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[Alesia_BH]

Arkona, Halfling Barbarian: Never Mind the Bollocks- The Underdark (including Fishville)

 

Miracle of miracles: I've now completed the Dragon Egg Quest in two consecutive play-throughs. This time it was far more satisfying: This time Adalon really fought. And, wow: she kicked butt- totally worth it.

 

Fishville first.

 

I usually stealth through Fishville, but this time I ran through. I noticed some of the SCS improvements that I've been missing and I think I'll be fighting through Fishville in the future. There may be some worthy combat here.

 

The Priestess summoned a pit fiend. We didn't fight it.

 

Spoiler

 

ProMWs and pre-buffs- lots of potion chugging. It looked fun. But since I was feeling eager to move on, I had Arkona run up ahead and deliver a fresh plate of chunkage to the Prince.

 

Spoiler

 

I did stop and play with the ATweaks Fey. Again, here they are. You can decide whether they seem out of place. I think this works better than the Spellhold, bunch. I like their color schemes.

 

Spoiler

 

They summoned some water weirds. I heard mention of these in the BG1 thread. I chose to keep my distance from them, since I hadn't read up on their abilities. They got DBed with the Crimson Dart. They look really cool. I'd love to run with ATweaks in BG1, but, sadly, that isn't possible for me, since ATweaks isn't compatible with either of my versions of BG1.

 

Spoiler

 

Into the Underdark proper. Historically, I've screwed stuff up in the Underdark. And even though I got the Dragon Egg Quest right this time, I did mess stuff up. Notably, the opening drow battle.

 

At first, Arkona just charged. The problem was that I hadn't taken the time to buff her fire resistance or activate her Shield Amulet. She took some punishment and found herself retreating, while clutching Arvoreen and the Reflex.

 

Spoiler

 

Unfortunately, I ran too far south. And in this install, Carlig will side with the drow if he sees you fighting them.

 

Spoiler

 

So, here we go. Carlig and the drow: chasing Arkona. At least we got the Shield Amulet up in time to catch that junk.

 

Spoiler

 

 

In my old install, the elementals would take on all comers- they'd fight the drow, Carlig, the beholders: anyone. I was kind of curious to see whether the ATweaks elementals would behave the same way. They're harmless enough at this stage of the game, so I decided to let Arkona draw them into the fight. And the answer? No: The ATweaks elementals won't fight the drow. So, Arkona was going to have to fight the fire elementals too now. But whatever: they're slow and they don't have ranged abilities so they're irrelevant.

 

Spoiler

 

We worked through it.

 

Spoiler

 

Elemental platform time. ATweaks does a nice job of sprucing this up. Not only are the creatures massively improved, but they spawn in groups. For Arkona, this was just easy experience, but it was nice to see nonetheless. Here we see one of the spawns from the air elemental platform. We have a greater, a regular, and an elder, I think.

 

Spoiler

 

And here we see Arkona, you'll quickly see why the elemental are no match.

 

Spoiler

 

80% crushing resistance, -6 crushing modifier via splint mail + Girdle of Bluntess. The elementals are in for a butt whopping.

 

The aerial servant caused the most trouble. He was spanked with Belm.

 

Spoiler

 

The rest just got straight on toe-to-toe Age + the Defender melee. Aside from needing Belm for the aeriel servant, and fire resistance for the fire elementals, the portals were the same, basically. Fun, though!

 

Spoiler

 

(And just to re-iterate, I'm 100% in favor of the ATweaks elementals. They're way better than their vanilla counterparts. They're interesting and cool. They're a win.)

 

To the balor. This was a let down. The ATweaks demons definitely need Fiendish Gating and or SCS stats to be worthy opponents. The ATweaks demons as is are, as I've said before, nerfy with a touch of overpowered.

 

The balors have a 15% chance to vorpal without a save on each main hand melee hit. But aside from that, they're pushovers. All you have to do is keep your distance.

 

Here we see Arkona buffed and ready for battle. She opens with Greater Whirlwind.

 

Spoiler

 

He Teleports Without Error to Arkona, but under GWW Improved Haste, Arkona is way too fast. Juke!

 

Spoiler

 

Finish. 

 

Spoiler

 

With Fiendish Gating, this would have been GWW->GDB->GWW, rather than just GWW. That's not suitable either, in my opinion. The SCS balor: he works, he's fine. SCS balors with ATweaks scripting and Fiendish Gating? That might, work but it has the potential to be stupidly over powered at the Throne and in Watcher's Keep, if not in other locals. I suspect that SCS fiends are the way to go, although I do intend to try SCS Fiends + ATweaks script.

