Arcadia, Half-Elven Fighter/Mage: Irenicus in Hell
I'm pleased to report that Arcadia has defeated Irenicus in hell, and moved on to ToB. I'm even more pleased to report that SoA went out with a bang. SoA has been unkind to Arcadia, in the sense that she has gotten terrible random drops, but it has been too kind to Arcadia in the sense that it has been a cake walk, for the most part. This was as expected. SCS makes SoA substantially more difficult, but it does not fundamentally change what a BG2 F/M is: a juggernaut with virtually impenetrable defenses and a variety of offensive options. Nothing in SoA posed a serious threat to Arcadia: nothing until Irenicus in hell that is.
How did that happen? How did the Jon fight become a significant hurdle? Rustiness and miscalculation on my part. When I make dangerous mistakes with arcane characters, it it typically in the opening and mostly commonly with a failure to anticipate the interaction between Contingencies and forced dialogue. That's exactly what happened here.
Before the battle, I spent some time debating Arcadia's Contingencies and spell slot allocations at the all important F/M levels: 5 & 6. I made terrible choices. The first option I considered was Contingency: See Enemy - Spell Shield and Chain: See Enemy- Protection from Magical Energy, Protection from Acid, Protection from Lightning. That's what Arcadia should have done. Ultimately though, I decided to go with a more conventional short battle oriented arrangement: Contingency: See Enemy- ProMW and Chain: See Enemy- Wilting x 3. What made this even worse was that I did not rebalance L5 to reflect the lack of a Spell Shield in the Contingencies or the continued lack of a ProMW + Spell Deflection + Spell Shield Trigger. Five was left as SI x4 Spell Shield x 1. Leaving Arcadia with only one Spell Shield. That was an awful decision. I don't know what I was thinking. Rustiness and casual over-confidence are the only explanations that make sense to me.
Some of you have probably already figure out what happened. It's not hard to predict really, is it?
The contingencies fired as soon as Jon-Jon arrived and before the demons were in position.
The effective loss of the Chain wasn't a big deal (Arcadia didn't really need 3 Wiltings) but the important thing is that the clock was ticking on ProMW during the dialogue. The smart thing to do would have been to internalize that, accept that the ProMW had been lost, and change the game plan. In particular, Arcadia should have faded and quaffed a Potion of Invisibility. I persisted, however, with the plan of going straight for the demons with the Black Blade of Disaster.
That left Arcadia vulnerable to Slayer Jon's Time Stop melee. Arcadia took damage -more damage than she had taken at any other point in her adventure. And while she survived both Time Stops, she was forced into an emergency ProMW cast.
That's a problem. The ProMW which Arcadia was forced to cast there was the one that had been reserved for Planetar disposal. Now Arcadia had a clouded aura, damage that needed to be healed, a Planetar on the march, and still only one Spell Shield.
The Demons were vorpaled or chunked with the BBoD soon enough. But Jon had made the right call and snuck a Secret Word in, removing Arcadia's Spell Shield.
Dead demons are little comfort when you have no answer to Spellstrike.
Now, once again, I should have internalized the situation and changed Arcadia's plans. I had intended to lead with Arcadia's aura in this fight, to use it offensively rather than defensively and reactively, but that is a terrible idea when you don't have a Spell Shield and Spellstrike may be in play. Terrible ideas were in abundance in this battle, however, and I liked every one of them. I used Arcadia's aura on Smite in an attempt to safely dispatch the Planter without ProMW.
That attempt had to be abandoned when Slayer Jon DDoored in the Planetar's defense. And worse still, it prevented Arcadia from refreshing her Protection from Energy (something that wouldn't have been necessary, I should add, had I went with the originally planned Contingency setup.)
Now Arcadia had 87 hitpoints. And that's when the Spellstrike came.
What now? Power Word: Stun is a threat, and there is nothing to catch it. A Potion of Freedom would slow Arcadia down and leave her vulnerable to the Planetar, or even Jon. A healer to get above PW:S range is an option, but there could be -4s to make within the next round and what about energy attack defenses? There are really no good answers here. I went with a healer, knowing that Arcadia could survive an energy attack or a save or else, but not a PW:S. Irenicus went with a Trigger which included Remove, seeking to peel the last layer of Arcadia's defenses: her movement rate advantage and her Potion of Invulnerability save buff.
Arcadia ran from the spell effect hoping she'd widen the counter window enough to sneak an SI:A in. That didn't work. Arcadia found herself dispelled: this time completely.
Reluctantly, I had Arcadia quaff a Potion of Magic Shielding. That was followed quickly by a SI:A cast to lock it in and then an Oil of Speed to rebuild a movement rate advantage.
More defenses were layered in on the fly. Eventually, Arcadia was ready to go on the offensive again. But that shouldn't obscure the fact that she was -and had been- in very real danger for the first time in her adventure.
Not taking any chances, Arcadia finished with Seeking at range.
A victory. But a humbling one. Lessons learned? I could go on for days. But here are the bullet points. Don't be too aggressive. Keep your aura in reserve. Acknowledge Arcadia's spell slot limitations and her current lack of Trigger: when needed, use the Chain, Contingency, and Sequencer to buttress 4,5 & 6. Don't expect ProMW to survive a cutscene dialogue and never, ever, ever get caught in a long mage battle with only one Spell Shield.
I may be rusty. But Arcadia yet lives. ToB awaits. Arcadia will take on Illasera soon (although I suspect I'll have to have a long talk with the Captain first...Yup: He just called me into his office...).
Best,
A.
Retour en haut
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I congratulate you on a very good victory, in which you showed your intelligence and improvisational skills as you have before. Chapeau! ![=]](https://lvlt.forum.bioware.com/public/style_emoticons/default/sideways.png)
He just need to fix a bit more of Inquisition's tasks and I promise that I will not run another *coming soon* BG/PsT-like *distraction* even out of curiosity before Impish Face will end his quest in Amn one way or another.
. GL to all further.
