15226 réponses à ce sujet

[AnonymousHero]

DMWW wrote...

The SCS Mages will target those with less then 90 Hitpoints as AH noted. 

The actual condition is that they'll target either mages, or anyone with fewer than 60% of their maximum hit points. Keying it to exact hit point totals would seem a bit unfair.

Good to know. SI:Conjuration for the win.

[Grond0]

amanasleep wrote...
Without CS stacking I worry chiefly about the cow, different spell of same level, polymorphs, and charm.  I think I saw once in another thread somebody may have analyzed the spell effects of the cow (school, etc) and figured out how to prevent it.  I do not know if all of the polymorph effects allow a save, or if any of them are permanent.  Does anyone know if a permanently polymorphed solo character can interact with a temple to remove curse?  Charm can be easily prevented with items.  Different spell of same level seems like the hardest to prepare for, but also the least likely to occur and has a decent chance of being harmless if it does.

There are polymorph effects for both wolf and squirrel on both caster and target.  I've certainly experienced each shape several times and all have been temporary, though I'm not 100% sure if I've had both varieties of each creature.

[Grond0]

Gate70 wrote...
Another irritatingly short run in Amn then.

Hard luck Gate.  I don't think I've ever had much joy with a barbarian.  I've been caught out a couple of times by the short duration on the rage (compared to berserker) which makes it quite hard to kill opponents quickly enough.

[amanasleep]

AnonymousHero wrote...

amanasleep wrote...
Charm can be easily prevented with items.

It's been a while since I played a pure class mage. Do they have any options for permanent charm protection other than the SoTM?

Greenstone Amulet and Potion of Clarity, although these are consumables.

The other option is a fix that prevents game over when the PC is charmed.  I forget where that is, but it may be an option in the Tweak Pack.

I am also uncertain whether the Charm surge has a save.  If it does, it can be avoided that way.

[corey_russell]

Consolations, Gate70. Soloing BG1 is one thing, but soloing BG 2 another...just so many ways to die. A cleric's remove paralysis would have helped there...that's just a hint so I understand if you just prefer solo play.

[Incantatar]

amanasleep wrote...  I think I saw once in another thread somebody may have analyzed the spell effects of the cow (school, etc) and figured out how to prevent it.  I do not know if all of the polymorph effects allow a save, or if any of them are permanent.  Does anyone know if a permanently polymorphed solo character can interact with a temple to remove curse?  Charm can be easily prevented with items.  Different spell of same level seems like the hardest to prepare for, but also the least likely to occur and has a decent chance of being harmless if it does.

I think i'd try it in future. Had fun with one in Improved Anvil years ago. The polymorph, gender changing and color effect are all temporary. I remember saving mostly against the others and the cow never doing damage. Perhaps it's just physical damage, meaning it's circumvented with Stoneskin. The gold thing was annoying and i just reloaded but your proposals are not bad.
Stacking Chaos Shields is definately an exploit i wouldn't use.

[Incantatar]

Speaking of charm protection. Perhaps the spell protections negate the surges!? Have to try it out.
Edit: No Spell Deflection does not help against polymorph. With charm i'm not sure i saw the surge having no effect but also no saving throw.

Also my update is in work but i can proudly say i finished SoA no reload the first time!!!

Modifié par Incantatar, 20 décembre 2011 - 11:21 .

[AnonymousHero]

amanasleep wrote...

AnonymousHero wrote...

amanasleep wrote...
Charm can be easily prevented with items.

It's been a while since I played a pure class mage. Do they have any options for permanent charm protection other than the SoTM?

Greenstone Amulet and Potion of Clarity, although these are consumables.

... and time limited. (Though the freshly Item Pack has an option for making the Greenstone Amulet protections active while worn, rather than activatable. I'm playing with that ATM, but I'm not sure I feel it makes it too effective.)

Either way, the Greenstone amulet is pretty late.

I guess potions of Clarity are available in unbounded supply once you get Wish, but still.

amanasleep wrote...
The other option is a fix that prevents game over when the PC is charmed.  I forget where that is, but it may be an option in the Tweak Pack.

Nope, not the Tweak Pack (EDIT: at least not the G3 one, but I do recall seeing this option somewhere).

