Edward_R_Murrow
Arcane
More fun with SCS2.
Killed the Hive Mother that is added in by the "Improved Beholder Lair" component. This thing is pretty difficult, and the drow don't attack it, so that means no monster infighting shenanigans. She also has the good sense to retreat to fellow beholders if blinded by magical means, so to be cured via an Anti-Magic Ray. Quite devious, but was no match for EXTREME cheese.
Cheesing the rest of the beholders, because they are a cheesy as fuck enemy what with their ~10 eye rays a round and overpowered Anti-Magic Rays. While the beholder may be an iconic D&D monster, I've never found it particularly fun to fight in cRPGs. They tend to necessitate cheese to not be insurmountable, whether it's the Mulmaster Corps or BG2's hive. Vanilla BG2 did a okay job with the nerfed beholders in the Unseeing Eye hive (which, I believe, were altered to be "regular" beholders as part of SCS2 systematic changes) as well as the gimpy beholderkin like Gauths and Directors, but the regular ones tended towards the cheesy side, especially the Elder Orbs who had a tendency to cast Imprisonment on the main character. SCS2 Elder Orbs are pretty insane, especially with Contingencies and the pre-buffing component.
The Demon Knight room in the Kuo-Toa caverns was a total mess when I tried to face it with the full party. Too many Symbols, Power Words, and 20d6 Fireballs going off everywhere, leading to total carnage.
So I decided some hot demon-on-demon action was required. Two Nabassus and a Glabrezu were summoned in, and the main character was buffed up (including the requisite Protection From Evil) and left to wait, invisible, while spiderbro was sacrificed summon in the Demon Knights. Once they blew their spells on the demonic help, the plan was to jump out of hiding and shred the Demon Knights.
As you can see, the plan worked out very well. The Improved Fiends component can be quite annoying when facing off against mages who drop Glabrezus and Cornugons on your 10th/11th level parties, but it does make demon summoning a lot better.
Killing some Kuo-Toans and their prince to round out the dungeon trifecta before going back to Ust Natha for the ritual. Completed it in arguably the most fun way*, although the reward should really be better. A +4 Halberd that can cast a powerful Blindness spell 3x per day is sort of nice (besides the fact I have zero halberdiers in the party), but something like bonus stats would have been preferable.
*Killing the Demon Lord would be fun, but the Improved Drow City component makes escape afterwards extremely difficult.
YEAAAAAAHHHHH! Kickin' that dragon's scaly ass! Gonna win this one without much in the way of casualties.
Yeah...about that whole no casualties thing...
Adalon is pretty tough. Arguably a bit easier than the Shadow Dragon, but most of the difficulty with that was a lack of items to prevent level drain. I assume that if I faced it with the Amulet of Power and the Improved Mace of Disruption the fight would have been much easier.
She starts the battle with Stoneskin, Haste, and a Remove Magic cast at ~25th level. That means she can easily dispel most pre-buffs and taking down her Haste with be extremely difficult without an Inquisitor (or over-leveled casters). As a silver dragon, she has two breath weapons: a cone of cold that hits about as hard as red dragon fire (hitting for 80-100 damage is not uncommon) and a cone of paralyzing gas. SCS2 scripts her to use them very effectively, alongside wing buffets and melee. Dragons in this mod are always making the best use of time, and would probably be utterly terrifying if I installed the component that allows for instant casting that cannot be interrupted (all of these components sounded extremely unfun, especially the demons/dragons/celestial ones; allowing powerful foes to flaunt tempo rules is a wee bit broken).
Tough fight, but good fun. BG2 already did a good job of making dragons feel like fearsome foes as opposed to the fodder they were in other D&D games (most Gold Box titles and KotC are especially guilty of this) and SCS2 continues in that tradition.
Battling through the guardians of the Underdark exit. Adalon typically kills these d00dz for most players, but she came down with a bad case of death and couldn't come into work today. It's a relatively difficult battle with high level casters (one mage can, and does, cast Time Stop) and a lot of beefy bodyguards in the form of demons and golems. Luring them out is far preferable to fighting on a narrow "bridge" where you are gummed up by golems, their mages can drop Sphere of Chaos on you entire party, and the Glabrezu makes ample use of Teleport Without Error to snack on your squishy mages.