 

I'll post on the rest of the Underdark ASAP.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Update of Impish Face & Co (or one down).

 

OK, here we are. It was quite some time since our last update but there were pretty hot over here and while I'm quite cold-resistance, an excessive heat could quickly melt me down effectively disabling with save vs death at -10...

 

Nonetheless we made some progress in Saradush. Nothing special with city duties but there was some scary moment in Kiser's house. We intended to solo him with Impish Face alone so buffed only him while all others were invisible. Then the Mage arrived, hit with True Seeing, Greater Malison, Chaos and Sphere of Chaos on top of all that. Imoen and Jaheira were afflicted with confusion and stood motionlessly in Sphere of Chaos AOE. I'm dreaded with this spell when our saves vs spells are not good enough and those of Imoen and Jaheira were not. Fortunately nothing drastic happened till Viconia cast Dispel Magic and girls fled to safety.

There were lot of undead in the sewers but most of those couldn't hit Impish Face who is immune to +1 and less weapons. Mages got usual antimages threatment while Vampires in the Prison are just plain/Fledgling ones so no threat anymore.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found Wand of Spell Striking in the chest near Prison entrance and fiddled a bit more with Book of Infinite Spells (set on Invisibility) to get Spell Turning, nice!.

 

Dealt with Gromnir's guards:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On to Gromnir. Berena Elkan & Co were disabled with Web and Greater Malison/Emotion/Slow Sequencer while Lashar'ra petrified herself with Flesh to Stone bounced of Impish Face's Spell Turning (a bitter irony here as in Russian loh/loshara means a dupe, a sucker...). Impish Face has Protection from Petrification on anyway.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

With them disabled and with only Gromnir able to see through our Mass Invisibility we were able to kill them at our leisure.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karun the Black Wish-ed our defenses to be destroyed but that meant little as he was Secret Word-ed and vorpal-ed.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Our trio fighters (Impish Face, Jaheira, Mazzy) pressed on Gromnir and even with Hardiness on and desperate GWWs/Critical Strikes he had no chance as well as his another Mage.

 

Spoiler

 

 

He dropped Gargoyle Boots, Ice Star +4 and another tooth (horn) for the Helm of the Rock found in Kiser's house while one of his henchmen Flail Head (Poison) and Golden Ioun Stone.

 

Spoiler

 

 

A loot, hard gained all over the Saradush and sold in Tankard Tree, allowed us to buy all necessary spells in Arcana Archives.

 

Spoiler

 

As usual, our first destination after escaping Saradush and through the North Forest will be the Watcher's Keep looming on the horizon.

 

to be continued...

[Alesia_BH]

Yay! Great to see Impish Face back in action!

 

And btw: Beautiful fight with Gromnir- very well executed!

 

Best,

 

A.

[Blackraven]

Alesia, aTweaks can be installed with BG1EE, so you should definitely be able to play with it. (It won't install the components that are not relevant for BG1, such as the Mephit or Demon tweaks).
Your comments on the aTweaks demons have made me think. I've been playing with them for quite a long time. Maybe I should return to the harder SCS Demons (to get my ass whooped by them). I'm going to do a new EE install soon, BG1 and BG2, but might need your help as to install order and debugs. (Something for the other thread.)

 

Nice work Serg, well on top of your game at Gromnir's Castle, and pretty much always. Keep it up.
 

[Alesia_BH]

Arkona, Halfling Barbarian: Never Mind the Bollocks- The Underdark- Part 2

 

Time to finish up the Underdark. 

 

I always say that the Underdark bores me, but, you know, whenever I complete the Underdark, I take oodles of screen shots and I spend a lot of time reporting on it. I guess there is something about it that interests me-  even if it doesn't bring joy. I honestly think it has something to do with the color scheme. The whole place is so glum and gothic.  It's depressing. I just want to leave: I just want to see the light.

 

In this run, at least, I experienced my fair share of Underdark: Arkona completed most of the quests, and had a reasonably good time doing it.

 

I love the way pre-buff sequences look in the Underdark.

 

Spoiler

 

And spell effects. The drow here were just punked with Ages and the Defender. Mistakes from the prior drow fight were not repeated.

 

Spoiler

 

Chandrilla's crew offered another pretty pre-buff display

 

Spoiler

 

I was glad to see that Pitch receiving ATweaks enhancements.

 

Spoiler

 

Arkona quickly pummeled the melee fighters with Ages and the Defender. With N'ashtar and Simbja remaining, we switched to darts and the Reflex.

