15236 réponses à ce sujet

[Grond0]

double post

Modifié par Grond0, 15 juillet 2011 - 09:47 .

[corey_russell]

Coltan the halfling thief - the Pebble Mencrusher Incident

As usual, after solving the circus, I really wanted Pebble Mencrusher's full plate. But realized I had a different situation than ever before 2 bounty hunters in the group! So my plan was the usual disabling spells, entangle, web, stinking cloud, plague of insects then whale into with range. I wanted to change that slightly and use traps when/if any of them broke free!

So the party moved upstairs at the Seven Vales, and Coltan started to lay his traps. He laid 6 traps but when he laid the sixth trap a nightmare happened - Pebble saw Coltan but the party was NOT buffed, not in position and didn't have our summons ready. Yikes!

Well the battle started and Mencar's whole gange started chasing Coltan. Coltan ran downstairs, I told the party to fight while Coltan set a trap downstairs. The party was getting mauled even with extra heal potions. Aerie got confused so she was a non-factor and died little later. Jaheria got an plague of insects off before she died, which was enough to cause Brennan Risling to flee (yay for that). Jaheria falls. Yoshimo runs downstairs and sets some traps. Then Minsc falls. It's just the two bounty hunters left. Yoshimo goes upstairs and gets a nice backstab on Pebble, 37 dmg and runs downstairs. This pulls Mencar, Orcslicer, Pooky and the mage. Mencar is near death, so Yoshimo melees just long enough to kill him, then runs gulping lot of healing potions along the way.

Coltan tries to help with his sling, but then he got aggro and he had to run around too. Eventually we corner the mage and Orcslicer isn't close and we finish him. Now it's Orclicer and Pooky vs us. However, the enemies keep switching targets so we can't get any hits on them we are always running for our lives. Yoshimo eventually dies and it's just Coltan. Coltan has no haste, so he can never get an attack in, so he just leaves Seven Vales.

Orclicer and Pooky follow. While running an Amnish guard intervened, trying to help me. So I kept running around the circus tent, but the guard was too slow and couldn't get any hits in unless I stood still (which would be suicide).

But then I remembered about the guard in Adventurer's Mart. It's tight spaces, so the guard would have better chance of getting some hits in - I was right! I ran upstairs and Orcslicer started trading hits witht he Amnish guard. I assist with my sling and Orcslicer falls (tho no experience as the guard got the killing blow). I was sure Coltan could take down Pooky, so enganged. But the guard got the killing blow there. The aftermath

Luckily Jaheria is high enough for harper's call. I have low cash. So I gather all the equipment/loot and put it all in a chest (so that it doesn''t expire, we have to rest). I pay the temple money to resurrect Jaheira. Then I have Jaheria memorize Harper's Call, we rest and resurrect our fallen. We go upstairs and re-equip ourselves.

Interesting experience. I survived, but only because I admitted defeat and started running.

[Shadow_Leech07]

Enuhal wrote...


Don't know if the saying exists in English, but in German we have this "All good things are three"-thing.

It's the old saying "Third time is the charm." Or alternatively "All good things come in threes."(the latter isn't quite as used though, not sure what it means myself)


Congrats on beating Draconis. I didn't think energy blades would work due to the druid's thaco but I guess it does. If you ever read Rataxes solo helm cleric he essentially used three things to kill everything in the game: firestorm, sword of seeking, and energy blades. Good luck going further!

Modifié par Shadow_Leech07, 15 juillet 2011 - 11:21 .

[corey_russell]

Coltan and gang continue to explore Amn:

Coltan's party staring to work a bit smoother. I wouldn't call this an "uber" group but it is flexible. Here are some things accomplished:

Party Line-up and status:
Minsc - level 10 ranger, 97 HP
Jaheira - level 9 fighter/level 11 druid, 76 HP 
Anomen - level 7 fighter/level 12 cleric, 101 HP
Nalia - level 4 thief/level 11 mage, 62 HP
Coltan - level 12 bounty hunter, 46 HP
Aerie - level 9 cleric/level 10 mage, 36 HP