Next comes the much easier sections before the surface.
Recruiting allies. Normally I'd kill Drizzt, but his party isn't much of a challenge, comparatively speaking, in an SCS2 playthrough. There are no spellcasters so things like Stoneskin, Protection from Magical Weapons, and Blade Barrier effectively shut down all of the group's offense.
Plus, Imight need definitely needed his help in the vampire lair.
North Forest fun time!
Not too long ago, Yuan-Ti Mages used to be very difficult. But when you have access to ample amounts of higher level anti-magic (7th level onward), they're pretty simple.
Vampiric Mists certainly have a lot of spells when dominated...not that they ever actually use them.
A rumble with a generic enemy party (the cleric is "Priest of Cyric" and the mage is named "Mage"). It's fun, but none to difficult at this stage. Horrid Wilting is really great at taking down mages that don't use Protection From Magic Energy as it bypasses a lot of their defenses and deals immense damage.
Killing some Harpers that came after Jaheira. None too difficult.
Coran's house in the Forest of Tethyr...the mist infestation probably explains why he wasn't inside of it.
Kuo-Toan ambush inside the Forest of Tethyr cave. It's kind of neat how engaging the ones in the back actually spawns in another group toward the entrance.
First use of Call Lightning in the game. Great spell in BG1, where a lot of tougher encounters were outside, but in BG2 it is lackluster due to the dungeoneering focus. If not for that, it would likely be the Druid/Ranger answer to the Cleric/Paladin Holy Smite (which is an outstanding spell; mini-Horrid Wilting with a blindness effect).
Roenall is easily dispatched, likely because the battle was balanced for a party in Chapter 2 or Chapter 3...not Chapter 6. Plenty of fights with ball-busting difficulty await, so no reason to complain.
Speaking of which, time to take on the Slave Lords. SCS2 makes their "welcoming party" into less of a joke if the components that boost certain creature types are installed. Improved Genies and Improved Demons are both installed, so that don't roll over nearly as easily as the vanilla version of this fight. As an aside, avoiding the Nishruu's spell-sucking was actually quite difficult; I had to rest afterwards so members of the party weren't without their highest level spells.
Here are some screen from one attempt at the Slave Lords. It went pretty well for the most part. KIlled the thief who enjoyed backstabbing, dropped an Insect Plague as well as some Chaos to mess with their ranks, utilized Web to screw with enemy movement, and dropped an Abi-Dhalzim's Horrid Wilting for good damage.
Everything was going well until the mage cast Time Stop, unleashed a whole bunch of hell, and then cast Time Stop again afterwards, leading to a wipe after a second nuking.
I've never really liked Time Stop...it's a spell that's broken in a system all about doing unbalanced (but fun) things. It's brokenness outshines every other spell and it makes fun broken things into stupidly broken things. No other level nine spell can compare, not even Wish, whose most powerful effects don't always show up when you want/need them. And it magnifies the power of pretty much everything. Contingencies? What's better than stopping time as soon as you see an enemy, so as to rain death upon them? "Spell Haste" (i.e Improved Alacrity) is a cool concept, but utterly bonkers when combining it with Time Stop allows you to empty your entire spellbook virtually unopposed.
The spell was scarcely an issue in vanilla BG2 because enemies didn't make very effective use of it and I had no problem simply not using it (because it ruins a lot of fun). I really hope it doesn't completely dominate endgame encounters in SoA and the entirety of ToB.
An AI (mal)function helped usher in victory. SCS2 AI makes tactical retreats outside of AoE "cloud" spells and avoids triggering Skull Traps, Glyphs of Warding, or Symbols. Apparently, nuking the battlefield with these effects caused both the mage and cleric if the Slave Lords to retreat downstairs, allowing for easy mop-up of the fighters and thieves.
Turns out they are much easier to eliminate when not accompanied by their friends. Damage was still sustained, and a Symbol: Fear sperll sent Anomen and Imoen running, but both fell all the same. Celestial Fury and a heapload of generic loot are the rewards.
This guy seems trustworthy...