 

Spoiler

 

GDB fixed the demon and Simbja. N'ashtar fell soon after.

 

Spoiler

 

Quickly. GDB + GWW for the mind flayers.

 

Spoiler

 

Straight up spankage and some GDBs for the beholders.

 

Spoiler

 

We got a surprisingly cool fight out of the slimy priests. Lots of pre-buffs, Blade Barriers all around, some gelugons. Great stuff! A lot more fun than I expected.

 

Spoiler

 

I still hate Kuo-Toans.

 

Spoiler

 

But I love the fact that they can be GDB'ed. That alone makes GBD worth it. I'll take 10. Who needs Hardiness and GWW when you can insta-kill Kuo-Toans?

 

Spoiler

 

Checked out the Demon Knights. Serg mentioned that the ATweaks Demon Knights were puppies compared to their SCS counterparts. I thought I'd take a look. They're fun, but, yes: they're puppies. FYI: Arkona did not GWW the Demon Knights with her bare fist. We equipped Ages before we attacked.

 

Spoiler

 

Bribed the guards just to see if I could do it. (Thanks, Corey!) And as an FWIW for anyone, if you kill the guards, you get your gold back.

 

Spoiler

 

Speaking of killing the guards, Adalon!

 

Spoiler

 

Adalon was awesome this time. Fighting alongside Adalon was a serious disappointment in my v30 install. It was great here- just great. 

 

She started a little slow -Akrona was doing all the work at first- but then Adalon kicked into gear.

 

Spoiler

 

Awesome.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Awesome.

 

Spoiler

 

That's the way it should be. If you go through the trouble of eliciting Adalon's aid, she should rock, she should put the smack down on some drow. I was glad to see that.

 

Just Bodhi and Jonicus and we're up to date.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Thanks, Alesia and Blackraven! Tis good to be back 

 

 

They summoned some water weirds. I heard mention of these in the BG1 thread. I chose to keep my distance from them, since I hadn't read up on their abilities. The got DBed with the Crimson Dart. They look really cool. I'd love to run with ATweaks in BG1, but, sadly, that isn't possible for me, since ATweaks isn't compatible with either of my versions of BG1.

Why is that? What version of BG1 do you have? aTweaks are compatible with //normal Baldur's Gate II games as well as either of the two Baldur's Gate conversion projects: (Easy)Tutu and Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT)//. In any case they run just fine in EasyTuTu for me.

[Alesia_BH]

Alesia, aTweaks can be installed with BG1EE, so you should definitely be able to play with it.

 

That's interesting. It didn't work when I tried. I got a requires ToB message.

 

Perhaps it's an edition thing? A Mac thing?

 

I'll do some reading and try again.

 

 

Why is that? What version of BG1 do you have? aTweaks are compatible with //normal Baldur's Gate II games as well as either of the two Baldur's Gate conversion projects: (Easy)Tutu and Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT)//. In any case they run just fine in EasyTuTu for me.

 

 

My Tutu install is strange. It's a Cider port based on a version of ToB that differs from the one that ATweaks requires. 

 

I'd have to setup a new Tutu install to run ATweaks in Tutu.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

Your comments on the aTweaks demons have made me think. I've been playing with them for quite a long time. Maybe I should return to the harder SCS Demons (to get my ass whooped by them). 

 

Don't get me wrong: The ATweaks demons are interesting. They're fun, too. They're just not for me.

 

ATweaks faithfully implements PnP's fiends. That's a great idea. And they did a great job with it. I'm sure a lot of PnP players appreciate it.

 

Here's the problem though: the stats and abilities of PnP fiends often don't work that well in the context of BG2 combat. The nabassus, for example, are 7HD (76HP) creatures with base THAC0s of 13. I'm sure that makes sense in PnP. And I'm sure PnP players are glad to see that in BG, but I, personally, want more from my nabassus. The same goes for all the other demons.

 

Mind you, the ATweaks fiends are richly detailed, and they have lots of cool abilities. They're just balanced for PnP, by design, rather than being balanced for BG, by design, as the SCS fiends are.

 

For some people, the ATweaks fiends may be great, for others not so much. You need to decide what's best for you.

 

If you like the ATweaks fiends, use them as is.

 

If you like what ATweaks does for fiends, but find them a little nerfy, try enabling Fiendish Gating and or install the SCS Fiends and then writing over their scripts with the ATweaks script (option 3 at ATweaks Fiend install). Maybe you'll find something there that works for you.