* Before heading to Nalia's Keep, i wanted to get the Daystar. However, the party was definitely not ready to face the lich on equal terms. So I had Anomen get the Daystar for us with sanctuary. We just had to get him to 25 strength first. He gulped a frost giant potion, then righteous magic then holy might. He walked in and got it and walked out. This is Coltan's main weapon for now.
*We worked on Nalia's quest. I used snares a lot, which sped up a lot of fights, including Torgal. As usual we dont have any +3 weapons yet, so for the iron golem had Nalia shapeshift to a Flind and she killed him with its 2 hand weapon. No problems here.
* On the way back to Waukeen's Promenade to purchase the Aeger's Hide, we ran into vampire night battle. Was only one vampire, so Coltan did a backstab - and a nice one!
* Minsc needed a +1 item to boost his AC, but his ring slots were used up (ring of human influence, ring of earth control). So we went ahead and freed Hendak, so that we could work on the slaver ship. The beastmaster was child's play with cloudkills and bounty hunter traps. The slaver ship was also pretty easy though we played carefully.Hendak was pleased with our efforts.
* Next we wanted charm protection. We did the Lilacor quest. Just to be safe we had an Ariel Servant and Minsc with a long bow take down the hobgoblins. Rest of the quest was straightforward, Minsc now has charm and confusion protection. Jaheira needs one now, we we went ahead and worked on finding Montaron which garnered us a charm protection helmet for Jaheira.

Other than the Mencar Pebblecrusher fight, no real disasters. Suniki asked for our help, but I didnt feel confident about my party yet, so we didn't intervene. I'm looking for a magical buckler but not seeing anywhere - does anyone know where to find one?

[Enuhal]

I think the only magical buckler in Baldurs Gate II is located in Mae'Vars guildhall, in one of the exercise chests. Other than that, there's only Kiel's buckler in TotSC.

[Enuhal]

Arinja, level 31 totemic druid.

Arinja ran past the ice salamanders and bone golems, filled the bottle and returned. For the rope, she summoned her forces to fight the water elementals - this is where I realized that Arinja was actually able to deal quite some damage in melee if she uses some of the improved haste spells she has (3x ring of gaxx, 1x bracers of blinding strike, 1x amulet of cheetah speed). With 6 apr, she gets some hits in even though her thac0 isn't really that great.

Anyway, with the rope, she ignored all the eyes (they can't deal damage if you use the cloak of mirroring), and, since for some reason the adventurer party died instead of standing there being turned to stone, Arinja decided to simply kill the mage to get the scroll of reversal. So she talked to the dragon and entered Abazigal's area.

Abazigals normal form can be annoying because you actually can't go soft on him - he will simply kill your summons. So I eventually had to summon deva, prince and use energy blades to get him to transform. Abazigal's dragon form was by far the toughest enemy for Arinja yet.

The dragon quickly killed prince and deva, and since Arinja was out of powerful summons pretty quick, she tried to retreat. However, going to pocket plane in this battle is much more difficult, and you can't leave the area any other way. Do you know the spot right at the entrace of the area? This screenshot is from much later in the battle, but you can see the spot here. This is where Abazigal kicked Arinja and trapped her. No way to leave this tiny piece of space.

However, I sooned discovered, as my ironskins got destroyed, that if you go very far to the northeast, there's a tiny space where Abazigal can't reach you with physical attacks - only with wing buffet and his breath weapon (and I had 127 electricity resistance). Before I managed to figure that out, Arinja was almost killed 4 times, and only RoR-charges were able to safe her. She never got that close to death before.
Well, this gave Arinja time to think, though she had to use a potion here and there. She tried some spells like NB, but Abazigal resisted all of them. Eventually, she waited for a time where she wasn't blinded (he tends to do that alot) and started summoning spirit animals behind Abazigal, quickly letting them run away to lure him. After a few tries, the strategy worked, and Arinja could flee. With the help of more spirit animals, she distracted Abazigal for a second in the north while she ran down with an oil of speed and finally managed to return to pocket plane - though it was very close.