That option always seemed quite wrong to me; I mean if the enemy has you at their mercy, and the enemy is playing intelligently they'd kill you easily enough just by forcing you to walk into oncoming traffic (metaphorically). Unless one interprets Charm as always ending when forced to take "hostile against oneself" action -- no matter how roundabout... but then how could "the spell" possibly know how to stop functioning at a certain point? If sure you can concoct scenarios where the victim is directed to perform a series of non-hostile-to-self actions which lead to a situation where death simply becomes unavoidable from there on -- where it's only post-hoc that you can say "ah, but this series of actions led to death, therefore the Charm should have ended".

Modifié par AnonymousHero, 21 décembre 2011 - 01:57 .

[corey_russell]

Cody and his band of 4 level 11 clerics/level 12 mages and Yoshimo (very temporary party member)

As I said in my last post, we were ready to try the shadow dragon. This is possibly the smoothest victory but more on that in a moment. We summoned 5 aeriel servants, and did what buffs that made sense, including negative plane protection. Buffs and positioning can be seen here.

We opened with 4x lower magic resist and doom. Next round few more dooms and malison and then started laying in the direct damage - most of it was either MMM, magic missiles, or flamestrikes. However, In 3rd round Joshua ran out of direct damage and for the heck of it tried blind - as you can see below, it worked!


This basically made Thaxxssillyia a sitting duck. We just laid into it, and it couldn't do anything except die it seems. The party was never even attacked, either by breath or physically.


It's lich hunting time. Our first target was the lich in the Unseeing Eye area. We stayed in that room and just sent skeletons, one at a time. The lich had an incredible amount of spells. Eventually it started using level 1 and 2 spells. That was our cue to send in an Aeriel Servant, and it finished off the Efreeti and the lich by itself.

Next lich was a little bit tougher (one in bridge district), partly due to that there's quite a bit less room in this room than the other one. However, same strategy, hug wall and send in weak summons at first then Aeriel Servant. When the Aeriel servant was sent in, it got caught on a wall. The lich approeached under protection of fireshield and maybe PfMW too, not sure. Well, we have no level 6 spells that can hurt it, so just did MMMs -- that was eventually enough to finish it, though some of the MMMs got reflected (spell turning I guess).

Time for Kangaxx himself. I didn't try anything new here - easy to fail, so tried a reliable strategy. I sent 4 aeriel servants to the far side of the room (left). At the right the AI was off and party was invisible. Next Hanna used a protection from magic scroll, equipped her IMoD and started the battle. It went slow, since the lich was protected from Hanna for so long (plus he saved vs death quite a few times), eventually though Hanna did cause the demi-lich form to appear. The demi-lich part of the battle was anti-climatic - it tried a single imprison on Hanna (failed) - and Hanna connected for 2 damage and slayed it. The ring went to Hanna, and the +2 ring Hanna had went to Cody.


I then recruited Yoshimo, a very temporary party member since we are headed for Spellhold immediately. Reporting our success in the vampire lair to Linvail got the party except Aerie to level 12 mages. Everyone learned contingency and put in helpless > remove paralysis. Belle also has a minor sequencer, wasn't sure what to put in it, so for now has MM and glitterdust.

When we got to Brynnlaw and dealt with the initial vampire ambush, they of course charmed the only person who didn't have charm immunity, Yoshimo. After killing the vamps we ended up dooming and holding Yoshimo to get him to stop attacking us. We then rested and then our sequencers are now active.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Incantatar wrote...
Also my update is in work but i can proudly say i finished SoA no reload the first time!!! 

Congrats! I know that feeling. It's still fresh in my mind :happy:

@Gate70: Sorry for your loss, Gate :'( 

@corey_russell: Splendid work!

Modifié par Serg BlackStrider, 21 décembre 2011 - 06:53 .

[ussnorway]

@corey_russell Consider using two neutral spells like say ‘Silence’ & ‘Glitterdust’ because that then allows you to target friendly NPC without making them hostile.

[Grond0]

AnonymousHero wrote...

amanasleep wrote...
The other option is a fix that prevents game over when the PC is charmed.  I forget where that is, but it may be an option in the Tweak Pack.

Nope, not the Tweak Pack (EDIT: at least not the G3 one, but I do recall seeing this option somewhere).