 

For me, the call is simple: SCS Fiends. Done. The SCS script is fine, great really, and I'm content with the abilities I see out of the SCS fiends. I see no reason to mess with them. They fit perfectly into the tactical world of SCS.

 

As for Fiendish Gating, I doubt it's enough to help the straight ATweaks fiends, and it has the potential to be too much with the SCS/ATweaks fiends -especially at the Throne and in Watcher's Keep. In Ascension, the fiends at the Throne already have a nicely balanced gating ability. I see no reason to mess with that either. 

 

In the end, the ATweaks Fiends represent excellent work- excellent work that just doesn't happen to make sense in the context of my game world. Whether it makes sense in the context of your game world is for you to decide.

 

Best,

 

A.

 

Btw. If we continue this, we should do so in the Lounge, I think. 

 

Btw II. Serg is using straight ATweaks Fiends + Fiendish Gating. He can comment on how the balancing works for that- perhaps over in the Lounge.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 83 - (update 5)

Pasha, half-elf druid (Grond0) & Rholfre, half-elf dragon disciple (Gate70)

 

A good session today saw this duo tick off several more of their SoA task list. 

 

They started at Umar Hills where the undead proved generally pretty easy with the help of summons.  The only exception was when they challenged the second main group of undead with limited back-up.  That resulted in a bone golem and skeleton warrior chasing Rholfre while another skeleton warrior went after Pasha.  The latter cornered her by blocking a doorway exit, which was a slight concern.  Pasha tried to dip in and out of melee to either persuade it to switch to melee and move forward out of the doorway or to take advantage of the bonuses for attacking an enemy wielding a missile weapon.  The skeleton warrior chose the latter course and couldn't stand the pace.  

Spoiler

Thaxy was pinned in place by summons - in particular Rholfre's new mordy sword spell - and eventually beaten down.

Spoiler

The Shade Lord managed to dodge some incoming insects - but only by dying first to Rholfre's improved hasted MMMs before it could complete its buffing routine.

Spoiler

 

After forging the shadow dragon armour the duo went lich hunting.  A PfU scroll and potion of speed each allowed them to work through the Elemental, Shade and City Gates Liches.  After a pit stop at the Promenade to buy the Staff of Rhynn Pasha needed an oil of speed top-up for Kangaxx, while Rholfre went for improved haste.  Pasha had 5 MMM spells left and kept those for the demi-lich.  they were sufficient to get it to badly wounded and a couple of MMM scrolls, also bought at the Promenade, were used to continue the assault.  Kangaxx got scared and managed to wriggle free (the THAC0 penalty for using a missile weapon in melee meant Rholfre could not pen him in as easily as usual), but fortunately he turned back onto Pasha's staff to complete the job with Rholfre still having one scroll spare.

Spoiler

 

The final target for the day was the Planar Sphere.  Rholfre got another level at the start of that and celebrated by killing a couple of the halfling casters with a prismatic spray (Pasha is pretty reconciled to being caught in sunfires, but is not looking forward to being sprayed ).  The golems in EE are quick and are potentially dangerous - but they're also stupid and were easily fixed in place by a mordy sword for disposal.  Lavok did manage to stop Rholfre in her tracks with a PW:stun, but insects prevented him from taking advantage of the opportunity.

Spoiler

He was still better off than Tolgerias though - he faced summons running straight towards him with insects coming in behind and never managed to get going at all.  The demon also lost out largely to summons, though he did give Rholfre a hard time by chasing her round while ignoring the summons.  

Spoiler

A couple of mordy swords didn't last quite long enough to kill all the golems in the engine room, but Pasha's iron skins allowed her to continue tanking for the little bit extra needed.

Spoiler

With the Sphere parked back in Athkatla Lavok got one last breath of fresh air and bequeathed his ring to Rholfre to give her a few more opportunities a day to create grieving widows.

 

Stats:

Pasha, druid 14, 63 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 183 kills

Rholfre, dragon disciple 15, 66 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 383 kills, 1 death (+1 in BG1)

Rholfre went ahead in levels that session and, with Pasha still needing about 850k XP for another level, the gap is likely to widen further next time.

[Alesia_BH]

Nice work!

 

This run is starting to look promising- despite the odd combination of classes.

 

How does MP work in EE? Better? Worse? Same?

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

Arkona, Halfling Barbarian: Never Mind the Bollocks- Bodhi

 

There are a few things that I'll miss when I finalize the transition to SCS v30. The old Bodhi is one of them.