So Arinja got a second try - I decided to try and go with the same strategy that worked with Draconis (since for the first try, I wasn't able to execute any strategy at all). At least all the ice salamanders were dead (mainly killed by Abazigals breath weapon). So I buffed, entered the area, summoned a simmy, had her cast ironskin and myself summon an elemental prince. This is were I forgot about a core element in dragon battles: Always be protected against fear! So before the simmy could summon a deva, both of us got affected by dragon's fear. There was nothing to do but pray.

Luckily, Arinja ran not too stupid, and Abazigal wasted precious time at the simmy. The bad thing, however, was that Arinja ran exactly to the same spot again, and this is where the fear spell stopped affecting her and this is also where Abazigal caught up with her. She was trapped once again.

However, for this try I had like 5 or 6 ironskin spells memorized, and still had almost all of my level 7 spells. So I used Arinja's trapped position to my advantage. Ironskinned and summoned Chan and a Deva, though all NB spells failed once again. At least the deva could cast remove fear before being killed. More importantly, Arinja, who didn't see a lot of solutions for her problem, decided to simply try and attack Abazigal. She used her improved haste charges one by one, and this is where the screenshot is from. Abazigal is near death in the picture and Arinja is in no big trouble, because every time she got low on ironskins, Arinja could just retreat to the spot and recast them, and the dragon, for some reason, didn't try to heal in the meantime.

That's why, eventually, Abazigal was defeated - due to the basic strategy of "ihaste + attack".

I propably should stop trying to play intelligent. It always seems to fail.

Modifié par Enuhal, 16 juillet 2011 - 09:03 .

[Saint of Sinners]

Enuhal wrote...

I propably should stop trying to play intelligent. It always seems to fail.

Not really, it doesn't. However, when fighting the really big ones in BG2, awareness >>> intelligence everytime. Much like in real life. Doesn't matter if you know the spell to cast if you can't find the right moment to cast it.

I had the same experiece with my blade fighting the shadow dragon. I was so scared and overprepared myself for the battle, but the battle ended with me using something like 10 scrolls of resurrection and hiding in the far corner where he threw me after a wing buffet. Never left the spot and just waited for him by the wall, where we just hacked at each other until he fell.

And, hey, it's not really a failure playing smart. Up to the point of killing him, that was playing smart. It's just that these guys require something more, and I guess awareness is it.

Good luck, Enuhal. It's fun reading about your run. It's pretty much what I was doing with mine before I stopped.

[Triaxx2]

Yeah, Maevar does indeed have the only magical buckler, unless you bring Kiel's forward. Though you can still cheat it in.

I must say, I just finished reading the entire topic. Awesomeness through and through. I suppose once I finish a standard run, I might try an NR run.

[BelgarathMTH]

@Corey, great story about your close call at the Seven Vales! I'm glad it had a happy ending.

One technique question: how do you get a rogue to lay traps for an encounter without being spotted? Improved Invisible? And how do you know where to put them? Is that just experience?

[corey_russell]

As long as you don't see an enemy and the enemy doesn't see you, you can lay down traps. In addition, a Bounty Hunter can "throw" his special traps, so like in Mencar's case I could throw it right by them because they are blue circle (the traps don't go off until they are red circle).

As to where to lay them, you lay them in their path. For example I could have Minsc shoot the enemies with a bow and run back to the party and when they chase Minsc they will set off the traps.

Modifié par corey_russell, 16 juillet 2011 - 03:38 .

[Enuhal]

Arinja, level 31 solo totemic druid.

Arinja entered Amkethran to challenge Balthazar. She went invisible and talked to Seamon, accepting his idea and getting into a fight. The deva took care of the problem.

For Balthazar, Arinja immediatly tried the strategy that killed Draconis - she summoned a simmy, used energy blades and directly attacked the monk. However, he survived the attacks, forcing Arinja to summon a deva to block him while recasting the simmys energy blades. Though he never posed any kind of threat (never even destroying Arinja's ironskins), Balthazar was tough - he constantly healed himself, went invisible or teleported around, forcing Arinja, who was out of offensive spells, to return to pocket plane and try again.

She started the second try just like the first, now not having any monks left to worry about. Still, Balthazar survived the combined attacks. However, even though the simmy was eventually unsummoned while trying to kill the monk with physical attacks under ihaste, Balthazar wasn't able to completely recover from his wounds, and Arinja, who summoned Chan to help her out, managed to finally finish him with more energy blades. Difficult to kill, but entirely non-frightening enemy.

