Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[hell bovine]

The amusing part is that the quote is presented in-game as a prophecy, not a literal fact. Maybe the old guy could only count to twenty.

 

[Colour Spray]

Maybe they call him the wise Alaundo because he never questions whether the Lord of Murder uses the correct length of a score, or not.

 

[Somberlain]

The most elegant way to kill Adamantine Golems is to get them stuck in narrow passages (like the hidden door in Firkraag's dungeon), have someone with poison immunity bait their Gas Cloud and the rest pew pewing with Tansheron's Bow, Firetooth and Dwarven Thrower from a safe distance


Other than that, use items and spells to protect your hasted melee hitters with Stoneskins, Mirror Images etc. and mow dem golems down. There's also Rod of Smiting in Ust Natha.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, I've found the the stuck in doorway tactic to be the most cost effective. Golems and doors have had a bad relationship since Dungeon Master. The tactic didn't work against the Turnip Golem that Uncle Gerhardt had accidentally created in the Jansen house's basement, though.

 

[octavius]

BG2 sure takes a nose dive in quality and interest when in short succession you meet the unkillable Irenicus, Saemon Wassisname, and the Githyanki Captain. Especially aggravating that the G. Captain can take 100+ damage while "Nearly Dead" and yet cast Maze without being even being interrupted. I ended up just CRTL-Y'ng the Gyks. Fucking cutscenes and enemies with plot armour.
EDIT: Oh, it seems you can kill Saemon in Brynnlaw and get 18K XP for him. I did the boat trip again and tried to kill him there, but he was so heavily protected by spells that I didn't have enough time to kill him, if he even is killable in that incarnation.

BTW, is it normal that regular Githyanki cast Maze spells, or is that one of SCS's improvements?

 

[Tigranes]

Content-wise Chapter 2 is the obvious high, and you have to treat everything after Spellhold as a kind of linear climactic rollercoaster. At least the Drow City & environments is very, very cool, whereas in most games that is where you'd get a superlinear non-city facade to cut content or the consistency of the quality would drop dramatically.

Not sure what's going on with Gith captain, I don't seem to remember that.

 

[octavius]

The frog city looked quite nice too.

The Drow in the Underdark were rather stronger than I remember from my previous (non-SCS) playthrough. I tested a Skeleton Warrior against the war party on the bridge and it was pounded into bone meal in a matter of seconds.
So I decided to try the Gate spell instead, and Ultroloth took care of both the war party and the smaller (but nastier individual characters) party in the middle of the map. "In the name of Ultroloth, we die!" And Ultoloth left a small army of Skeleton Warriors before he left.

The loyalty of the Gated fiends seems to fluctuate a bit. Even with Protection of Evil active they sometimes turn red for a short while. Don't know if it's a bug or not, but it means that it's safer to let them do their work alone, instead of risking them suddenly turn hostile.

 

[octavius]

Is it normal that you find the two groups of Drow on the main Underdark map more difficult than the Balor? Even after gating in two Nabassus the Balor was just a minor speedbump, while the Drow are a major PIA with their magic resistance and their rapid attacks and spell casting. In addition they have decent HP and very good AC.

 

[ga♥]

The drow rule supreme!

 

[octavius]

Not sure what's going on with Gith captain, I don't seem to remember that.

I had forgotten that he turns up again in the Drow city, so I guess there is a reason for his plot armour.

 

[Tigranes]

Sahuagin City looks very nice, it's just a pain in the arse because it's endless tiny corridors with identical battles for the most part. The 'causeway' room on the east side can be fun with SCS, though, as is the 'boss' of the area.

The bridge war party is night and day with SCS, without it they are useless. Drow in general change a lot with SCS because when they have all those buffs, then their magic resistance becomes really important - you just don't notice it in vanilla if you're killing them with pure weapon damage in 3 seconds. I find it a nice change of pace, the soul prisoners also become a big deal, whereas in vanilla the crazy lich(?) dies in 2 seconds and the drow die in 5.

 

[octavius]

The Drow are probably the enemies whose SCS improvement is most dramatic. I recall having little problems wiping out the entire Drow city in my non-SCS run, but with SCS even one party of Drow is more dangerous than a Balor and two Nabassu.

The Lich in the soul prison is probably the single most powerful enemy I've faced so far (I did not fight any of dragons), casting Time Stop and Comet (I'm glad the Spell Triggers are aimed at the caster, though, since it makes it possible to outrun a Horrid Wilting). But with Prot Undead scroll and Maze of Disruption he's essentially a glass canon, especially since he's so slow that the rest of the party has time to flee. Although thanks to the always friendly pathfinding Jaheira was still in reach of his Comet spell (or is it a HLA?).

 

[Somberlain]

Even with SCS or aTeaks, a single Balor is easy prey for an optimized and buffed party, because their HP isn't terribly high. However, they become extremely dangerous in groups if you have the aTweaks gating component installed. During the final battle of SoA, Irenicus summons 2 balors and 2 glabrezus IIRC, so once they start gating in more demons, you can end up fighting multiple additional balors, mariliths and other fiends. If they also happen to summon cambions, the whole demon army can get hasted thanks to those.