 

The easiest Bodhi fight I've ever fought occurred in Aphril's v30 run. That wasn't because of v30 Bodhi, mind you, that was because of Aphril (and rat form Aerie). v30 Bodhi is a beast: A real beast. She's fast, she can hit, and she drains 5 Con points per hit. She also regenerates, making hit and run tactics problematic. How -exactly- is a solo warrior supposed to defeat her? She's a crusher, so there's a clue, but still: she's over the top. She very nearly makes ProMW a must and no required encounter should make any particular class -or any particular ability- a must. It's a problem.

 

But before Con drain, there was an SCS Bodhi that was beautifully balanced. She was challenging, but any class could handle her. That's the way it should be. I'll miss that.

 

Arkona got a nice fight out of Bodhi. It was one of the better fights in SoA, but not as epic as the final confrontation in Hell. That's right. That's what Bodhi is suppose to be. In Arkona's v30 run, Bodhi will be a crazy hurdle, in this install, she's not a crazy hurdle: she's just Bodhi. And she's fun.

 

I wish I could install v30 while retaining the older SCS Improved/Vamps and Bodhi. That would be wonderful. In the alternative, I may introduce a tweaks that removes vampire Con drain in v30. That would be fine, too. Hopefully Aasim's current patch will be up to the task. I'll let everyone know what, if any, action i take here.

 

This is just untweaked straight SCS v15 Bodhi. Fun fight!

 

First the lair. In this install, there's usually a gaggle of elder and ancient vampires who just flat out shred Drizzt's companions. Fortunately, that didn't happen this time. I hate seeing a storied epic party devastated by generic monsters.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Once she went Improved Mantle, Tanova got the now standard Sling of Everard->Smite->Power Attack->GWW. Bats did some damage here, as they always do.

 

Spoiler

 

Drizzt stands ready! (Kachiko and Arkanis, less so). Anarg's Cup is in the Bag of Holding so this is all we've got.

 

Spoiler

 

Here's the opening. Shadow Doors and ProMWs from Bodhi's mage friends and bats -lots, and lots of bats. Drizzt's running Pro Undead here. 

 

Spoiler

 

Arkona pulled back and engaged Bodhi. Arkona made progress. But Bodhi's buddy-wuddies DDoored in to her defense.

 

Spoiler

 

The corridor was getting too crowded for my taste, so Arkona withdrew. Where's Drizzt anyways?

 

Drizzt! Will you stop playing with those grim warders and help me?

Spoiler

 

Damn it, fine! I'll punk the baby vampires while you finish the warders, but we need to have a little talk after this about something I like to call priorities and another something that I like to call not-being-an-idiot.

 

Spoiler

 

Ok. Warders down. Incoming hostiles! Let's do this. Get ready Drizzt!

 

Spoiler

 

Helm of Brilliance!

 

Spoiler

 

The Helm of Brilliance Sunray blinded Bodhi's buds. You take the blinded mages, Drizzt! I'll take the demon and Bodhi!

 

Spoiler

 

We've got this.

 

Spoiler

 

Yeah, we've got this, alright.

 

Spoiler

 

Just Suldanessellar and Slayer Jon to go.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Grond0]

How does MP work in EE? Better? Worse? Same?

I'd say overall it's about the same.  For a long time EE was clearly significantly worse at MP, but the last set of fixes done mean it's getting close to the level of stability and lack of bugs available in BGT.  It's still not quite there, but there are some specific improvements that make up for that, e.g. the ability for more than 1 player to be in different stores at the same time.

[Alesia_BH]

Arkona, Halfling Barbarian: Never Mind the Bollocks- Suldanessellar

 

 

On the Beamdog forums, I recently noticed a thread titled "The Siege of Suldanessellar Should Be More Epic." I've never thought about it before, but maybe that's true. Maybe battling a drow army alongside Elhan, and you surviving allies from the Bodhi encounter would have worked better? Or something else. Maybe. I don't know. I always liked Suldanessellar well enough: the golems, Raamilat, the rhakshasas and, of course, Niz. There are some interesting foes in Suldanessellar. It's just a shame that the ToB cap wrecks it all. The problem isn't Suldanessellar, I think: it's the ToB cap. SoA should be played with the SoA cap. I feel that should be the norm, not the exception, and yet I'm reluctant to cap my game world. I'm probably not alone here. I'm sure others have felt the same, and continued to play uncapped. It's an oddity, though one that isn't hard to understand, I suppose: it's hard to give up power that's already yours.

 

Anyhoo. To the combat. 

 

First, we setup headquarters.

 

Spoiler

 

Time for Raamilat. Raamilat was a demons summoner. We saw lots of fiends here: nabassus, gelugons, cornugons. 