Modifié par Enuhal, 16 juillet 2011 - 04:54 .

[Alesia_BH]

Congrats Enuhal! Best of luck in the endgame.

A.

[Enuhal]

Thank you

Arinja went to pocket plane, ready to finally to finish all the pocket plane challenges. At first, she had to do the second one - fighting an alternate herself and Sarevok's friends. With some fire elementals, deva and prince distracting the enemies, Arinja quickly killed Tamoko with energy blades before running away from her copy while the summons were killing all the other enemies.

Eventually, she managed to blind Dark Arinja with Nature's Beauty, allowing for a simple conclusion to the not that easy battle.

The third challenge was rather easy - it simply involved powerful summons + Arinja and her simmy attack the slayer with energy blades until it was dead.

For the forth challenge, Arinja basically did the same thing, adding true sight to the mix. Simmy and energy blades + summons were enough to quickly defeat all the Chosen of Cyric.

Now, for the Ravager, by far the most difficult of the challenges and propably the most threatening non-dragon enemy so far. Summons are basically not able to deal any significant damage to him before he kills them, so they can only serve as a short distraction. Attacking him with energy blades didn't bring him further down than slightly injured. However, after using dispel magic to destroy his blade barrier, Arinja managed to pull off the combo she had planned for Draconis, effectively using "Magic Resistance" and "Nature's Beauty" to take him out of the fight - it is, of course, much easier if the enemy doesn't kick you around or becomes invisible all the time.
Still, with all the blades chasing her and no summons left, her pitiful damage output didn't seem enough to kill the ravager, and her ironskins were fading, so she went for the "armor piercing strike + harm"-combo - which actually worked for the first time in this playthrough! - I didn't write about this, but I actually tried aps+harm quite a few times on several bosses, but it always failed. Here, when it was basically Arinjas last option, it actually was successful, and she quickly delivered the last hit with an energy blade.

So now, there's only Amelyssan left.
I would be happy for any tactical suggestions. I basically have no idea how I'd be able to beat Melissan 4 times - 1, sure, 2, possibly - but after that, I am pretty sure Arinja will be out of spells.

Modifié par Enuhal, 16 juillet 2011 - 10:37 .

[ExFalsoQuodlibet]

My (first) Sorcerer died, trying to Solo the Planar Sphere early. After beating the Halflings, Lavok, and Tolgerias, he couldn't stand against the Tanari when he was down at level 12. Spell Immunity didn't seem to protect against the Demon's Hold attack, which resulted in a painful death. I actually retried this fight a few times just to see how one -would- beat it, and was pretty stumped.

Rolled up another Sorc and have been using (mostly) the same tactics as the last runthrough (Polymorph Self continues to rock). I've freed Hendak, collected Lilarcor, and beaten the Slavers. Not sure where I'll head next in this playthrough, possibly D'Arnise Keep, as I've generally found that to be one of the easier Stronghold quests.

If I fall again this time I'll try a Gnome C/I, Human Swashbuckler/Mage, or Half-elf F/M (choices!). 

Modifié par ExFalsoQuodlibet, 16 juillet 2011 - 11:21 .

[Alesia_BH]

Enuhal wrote...
So now, there's only Amelyssan left.
I would be happy for any tactical suggestions. I basically have no idea how I'd be able to beat Melissan 4 times - 1, sure, 2, possibly - but after that, I am pretty sure Arinja will be out of spells.

I can't offer any advice since I've been playing with the Ascension ending for many, many years now.

Best of luck though!

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 17 juillet 2011 - 12:12 .

[Triaxx2]

Technically, as long as you can't see the enemies you can drop traps. Including closing a door, or just backing out of reach.

[AnonymousHero]

ExFalsoQuodlibet wrote...

My (first) Sorcerer died, trying to Solo the Planar Sphere early. After beating the Halflings, Lavok, and Tolgerias, he couldn't stand against the Tanari when he was down at level 12. Spell Immunity didn't seem to protect against the Demon's Hold attack, which resulted in a painful death. I actually retried this fight a few times just to see how one -would- beat it, and was pretty stumped.