 

[Tigranes]

I mean, I think it's also a good example of SCS really being needed. The Drow were not very distinguishable from any other humanoid enemy in vanilla, and good old Haste remained the most efficient way to dispose most of them - not to mention all the other high level spells that start popping into your arsenal around this time. With SCS, a couple of drow war parties can pose a real challenge on Insane if a couple of things go wrong for the party or the party is poorly prepared. The chronic SCS problem of requiring lengthy prebuffing remains, but within those parameters, I think it's an exemplary result.

The demon gating is interesting but the final Irenicus battle always seemed to develop at least one or two weird/buggy moments for me, in terms of the demons' effects, invisibility, various immunities, etc.

 

[octavius]

I recall that final battle against Irenicus being rather insane. He hit so bloody fast in his Slayer form that he interrupted Contingencies and even Sequencers. And the game would keep crashing.

 

[Somberlain]

Best thing about that fight is when Irenicus casts Improved Haste, then Time Stop and, with his 24-25 Slayer strength, starts attacking your spellcasters or CHARNAME

Better hope you have a Contingency with Protection from Magical Weapons set.

 

[octavius]

And hope the Contingency have time to fire at all.

 

[Pizzashoes]

I think the worst part of BG2, at least with SCS, is when Adalon teleports you to the exit of the Underdark. That fight is so fucking hard at a reasonable non-WK level and her help is so slow.

Is my install bugged? She disintegrates about one enemy per round, but she teleports your entire party right into the mix of a high level drow party filled with Glabrezu. While roleplaying, you would not expect that giving back the silver dragon's eggs would lock you into a sequence that deposits you into extreme danger.

 

[Somberlain]

You can go to the Kuo-Toa caverns by yourself and kill the gate guardians in advance, without being teleported in an awful tactical position.

Unless the enemies respawn when Adalon teleports you there. I don't know if that happens since I always play evul and kill Adalon so I have to leave manually.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, it's annoying being forcibly placed in such a position. You can't even use Firestorm or Skull Trap since it makes Adalon red.
What I did was to just run away as soon as I saw the Horrid Wilting coming and let Adalon deal with the Drow while the two fiends pursued the party. They were not much of a threat at this stage, even though I had not buffed.

Anyway, now I've done everything in Chapter 6 (killed Bodhi and both dragons) except the Guarded Compund (for a Lawful Neutral CHARNAME there's no reason to go there anway), Lich in the sewer(looks like he's part of some quest since all he drops is some golden body parts), the Twisted Rune and return to the Elven city.

The TR seems almost impossible with SCS. The first thing that happens is all your buffs are removed, and then you face a super lich, a Beholder (or was it an Elder Orb?) and a very high level spell caster, and probably a few more. I did a half assed attempt with some summoned fiends, but the lich teleported right into my party, and it looked like the remove magic thing fires every round, so no use in buffing. I assume this is something I can return to after going to the Elven city?

I also still miss the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength for the Crom Faeyr, the fourth part of the Flail of Ages, and a part of the Wave halberd, so I assume I will be able to get back to Athkatla. Or am I supposed to visit the Watchers' Keep first?

 

[Anomander Rake]

That's the reason you don't help Adalon and give the demon the eggs. Adalon is a bitch. If only there was a logical reward for such a 'turn of events'.

 

[octavius]

Here's something for the experts.
Let's say you cast Insect Plague on an unprotected enemy. When it hops to the next enemy will it bounce back on the caster if the said enemy was protected by Spell Deflection?
I though casting it on someone unprotected could be a cunning plan to hit those bastards with all their spell protections.

 

[Tigranes]

TR+SCS is one of those fights that are super fun if you buy into SCS high level "cheese all you want baby and it'll still be a challenge" bargain. I love it.

From memory - so I"m sure details are wrong - you can set up pretty extensively in the little entryway alcove. Traps, including time stop traps and such, Planetars, buffs, what have you. Then trigger the conversation & run back. The lich should teleport into the alcove as the only enemy for the time being - and I think traps can kill him instantly, even. Basically you want to regularly throw heavy summons (demons, planetars, etc) into the main room to keep them busy while you take care of the lich, and then you can toss dispelling spells into the main room, use a thief to backstab the beholder especially (whose rays are really annoying, and I've always found beholder rays vs. magic protections to get very iffy/buggy/confusing w/ SCS), or whatever else you may like. If you're high level enough to have HLAs like whirlwind and time stop traps then those are enough to really set the stage; if you don't it's trickier and relies on keeping close track of buffs on yourself & allies. The mage holding the staff is not a huge problem, and if you kill her early you can pick up the staff and start using its invis feature.

 

[octavius]

I'm starting to regret more and more not picking up Nalia (Edwin was never a choice role playing wise), since I'm still stuck at lvl 6 mage spells with Aerie, which means disabling enemy protections is starting to be a real problem. I chose Storm of Vengeance for Anomen's first HLA since it's party friendly and should disrupt groups of spell casters for three rounds. But maybe Summon Deva would have been better.
I also regret not making CHARNAME a cleric who could dual to Mage, since he's the weakest link in the party.
And ditching Jan and keeping Imoen as a pure Thief was maybe a mistake too.
Oh well, we'll see how far I can get before hitting a brick wall.

I did a few non-cheesy tries on the Twisted Rune. The vampire is mostly harmless due to Turn Undead, and the fighter dude is a pushover. The Beholder was the third who went down in my best try, but then the game crashed.
I took it a sign I should head for the Watchers' Keep instead.

 

[Somberlain]

Twisted Rune is awesome with SCS. Sounds like your party composition might be a problem though