That option always seemed quite wrong to me; I mean if the enemy has you at their mercy, and the enemy is playing intelligently they'd kill you easily enough just by forcing you to walk into oncoming traffic (metaphorically). Unless one interprets Charm as always ending when forced to take "hostile against oneself" action -- no matter how roundabout... but then how could "the spell" possibly know how to stop functioning at a certain point? If sure you can concoct scenarios where the victim is directed to perform a series of non-hostile-to-self actions which lead to a situation where death simply becomes unavoidable from there on -- where it's only post-hoc that you can say "ah, but this series of actions led to death, therefore the Charm should have ended".

I agree game ending in all situations is too draconian.  I can sort of understand it when an enemy charms you (using the logic you set out above), although even there the time limit on the charm would normally make it difficult to engineer that type of situation.

Where it is clearly ridiculous is where you charm yourself - you should be now acting in your own best interest, so why does that lead to harm?  The charm from a surge is effectively charming yourself so that should not equate to death.

The charm = death behaviour was introduced in BG2; it doesn't apply in vanilla BG1.

[Grond0]

Incantatar wrote...

Speaking of charm protection. Perhaps the spell protections negate the surges!? Have to try it out.
Edit: No Spell Deflection does not help against polymorph. With charm i'm not sure i saw the surge having no effect but also no saving throw.

Also my update is in work but i can proudly say i finished SoA no reload the first time!!!

Congratulations on SoA - hope the run continues in ToB.

If your character was an elf that could have stopped the charm.  There's also a persistent bug in the BG2 engine that stops charm effects from working when they should, so that might well have been the cause.

[AlexDeLarge]

What is the general consensus on abusing simulacrum/Vhailor's Helm with Protection from Magic scroll in this challenge? Legit, but frowned upon?

[corey_russell]

Serg BlackStrider wrote...

@corey_russell: Splendid work!

Thanks, Serg! My group is finally starting to feel like a powerful group, though am sure Underdark will give them plenty of challenges.

[Alesia_BH]

AlexDeLarge wrote...
What is the general consensus on abusing simulacrum/Vhailor's Helm with Protection from Magic scroll in this challenge? Legit, but frowned upon?

I'm sure there is a variety of views. Saros used to do it regularly with some characters (that's how he got his Wizard Slayer through).

Personally, I don't allow illusions to use quick slot items (save potions, in which case, the PC is required to drop the same number of potions). In addition, I don't permit Protection from Magic Scroll use and I'm moving towards eliminating Vhailor altogether. It would suffice to say then that duplicating Pro Magic Scrolls by having Vhailor Simmies use them from the Quick Slot would be well beyond my bounds...

Good luck finding an approach which suits you.

Best

A.

 

[Alesia_BH]

corey_russell wrote...
My group is finally starting to feel like a powerful group

I had a feeling that would happen. 

Best of luck with the rest of your run!

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 21 décembre 2011 - 01:04 .

[Shadow_Leech07]

AlexDeLarge wrote...

What is the general consensus on abusing simulacrum/Vhailor's Helm with Protection from Magic scroll in this challenge? Legit, but frowned upon?

I think everyone has a different interpretation of what occurs when a mage casts project image or simulacrum, and this of course applies to Vhailor's Helm. From my own viewpoint (RP-Wise) a PI and Simulacrum have copied everything of the original, as they are able to think, move, and use abilities. The clothing is copied, so I think that from a role playing perspective it is safe to say that everything is copied so it is fair that one can assume to use the copied items in the quick slot as well as the copied weapons abilities...etc. Though obviously one cannot go into the inventory of a simulacrum or a project image, perhaps this is a gaming limitation or whatever (I don't know). So from a role playing perspective IMO, one could fairly come up with a case that this could work hypothetically.

However, as a balance issue(game play), this would make every encounter with a lich or wizard quite pointless. I struggle with what I want to play with all the time, even when I am playing. Currently I am struggling whether or not to abuse a powerful spell in Baldur's Gate(animate dead) and I think this could be similar situation in your case. I did in fact use this particular combination to get my solo fighter through the entire game and I found that didn't quite fit my taste so I no longer used it. Perhaps you should see if you like it. Sometimes what seems enjoyable in paper may not be so much in reality.