Potion of Freedom? (They're quite rare, though, iirc. Ribald sells one, but I'm not sure who else does.) There may be other effects which he throws at you, so a Potion of Magic Shielding (make all saves automatically) might be in order.

Another option might be GoI, though I'm not sure what level the demon's "effects" are considered -- I just noticed that GoI works against the confusion attack of the Umber Hulks.

[Enuhal]

Unless someone comes up with a genius plan completely unknown to me, thus proving me wrong, I'll stand by my judgement that killing Amelyssan with a solo totemic druid in a no-reload game is only possible with an absurd amount of luck or by using some exploits. I've already discovered this with my previous totemic druid - there were exactly two ways she eventually managed to defeat Amelyssan - first, constant reloading until she hit the priestress with "Harm" - second, abusing the "putting a ring bag into the bag recharges him"-bug and killing Amelyssan with the Ring of the Ram (which is prettty much the only really relieable way to deal damage to her).

Oh, I tried. I fought Amelyssan for about half an hour straight. Started with deva because she and her summons can use fear. Got my spellcasting disrupted a lot, not being able to get through her stoneskins. Ironskin was gone, my simmy too, too many summons on the field to successfully recast ironskins. Getting surrounded, but, with some ror-charges, getting out by killing some of the summons.

I eventually tried some things I haven't tested on my previous run, like using firestorm - didn't do any damage. Amelyssan got stuck (blocked by her summons) for a short time, allowing me to recast my buffs and summons. Trying to deal damage to her in melee combat, but to no avail. She also dispelled my energy blades.

Death Tyrant dispelled all of my buffs, I thought I was dead here, but Arinja stood up and got away. Using lots and lots of potions, her Oils of Speed were already all gone (they kept getting dispelled all the time). Arinja managed to claw her way out of another surround, got held, but still survived because the death tyrant dispelled the hold spell immediatly.

I had no options left, the only thing I could do all battle was stay alive as long as possible until all potions were gone. I admitted defeat.

Arinja was still alive, though, so I decided (though the no-reload challenge was over) to try the recharging ring of the ram-thing, which worked as usual. Arinja took out the air elementals with her sling. After bringing Amelyssan to injured with the ring-trick in the second battle, the druid finally was killed.

I guess if I had gone with the ring of the ram-thing right away, I might have won the battle, but I don't use obvious exploits in a no-reload game, so it wasn't an option. For harm spells, I pretty much only learned those when it came to level 6 spells and tried all of them - manged to hit with none of them. Amelyssan seems to have an answer to all the totemic druids powers.

Still, I am quite happy with how the run went (it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to defeat Amelyssan, and I am proud of killing Draconis, Abazigal and the Ravager). Guess I might install BGT and SCSI+II and return to the first game again Good luck to all of you!

[Grond0]

Enuhal wrote...

Unless someone comes up with a genius plan completely unknown to me, thus proving me wrong, I'll stand by my judgement that killing Amelyssan with a solo totemic druid in a no-reload game is only possible with an absurd amount of luck or by using some exploits. I've already discovered this with my previous totemic druid - there were exactly two ways she eventually managed to defeat Amelyssan - first, constant reloading until she hit the priestress with "Harm" - second, abusing the "putting a ring bag into the bag recharges him"-bug and killing Amelyssan with the Ring of the Ram (which is prettty much the only really relieable way to deal damage to her).

Still, I am quite happy with how the run went (it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to defeat Amelyssan, and I am proud of killing Draconis, Abazigal and the Ravager). Guess I might install BGT and SCSI+II and return to the first game again Good luck to all of you!

Hard luck Enuhal, but I enjoyed reading your run.  I've never got that far in BG2 (so am speaking from a position of ignorance), but it sounds from your description like mobility could be an important factor.  Would wearing the boots of speed, so that your speed advantage could not have been dispelled, help?

