bombardment + empowered firestorm = total annihilation. Not mention the fun of 4 summoned balors running around while me and Safiya lobbing twin hellballs along with quad vampiric feast if we all four want some epic scene of devastation.

In fact, during the final battle at chapter 2 my game always crash if we 4 all decide to cast spells at the same time, as the 6 enemies over there do the same thing at the same time.

 

[Midwinter]

I'm telling you man, this stuff isn't working. I've used all of her buffs (stoneskin greater stoneskin, all this other shit) and I'm still getting hit for like 165 by this guy, and we're constantly paralyzed and can't do anything. Her spells that 'sound coolest' rarely work, they get interrupted or something... and if they do work, they barely scratch him.

Have you tried turning on defensive casting? It reduces the chance of being hit while casting spells.