Modifié par Shadow_Leech07, 21 décembre 2011 - 01:27 .

[AlexDeLarge]

Ok awesome, thanks for the replies. Really put things in perspective, i've decided i'm only gonna use the original scrolls (so, two uses) in order to not trivialize every mage/lich encounter in the game.

A couple of more questions before i start my No Reload Challenge. I want to be able to use Viconia and Keldorn together in my party, so i have to change Keldorn's hate factor towards Viccy through Shadow Keeper.

Also, my protagonist will be a Kensai/Mage. I want to take the useless proficiency point i get at level 1 mage (limited to dagger/staff/dart/sling) and relocate it to Bastard Swords via SK, so i can get Grandmastery by ToB and use Foebane to the max.

Would u guys consider both of these options fair for my Run?

[corey_russell]

ussnorway wrote...

@corey_russell Consider using two neutral spells like say ‘Silence’ & ‘Glitterdust’ because that then allows you to target friendly NPC without making them hostile.

USSNorway - why would I want to make a friendly NPC silenced and blinded? This stuff is for enemies...

[Humanoid_Taifun]

corey_russell wrote...
The demi-lich part of the battle was anti-climatic

Isn't it always?
He's a one trick pony, so it's like Russian Roulette. Either he destroys you, or he goes down.

[AnonymousHero]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...
Isn't it always?
He's a one trick pony, so it's like Russian Roulette. Either he destroys you, or he goes down.

Unless you're playing with "Spell-casting Demi-liches"... /me hopes enough poking can get Corey playing SCS / SCS II

[ussnorway]

corey_russell wrote...

ussnorway wrote...

@corey_russell Consider using two neutral spells like say ‘Silence’ & ‘Glitterdust’ because that then allows you to target friendly NPC without making them hostile.

USSNorway - why would I want to make a friendly NPC silenced and blinded? This stuff is for enemies...

First of all ‘Glitterdust’ DOESN’T blind friendly targets, even if you target them... and the ‘Silence’ can be neutralised by way of ‘Vocalize’ but that’s not the point. The real issue is that once you put a spell like ‘Glitterdust’ into your ‘Minor Sequencer’ you are accepting a trade-off i.e. you gain the ability to cast two spells rapid-fire but no longer have the option to target the ground and therefore have to target a person (monster/ whatever)... now perhaps that enemy happens to be non-targetable eg. ‘Improved Invisibility’... what are you going to do now?

No problem, send say Aerie in and target her instead or perhaps a bartender happens to be standing nearby... no you won’t use it all the time but IMO it’s nice to have options.

[corey_russell]

ussnorway wrote...

corey_russell wrote...

ussnorway wrote...

@corey_russell Consider using two neutral spells like say ‘Silence’ & ‘Glitterdust’ because that then allows you to target friendly NPC without making them hostile.

USSNorway - why would I want to make a friendly NPC silenced and blinded? This stuff is for enemies...

First of all ‘Glitterdust’ DOESN’T blind friendly targets, even if you target them... and the ‘Silence’ can be neutralised by way of ‘Vocalize’ but that’s not the point. The real issue is that once you put a spell like ‘Glitterdust’ into your ‘Minor Sequencer’ you are accepting a trade-off i.e. you gain the ability to cast two spells rapid-fire but no longer have the option to target the ground and therefore have to target a person (monster/ whatever)... now perhaps that enemy happens to be non-targetable eg. ‘Improved Invisibility’... what are you going to do now?

No problem, send say Aerie in and target her instead or perhaps a bartender happens to be standing nearby... no you won’t use it all the time but IMO it’s nice to have options.

I follow your logic. However, thanks to having BOTH divine and arcane spell line of schools, dispelling invisibility is not a problem, I have oracles, dispel illusions and true seeing, we got that covered, and can remove magic a melee if the situation has that. I also have dispel magic on melee hits (SotM), and improved invisible or not, MMMs still smack 'em!

Last but not least I am not relying on the sequencer, it's just a tool. If it doesn't apply will do something else. Also, if I did want to use a neutral spell, I probably would put in 2x web.

[ussnorway]

Ignore this post, guys.

Modifié par ussnorway, 22 décembre 2011 - 07:40 .