Storming Bodhi's compound with a few allies in tow. The knights weren't particularly useful, as they were quickly gibbed by Ancient Vampires and rthe absurd amount of levels they drain on each hit. I don't even think these guys would be useful in vanilla.
Main character is dual-wielding Daystar and either Belm or the Equalizer, using the Amulet of Power to prevent level drain. Anomen is wielding the Improved Mace of Disruption for undead smashing goodness and has a Shield of Harmony to prevent Domination. Everyone else is invisible, as SCS2 vampires have a nasty habit of avoiding those with any sort of Negative Plane Protection and feeding on more vulnerable targets. Viconia can still turn undead while invisible, however Ancient Vampires seem a bit too strong for her.
Drizzt is quite helpful in this fight, not only for his immense amount off damage, but for his superb defensive capabilities. His armor class makes it so that he rarely is hit, magic resistance allows him to shrug off enemy spells/abilities, and he is seemingly immune to level drain.
The Improved Vampires component of SCS2 is rather interesting. It grants vampires additional abilities on top of the ones they had in vanilla BG2, such as summoning abilities, or Constitution stat drain. They also make far better use of their classic ability set, including their invisibility, shapeshifting, and Domination/Charm. All-in-all, they become much more dangerous opponents.
Dire Wolves are probably the most benign thing they can summon, but even those can gum up the battlefield. Rats and bats are another matter. The rats have surprisingly good THAC0 and inflict a nasty disease. The bats function as an Insect Swarm spell, dealing chip damage and disrupting casting.
It's not pictured here, but shapeshifting is particularly nasty. Vampires will now strategically shift into harder to hit forms when taking a beating to either facilitate healing or escape. Just as Druids and Mages restore a bit of health whenever they shapeshift, vampires do as well, and the scripting seems aware of this. That's why disrupting weapons, Turn Undead, and anti-Undead magic (like Sunray or False Dawn) are extremely useful.
Vampires are really one of the creatures that SCS2 nailed; they're no longer a joke if you cast Negative Plane Protection, but they don't require a party loaded to the gills with cheese or arcane magic to defeat.
Next update will probably be Bodhi, liches, Firkraag, and Chapter 7.
Killed the Hive Mother that is added in by the "Improved Beholder Lair" component. This thing is pretty difficult, and the drow don't attack it, so that means no monster infighting shenanigans. She also has the good sense to retreat to fellow beholders if blinded by magical means, so to be cured via an Anti-Magic Ray. Quite devious, but was no match for EXTREME cheese.
Cheesing the rest of the beholders, because they are a cheesy as fuck enemy what with their ~10 eye rays a round and overpowered Anti-Magic Rays. While the beholder may be an iconic D&D monster, I've never found it particularly fun to fight in cRPGs. They tend to necessitate cheese to not be insurmountable, whether it's the Mulmaster Corps or BG2's hive. Vanilla BG2 did a okay job with the nerfed beholders in the Unseeing Eye hive (which, I believe, were altered to be "regular" beholders as part of SCS2 systematic changes) as well as the gimpy beholderkin like Gauths and Directors, but the regular ones tended towards the cheesy side, especially the Elder Orbs who had a tendency to cast Imprisonment on the main character. SCS2 Elder Orbs are pretty insane, especially with Contingencies and the pre-buffing component.
The Demon Knight room in the Kuo-Toa caverns was a total mess when I tried to face it with the full party. Too many Symbols, Power Words, and 20d6 Fireballs going off everywhere, leading to total carnage.
So I decided some hot demon-on-demon action was required. Two Nabassus and a Glabrezu were summoned in, and the main character was buffed up (including the requisite Protection From Evil) and left to wait, invisible, while spiderbro was sacrificed summon in the Demon Knights. Once they blew their spells on the demonic help, the plan was to jump out of hiding and shred the Demon Knights.
As you can see, the plan worked out very well. The Improved Fiends component can be quite annoying when facing off against mages who drop Glabrezus and Cornugons on your 10th/11th level parties, but it does make demon summoning a lot better.