[Enuhal]

I was, of course, wearing the boots of speed. However, all the summons there were hasted or double-hasted as well. The Death Tyrants also sometimes use slow - the surrounds usually only happened because I tried to deal some physical damage to Amelyssan. In my installation, boots of speed stack with other haste effects, that's why the oils of speed were important - but considering Amelyssans attack range and the constant dispells of her and the death tyrants, there was no relieable way to stay out of danger for too long - when there were not a lot of summons on the field, it was just long enough to cast a spell with medium casting time.

Modifié par Enuhal, 17 juillet 2011 - 09:48 .

[AnonymousHero]

I may be completely off here (never played druids), but could something like Amulet of Cheetah Speed, Boots of Speed and a sling with +4 bullets work? (I'm guessing no, but it's worth trying, I guess.)

[Enuhal]

Sadly, as mentioned above, the enemies will still catch up to you (especially the slayer shadows - and since the area is too small, death tyrants and Amelyssan don't even need to run a lot). If you had an unlimited supply of oils of speed and healing potions, there might be a slight chance to deal some damage to her that way, but you'd propably endup getting all of your buffs dispelled by Amelyssan and her Death Tyrants pretty quickly, and then that's just a question of when you'll get affected by a crowd control spell. I think I tried this with my previous totemic druid.

The druid's thac0 and apr are really a very limiting factor in this battle. Every single class has far better physical damage abilities at that point in the game with the right buffs. The druid just doesn't get access to these buffs. And energy blades can sadly be dispelled/don't last too long.

Modifié par Enuhal, 17 juillet 2011 - 09:55 .

[Grond0]

Are apr relevant with a sling - from your description of the tight quarters it doesn't sound as though you would get enough room for more than 1 attack anyway before you need to move? I think this type of strategy has been used by Alesia in quite a few battles. Does Amelyssan regenerate to stop herself dying from sling attacks over time?

[Enuhal]

She heals herself completely when she gets low and if you can't stop her. APR concerns melee attacks, but you should consider that it takes ages to even get through Amelyssans stoneskins with a sling (no breach for druids), thus making it far more likely that you already have been stripped of all your buffs and are an easy target (or already dead) - there is no such thing as kiting Amelyssan, because she doesn't need to be close to you to kill you.

[corey_russell]

Coltan the halfling thief update - more stuff

Coltan's party continues to explore Amn. Some highlights:

* I wanted Jaheira to use "sword and shield" style. But the best weapon for that is a club. So we went to trademeet, had Aerie memorize protection from petrification, and bought some stone to flesh scrolls. The genies most dangerous thing is a flesh to stone spell they cast. The party did MASSIVE buffs, and apparetly killed the genie very quickly.. This allowed us to get Aerie the shield of harmony as well as buy the blackblood club for Jaheira. This weapon will serve Jaheira well through SoA.
* We met Baron Ployer. Before confronting him we did what buffs that we needed. It appeared to be unnecessary, though, as an insect plague and chaos took the enemies completely out of action.
* Coltan investigated Maevar on behalf of Renal Bloodscalp. Coltan declined the control of the thieve's guid. Minsc soloed Rayic Gethras. A properly buffed tank is dangerous to mages, though was wondering why Rayic didn't try a remove magic on Minsc, that would've evened the playing field. Rayic didn't, so he had no chance against Minsc as a result. When dealing with Maevar's guild, they were easily dealt with. Maevar and his buddies were taken down by a fire elemental and an Ariel Servant.
* We had to go to the Temple District so that Anomen could get judged. Since we were already here, we decided to deal with Tarnor's gang. I DID cast remove fear, to avoid a repeat of my last run's end here. Also, I didn't experiment this time, I used a tried and true method - which is Coltan scouts ahead and sees a bandit group. He backs off, then Minsc and Jaheira fire off an entangle just of sight, and Aerie and Nalia fire off a web. Then Aerie follows up with a stinking cloud, fireball and 2x holy smites. Nalia follows up with 2x cloudkill and Anomen follows up with 2x holy smite. The person who even showed themselves to the party while all this was going on was Gaius, but a cruel insect plague by Jaheira finished him off. The battle was a complete success.
* Being safe again, we had our summons battle the Rakshaka and kobold buddies. This was successful. We gave Minsc the full plate +1 and the cloak of the sewers. This put his AC at -5, not bad for dual-wielding.

Next up will be the druid grove.