 

Spoiler

 

Slightly sketch moment here. With a demon incoming, we chose to quaff a Potion of Invulnerability to counter a previously applied Malison. Raamilat took that as an opportunity to unload a Chain Lightning x3 Trigger. 

 

Spoiler

 

But Chain Lightning is slow, and Arkona is fast. Arkona out ran the spell effect until her aura cleared. She then quaffed a Potion of Insulation. Now, was this really necessary? No. Arkona could have survived. But I'm in the electrocution is bad camp: always have been- always will be. I prefer not to get electrocuted: BG, RL- it makes no difference. I don't like getting electrocuted.

 

Spoiler

 

Dusk had fallen when the last demon died.

 

Spoiler

 

Finally Raamilat. Standard range weapon based mage kill.

 

Spoiler

 

Demin was just slaughtered by the Rhakshasas: there was no saving her. She was dead before their ProMWs ran out.

 

Spoiler

 

The Teleport Field? Teleport Field, you're kidding, right Rhakshasas. I'm the one with the ranged weapons. If I had level 4 slots do you know what I'd cast? Teleport Field. Thanks.

 

Spoiler

 

Damage was taken here though. This is a nasty little encounter. Small room: lot's of spells. It hurts. Demin dies- unless you roll arcane.

 

Spoiler

 

Niz. Niz caught an opening Arrow of Dispelling. Unfortunately, that landed just prior to the application of his haste effect.

 

Spoiler

 

We needed a second dispelling arrow.

 

Spoiler

 

Shadow Dragon Armor on, Protection from Acid applied, Hardiness up. This is a win- even if we did have to reapply Pro Acid due to Remove.

Spoiler

 

A wing buffet knocked us over by the stairwell. We got trapped, but that was fine. Arkona was clearly the superior melee fighter. Niz's 500+ hit points would not save him.

 

Niz does 4 damage with an offhand smack, thanks to Defender + Hardiness.

 

Spoiler

 

We reply with a ~40 damage offhand hit.

 

Spoiler

 

This can only end one way.

 

Spoiler

 

 

To the Tree!

 

​ATweaks buffed up the elemental guardians, naturally. You gotta love the Wave, btw. It's worth forging just for SCS Efreetis. Imix is a bonus.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Miracle of miracles: Jon took Pro Fire! But when did he take it: Against a barbarian...

 

Spoiler

 

DBed and Waved some summons. That ProMW signals the end for Jonicus. 

 

Spoiler

 

Unenchanted dart finished him.

 

Spoiler

 

Phew! We're almost caught up now- I never thought it would happen.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

I'd say overall it's about the same.  For a long time EE was clearly significantly worse at MP, but the last set of fixes done mean it's getting close to the level of stability and lack of bugs available in BGT.

 

Noted. Thanks!

 

Best,

 

A.

[AnonymousHero]

Your comments on the aTweaks demons have made me think. I've been playing with them for quite a long time. Maybe I should return to the harder SCS Demons (to get my ass whooped by them).

 

Personally, one of my biggest issues with the aTweaks demons was actually that some of them (Balors, I think) had a vorpal weapon which afforded no save. That's... problematic for most non-arcane characters, and so would force the player into particular classes. (I happen to be partial to arcane-capable characters, but I did have a promising no-reload Monk who perished to a vorpal hit in Hell. I think I posted it in this thread at some point.)

 

(I have much less of a problem with Vorpal-with-chance-to-save. There are a few very-limited-supply potions which can be used to defend in many of the unavoidable encounters with demons.)

[Alesia_BH]

Arkona, Halfling Barbarian: Never Mind the Bollocks- Slayer Jon in Hell

 

 

Ok. Here it is: Slayer Jon in Hell- Arkona's last catch up post. Once I press "post," Arkona will be up to date, and we'll be ready to continue on into ToB.

 

I think Arkona's battle with Slayer Jonicus in Hell constitutes an argument for using Fiendish Gating with your ATweaks Demons. Remember Impish Face's battle with Slayer Jon? Cool, right? Arkona's was cool, but not as cool. Point for Fiendish Gating.

 

As for the performance of the ATweaks demons here, remember how I described them? Beautiful, interesting, richly detailed, but nerfy with a touch of over powered? Arkona very nearly tasted that overpowered-ness for the first time. And if she had, it would have been the last time that she tasted anything. One of the balor's nearly got her.

 

I'll note also that the ATweaks demons have slightly buffed stats in this battle, and that it did help them. I still prefer David's fiends, but I'm more optimistic about ATweaks option #3.