Killing some Kuo-Toans and their prince to round out the dungeon trifecta before going back to Ust Natha for the ritual. Completed it in arguably the most fun way*, although the reward should really be better. A +4 Halberd that can cast a powerful Blindness spell 3x per day is sort of nice (besides the fact I have zero halberdiers in the party), but something like bonus stats would have been preferable.
*Killing the Demon Lord would be fun, but the Improved Drow City component makes escape afterwards extremely difficult.
YEAAAAAAHHHHH! Kickin' that dragon's scaly ass! Gonna win this one without much in the way of casualties.
Yeah...about that whole no casualties thing...
Adalon is pretty tough. Arguably a bit easier than the Shadow Dragon, but most of the difficulty with that was a lack of items to prevent level drain. I assume that if I faced it with the Amulet of Power and the Improved Mace of Disruption the fight would have been much easier.
She starts the battle with Stoneskin, Haste, and a Remove Magic cast at ~25th level. That means she can easily dispel most pre-buffs and taking down her Haste with be extremely difficult without an Inquisitor (or over-leveled casters). As a silver dragon, she has two breath weapons: a cone of cold that hits about as hard as red dragon fire (hitting for 80-100 damage is not uncommon) and a cone of paralyzing gas. SCS2 scripts her to use them very effectively, alongside wing buffets and melee. Dragons in this mod are always making the best use of time, and would probably be utterly terrifying if I installed the component that allows for instant casting that cannot be interrupted (all of these components sounded extremely unfun, especially the demons/dragons/celestial ones; allowing powerful foes to flaunt tempo rules is a wee bit broken).
Tough fight, but good fun. BG2 already did a good job of making dragons feel like fearsome foes as opposed to the fodder they were in other D&D games (most Gold Box titles and KotC are especially guilty of this) and SCS2 continues in that tradition.
Battling through the guardians of the Underdark exit. Adalon typically kills these d00dz for most players, but she came down with a bad case of death and couldn't come into work today. It's a relatively difficult battle with high level casters (one mage can, and does, cast Time Stop) and a lot of beefy bodyguards in the form of demons and golems. Luring them out is far preferable to fighting on a narrow "bridge" where you are gummed up by golems, their mages can drop Sphere of Chaos on you entire party, and the Glabrezu makes ample use of Teleport Without Error to snack on your squishy mages.
Next comes the much easier sections before the surface.
Recruiting allies. Normally I'd kill Drizzt, but his party isn't much of a challenge, comparatively speaking, in an SCS2 playthrough. There are no spellcasters so things like Stoneskin, Protection from Magical Weapons, and Blade Barrier effectively shut down all of the group's offense.
Plus, I
North Forest fun time!
Not too long ago, Yuan-Ti Mages used to be very difficult. But when you have access to ample amounts of higher level anti-magic (7th level onward), they're pretty simple.
Vampiric Mists certainly have a lot of spells when dominated...not that they ever actually use them.
A rumble with a generic enemy party (the cleric is "Priest of Cyric" and the mage is named "Mage"). It's fun, but none to difficult at this stage. Horrid Wilting is really great at taking down mages that don't use Protection From Magic Energy as it bypasses a lot of their defenses and deals immense damage.
Killing some Harpers that came after Jaheira. None too difficult.
Coran's house in the Forest of Tethyr...the mist infestation probably explains why he wasn't inside of it.
Kuo-Toan ambush inside the Forest of Tethyr cave. It's kind of neat how engaging the ones in the back actually spawns in another group toward the entrance.
First use of Call Lightning in the game. Great spell in BG1, where a lot of tougher encounters were outside, but in BG2 it is lackluster due to the dungeoneering focus. If not for that, it would likely be the Druid/Ranger answer to the Cleric/Paladin Holy Smite (which is an outstanding spell; mini-Horrid Wilting with a blindness effect).
Roenall is easily dispatched, likely because the battle was balanced for a party in Chapter 2 or Chapter 3...not Chapter 6. Plenty of fights with ball-busting difficulty await, so no reason to complain.
Speaking of which, time to take on the Slave Lords. SCS2 makes their "welcoming party" into less of a joke if the components that boost certain creature types are installed. Improved Genies and Improved Demons are both installed, so that don't roll over nearly as easily as the vanilla version of this fight. As an aside, avoiding the Nishruu's spell-sucking was actually quite difficult; I had to rest afterwards so members of the party weren't without their highest level spells.
