To protect my future, I decided to pause the game after the dust settled, and spent about 10 minutes studying and studying again the transcript of that battle from the actions window.
After learning several things, I just had the insight that this is just like chess. Chess masters get that title by spending hours and hours outside actual playing, studying books, and most importantly, transcripts of every move in, not only games they've lost, but of games that their colleagues have lost and won.
I would never have beaten Firkraag on my own. I only was able to do it because I had studied "book move" advice here on the forums that the key to dragon battles is to get four Lower Resistance cast, and then make the kill with Magic Missiles while the melee fighters, who can only hit with a 20, i.e. very rarely hit at all, distract the beast and keep it occupied.
Also, I had never really taken Improved Invisibility seriously until my failed but almost won run, when all five of my party members were dead and I actually, as a simple straight 12th level sorcerer, stood toe to toe with Firkraag and got two Magic Missiles cast before he finally got me. (heh, "Near Death" for a dragon doesn't mean what it means for other creatures - it means "yeah, you have a glimmer of hope in a thousand years, so what, chump?"
)I have also learned from my study of the Superhalfling Mage battle that spells like Chaotic Command and Protection from Magic Energy are not as useful as you would think in high level arcane battles, because Dispel Magic and Remove Magic and Spellstrike and the like are going to be flying back and forth like tennis balls on every round. And, if you are an inquisitor or using Keldorn, you can't use your Inquisitor Dispel without constant fear of removing spell protections -
Which means, you need to prioritize finding items and strategies that minimize or eliminate your dependence on spells for defense. Magic items, scrolls, and potions are your friends; protective spells, not so much.
Also, I have learned that Symbol, Stun is perhaps one of, if not the, most powerful spell in the game. The only reliable defense is to have a cleric of your own with the spell and to get it cast before the enemy cleric. And since they can do it before you can, there is truly "safety in numbers". The more friends you have on your side, the better.
Except, perhaps, for the solo game masters. But I really think that succeeding solo depends on either an awful lot of reloading, or else intimate knowledge of every map and enemy in the game. Which actually goes to my point about the chess analogy - though I don't really care that much for solo playing myself, I can see that if one has studied to the point that six-member party play and reduced-party member play is boring, even with SCS, many people enjoy the further challenge of going mano-a-mano against the AI and increasing their skills to supercomputer level mastery - the player vs. Deep Blue, so to speak.
Anyway, I thought it was really cool how this game is so good that it is like the ultimate classic for intelligent and discerning gamers, chess. And I have a new appreciation for people who can beat the game solo and no-reload.
It's not something I would do myself; just as I enjoy chess casually, but I don't want to have to think about it too terribly much, then so I enjoy Baldur's Gate casually, but etc., etc.
What a great game. They truly don't make them like this any more.
Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 30 juin 2011 - 08:45 .
Retour en haut