 

Here's the opening. I do love the way the ATweaks balors look.

 

 

As soon as Jon arrived, Arkona equipped the Defender and darted away. She quaffed a Potion of Invisibility just -and I mean just- before Jon's Time Stop began. The concern had been that the glabrezu true seeing would dispel it. We timed it right, but we also had 80% physical resistance to fall back on had we not.

 

Spoiler

 

Here was the scary moment. Apparently the Teleport Without Error script was running during Time Stop, so when time resumed, all four of the demons simultaneously TWEd to Arkona. I thought she was trapped. I panicked. My timing was thrown off. And that allowed a balor to get an attack roll in. As a reminder, the balors have a 15% chance to vorpal without a save. And as an FYI, they have an APR of seven, with four of those attacks are being with the main hand vorpal weapon. Fortunately, the balor missed, and fortunately, Arkona broke free.

 

Spoiler

 

Jon cast Time Stop again. Once again, Arkona evaded it. Jon did, however, get a planetar down. We have a nice little army after us now.

 

Spoiler

 

You'll note that Arkona has Azuredge equipped rather than Seeking. I just wanted to remind myself why I hate throwing axes. They're slow and their range is terrible. You might think you'd do more damage with them, especially Klogorath, but the lack of range and touchy release rob you of attacks. They work, They're ok. But I'd take Seeking any day. 

 

Majoring in evasion here...

 

Spoiler

 

Minoring in ranged damage

 

Spoiler

 

Life got slightly uncomfortable when Jon PW:Bed Arkona. The dangerous thing about PW:B in a battle like this is that the tiny line of sight ends up slowing you down. I was terrified that that would be enough to allow a balor to execute TWE->vorpal strike. Fortunately, you can still see -even if you're blind- if you stay near the eyes on the door. We stayed up there.

 

Spoiler

 

Once the blindness cleared Arkona went to work. Azuredge took down balor one. Seeking Whirlwinds took down the planetar and balors two. Confirmed: Azuredge is for undead; Seeking is for everything else; Klogorath will be bought, but rarely used.

 

Spoiler

 

Time for the glabrezus. These ones can't be GDBed. True Seeing from the book of infinite spells.

 

Spoiler

 

Seeking

 

Spoiler

 

I have no doubt that Arkona could have taken Jonicus down in toe-to-toe melee, but with Arkona, it felt more fun to use the sling. Gessen disrupted as we worked through the Stoneskins,

 

Spoiler

 

Arkona buffed as Jon-Jons skins came down. And by the time they were consumed, she was ready to unload some heavy Whirlwinds. Jon is running away here: I can't say I blame him. He has ~250 damage per round coming at him and there's nothing he can do about it: he can't even get an attack roll in. There's no way he can catch Arkona. He doesn't have a ranged weapon. And even if he did have a ranged weapon, he'd meet the Reflex. Totally screwed.

 

Spoiler

 

The end.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Onto ToB! I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun!

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

Personally, one of my biggest issues with the aTweaks demons was actually that some of them (Balors, I think) had a vorpal weapon which afforded no save. 

 

Yes. The balors have a 15% chance to vorpal without a save. They get 4 strikes with the vorpal weapon per round. However, setting aside on instance in hell, following Jonicus's Time Stop, Arkona has found the balors easy enough to evade. Also, recall that ATweaks offers an adjustment to Death Ward that allows it to stop vorpal hits.

 

I've chosen to leave the balor vorpal as it is for this game, but if I use ATweaks in the future, I may mod the balor vorpal weapon so that it allows a save v death at -4.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Grond0]

Onto ToB! I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun!

I'm looking forward to Arkona giving 'em hell.  No, wait, she's already done that .

[Alesia_BH]

I'm looking forward to Arkona giving 'em hell.

 

Illasera disagrees. 

 

Best,

 

A.

[Grond0]

Phantasmic 6 {7} - monks party (1st and final update)

 

After surviving the rigours of BG1 the monks didn't last long in its big brother.  They made their way through the dungeon without much problem - two of them were laid out by the radiant mephit in the portal room, but by that time the portal was already destroyed and there was no real danger.  Stealthed monks did a good job of preventing Ulvaryl from getting to the battlemage.  I thought that might allow Chimera to use his vampiric touch for the first time to kill her, but she also needed a firebreath potion.

 

They moved on to the Slums to restore the Copper Coronet, allowing Chimera to buy the Blade of Roses to get charisma over 20.  He then added Sling of Seeking and Sword of Flame before returning to the Promenade to sort out the circus.  