Here are some screen from one attempt at the Slave Lords. It went pretty well for the most part. KIlled the thief who enjoyed backstabbing, dropped an Insect Plague as well as some Chaos to mess with their ranks, utilized Web to screw with enemy movement, and dropped an Abi-Dhalzim's Horrid Wilting for good damage.
Everything was going well until the mage cast Time Stop, unleashed a whole bunch of hell, and then cast Time Stop again afterwards, leading to a wipe after a second nuking.
I've never really liked Time Stop...it's a spell that's broken in a system all about doing unbalanced (but fun) things. It's brokenness outshines every other spell and it makes fun broken things into stupidly broken things. No other level nine spell can compare, not even Wish, whose most powerful effects don't always show up when you want/need them. And it magnifies the power of pretty much everything. Contingencies? What's better than stopping time as soon as you see an enemy, so as to rain death upon them? "Spell Haste" (i.e Improved Alacrity) is a cool concept, but utterly bonkers when combining it with Time Stop allows you to empty your entire spellbook virtually unopposed.
The spell was scarcely an issue in vanilla BG2 because enemies didn't make very effective use of it and I had no problem simply not using it (because it ruins a lot of fun). I really hope it doesn't completely dominate endgame encounters in SoA and the entirety of ToB.
An AI (mal)function helped usher in victory. SCS2 AI makes tactical retreats outside of AoE "cloud" spells and avoids triggering Skull Traps, Glyphs of Warding, or Symbols. Apparently, nuking the battlefield with these effects caused both the mage and cleric if the Slave Lords to retreat downstairs, allowing for easy mop-up of the fighters and thieves.
Turns out they are much easier to eliminate when not accompanied by their friends. Damage was still sustained, and a Symbol: Fear sperll sent Anomen and Imoen running, but both fell all the same. Celestial Fury and a heapload of generic loot are the rewards.
This guy seems trustworthy...
Storming Bodhi's compound with a few allies in tow. The knights weren't particularly useful, as they were quickly gibbed by Ancient Vampires and rthe absurd amount of levels they drain on each hit. I don't even think these guys would be useful in vanilla.
Main character is dual-wielding Daystar and either Belm or the Equalizer, using the Amulet of Power to prevent level drain. Anomen is wielding the Improved Mace of Disruption for undead smashing goodness and has a Shield of Harmony to prevent Domination. Everyone else is invisible, as SCS2 vampires have a nasty habit of avoiding those with any sort of Negative Plane Protection and feeding on more vulnerable targets. Viconia can still turn undead while invisible, however Ancient Vampires seem a bit too strong for her.
Drizzt is quite helpful in this fight, not only for his immense amount off damage, but for his superb defensive capabilities. His armor class makes it so that he rarely is hit, magic resistance allows him to shrug off enemy spells/abilities, and he is seemingly immune to level drain.
The Improved Vampires component of SCS2 is rather interesting. It grants vampires additional abilities on top of the ones they had in vanilla BG2, such as summoning abilities, or Constitution stat drain. They also make far better use of their classic ability set, including their invisibility, shapeshifting, and Domination/Charm. All-in-all, they become much more dangerous opponents.
Dire Wolves are probably the most benign thing they can summon, but even those can gum up the battlefield. Rats and bats are another matter. The rats have surprisingly good THAC0 and inflict a nasty disease. The bats function as an Insect Swarm spell, dealing chip damage and disrupting casting.
It's not pictured here, but shapeshifting is particularly nasty. Vampires will now strategically shift into harder to hit forms when taking a beating to either facilitate healing or escape. Just as Druids and Mages restore a bit of health whenever they shapeshift, vampires do as well, and the scripting seems aware of this. That's why disrupting weapons, Turn Undead, and anti-Undead magic (like Sunray or False Dawn) are extremely useful.
Vampires are really one of the creatures that SCS2 nailed; they're no longer a joke if you cast Negative Plane Protection, but they don't require a party loaded to the gills with cheese or arcane magic to defeat.
Next update will probably be Bodhi, liches, Firkraag, and Chapter 7.