 

At the Bridge District they picked up the berserk warrior before returning to the Promenade to upgrade that.  Then they moved on to the Graveyard, where they cleared the tombs - picking up another magic weapon from the Crypt King.

 

They fancied getting their hands on a ioun stone and Pai'Na seemed like a tempting target.  A stealth attack from 5 monks had a high chance of killing - or at least stunning - her, while Bhaal horror was expected to make a large majority of the spiders (saving throw of 17) run away.  The reality turned out to be rather different.  Pai'Na survived the initial assault and started casting chaos, while instead of 80% of spiders becoming scared, less than 30% were.  The odds of that must be astronomical, so I can't help suspecting something funny there.  However, I was so busy staring at the large swathe of red on the screen where I had expected yellow that I didn't start running in time.  One of the monks then got hindered by an arriving spider meaning they didn't manage to leave before the chaos arrived.  

Spoiler

With 4 of them affected, including Chimera, the odds were heavily against them surviving - and they didn't.

[Alesia_BH]

Bummer, Grond0. 

 

After all that good work in BG1.

 

It does sound like you got seriously unlucky.

 

Are the monk parties fun?

 

Best,

 

A.

[AnonymousHero]

Yes. The balors have a 15% chance to vorpal without a save. They get 4 strikes with the vorpal weapon per round. However, setting aside on instance in hell, following Jonicus's Time Stop, Arkona has found the balors easy enough to evade.

 

In my game+set-of-mods they had directed teleportation (1/round) which would allow them to catch up instantly. (I can't recall version numbers and such, so YMMV.) I suppose it might have been possible (given a lot of patience) to keep running and once-in-while get off a successful sling hit. IIRC, in this case, I wasn't even aware of the vorpal weapon, so I had no chance to find out if I could have outmaneuvered them.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Ouch, Grond0! Seems pretty unlucky, indeed...

 

@Alesia: thrilling fight you've had in Hell!

One note: as I can see that those demons in Hell are not fully (properly?) aTweaked  - Glabrezu can't be GDB-ed (while they normally should) and Balors (according to aTweaks readme) should be immune to +2 and below weapons and so invulnerable to +2 stones you threw on them with Sling of Seeking. In this case you shouldn't fear their *no-save* vorpals, I think.

 

Onto ToB! I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun!

Me too! Safe travels and have fun!

 

edit: just checked in NearInfinity and I think those Balors in Hell are JONDEM02 and JONDEM04 (Glabrezu are JONDEM01/03, they are 17lvl and have 5APR). They are immune to +1 and below only (that's why you were able to kill them with +2 bullets), have 104hp (as with aTweaks) and 20lvl. But! They have aTweaked weapons (Vorpal sword and Flaming Whip as a shield) so they do vorpal with 15% probability with no save. But again, they have 1APR only...

[Alesia_BH]

 

@Alesia: thrilling fight you had in Hell!

 

Thanks. It was fun. It was scary when all four of the demons landed on top of Arkona.

 

We would have seen more spell effects with the SCS fiends. I would have preferred the SCS fiend battle, honestly.

 

 

One note: as I can see that those demons in Hell are not fully aTweaked (if at all) - Glabrezu can't be GDB-ed (while they should be) and Balors (according to aTweaks readme) should be immune to +2 and below weapons and so invulnerable to +2 stones you threw on them with Sling of Seeking. In this case you shouldn't fear their *no-save* vorpals, I think.

 

They're definitely partially ATweaked. They have the ATweaks TWE animation. The also have ATweaks abilities, like the True Sights from the glabrezus and the Death Throes from the balors.

 

But yes, they are different from the usual ones.

 

 

Balors (according to aTweaks readme) should be immune to +2 and below weapons and so invulnerable to +2 stones you threw on them with Sling of Seeking. In this case you shouldn't fear their *no-save* vorpals, I think.

 

 

Yes. Did you note in the post that I had started out using Azuredge? I had jokingly said that I was confirming my dislike for Azuredge but in truth I had used it because we only had 10 +3 bullets and I expected to need +3 weapons for the balors, not to mention the planetar.

 

It did, however, occur to me that the balors here might have different weapons immunities and so I decided to try a +2 bullet. I was pleasantly surprised when it worked.

 

 In this case you shouldn't fear their *no-save* vorpals, I think.

 

Maybe. They have some ATweaks abilities. I'm not inclined to assume that the vorpal sword isn't among them.

 

I'll check my CRE file. Have you checked yours? Are you sure you're looking at the right one?

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

I just checked. My JONDEM02s and 04s have the vorpal sword.

 

Best,

 

A.