64 réponses à ce sujet

[Alesia_BH]

Good luck in the final fight Grond0!

Are you considering exporting Killjoy to BG2?

My Jester, Alisa, has completed a lot of the major vanilla BG2 fights at Level 1. I'm sure Killjoy could handle many of them as well. It may be worth trying.

Enjoy!

A.

[Grond0]

Alesia_BH wrote...

Good luck in the final fight Grond0!

Are you considering exporting Killjoy to BG2?

My Jester, Alisa, has completed a lot of the major vanilla BG2 fights at Level 1. I'm sure Killjoy could handle many of them as well. It may be worth trying.

Enjoy!
A.

I don't think so - I'm a bit bored with these tactics by now, though I will see if she can finish off the final fight.  That's going to be difficult - I can only think of two possible ways to kill Sarevok (without getting any XP) and both of them are very long shots.  It would be far easier in vanilla of course where you can kill Sarevok without having to kill all his acolytes first.

Thus far only Diarmid is dead -  the fight is being made far more difficult than it should be because every time a save is loaded all Sarevok's cronies reapply all their buffs (including going invisible) and also change positions.

Modifié par Grond0, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:47 .

[Alesia_BH]

Understood. Good luck! It sounds like a formidable challenge.

[corey_russell]

Grond0, I don''t think you should count killing Sarevok as experience, unless your game doesn't end then I guess. My install "says" I get 15k for killing him but I never see the experience since I can''t save after the kill.

[Grond0]

The game is continuous into BG2 - you need to go back to talk to Belt to activate the transition into Athkatla. Therefore he would get the XP.

I have thought of a potential 3rd option now, which will also need testing to see if it's a genuine possibility - could take a while!

[Grond0]

OK - I'm now virtually certain that option 3 will work to provide the finishing touch to Sarevok, but that has meant having to start the temple battle again from scratch.  Could still take quite a while to actually complete, therefore.
Option 3 was conceived as a response to the inability to drag Sarevok off to find someone else to fight for me - in the way that guards for instance were used to finish off Tranzig.  The problem is that the temple can't be left once the fight has started and Sarevok can't be killed until all his acolytes are dead (and the skeleton warriors that replace them can't be charmed).  However, I thought it was possible that an NPC could join Killjoy in the temple right at the start of the fight.
Tried charming Tamoko, but she doesn't seem susceptible - same with Wudei from the party down the road.  However, Haseo could be done and was a possibility - though I would prefer a magic user to a fighter.  Eventually settled on Shaldrissa - she has summon spells, direct damage spells and domination, which could all potentially be useful.  I've put her in cold storage in a corner of the temple to await her moment later on.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Which mod allows you to take non-party characters along for area transits?

[Grond0]

Hit a bit of a snag with this battle. I tried starting with Tazok, rather than Diarmid this time, but his saves are too good for charm person. Therefore moved on to Angelo. I knew he could be charmed, but his saves were good and because he rebuffed each time a game was reloaded it was taking quite a while, so brought Shaldrissa on side to dominate him. That killed Angelo, but unfortunately Shaldrissa's spells did not regenerate when Killjoy rested, so she couldn't do the same to any of the other acolytes.

She did manage to confuse Tazok, but Sarevok did not react to being hit by him, so that was no good and none of her other spells would help with killing Tazok. Hence Killjoy carried on herself. Diarmid was charmed and became Sarevok's next victim and then the crucial question - could Semaj be charmed?

The stumbling block here is that it is very difficult to survive long enough to get Semaj to come out of invisibility - the two skeleton warriors now wandering around just add an extra complication. It is clearly possible, but so unlikely that I've given up for the time being and will start the fight again from the beginning - ho hum.

This time I want to find out whether Semaj can be charmed first, to see what useful spells she might have - Angelo didn't really have any.

[Grond0]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...
Which mod allows you to take non-party characters along for area transits?

I think the potential is there in vanilla, but just not used very often.  It's much more common with SCS, where creatures often follow across area transitions - sometimes even if the PC is invisible.

The normal method for dragging worked here - charm, move PC next to exit and pause, attack with charmed character and move on through.

[Grond0]

Starting again I've spent quite a while trying to charm Angelo. He's the most difficult of the acolytes to pin down because he moves around so much, so I decided it was really necessary to start with him rather than Semaj. However, the fact that his buffs renew whenever you load a save means that even attempting a charm on him takes a while. I did successfully charm him twice in earlier attempts at this fight (so I know it's possible), but no joy so far today.

I think I need a rest from this, so I'm going to put this battle on hold for a while and play a bit of a normal game.

[Son of Imoen]

It's a great read, Grond0. A wonderful achievement having come that far. How did you distribute your initial thieving skills I wonder? All in stealth I presume? Would you want to post a screenshot with the relevant abilities?

Modifié par Son of Imoen, 23 octobre 2011 - 07:57 .

[Grond0]

Son of Imoen wrote...

How did you distribute your initial thieving skills I wonder? All in stealth I presume? Would you want to post a screenshot with the relevant abilities?

Sure - here are her current abilities (which of course are the same as her original ones).


I put all the points into move silently.  I understand that in vanilla the check on whether active stealth is maintained depended only on that (while the average was used to determine the initial hiding success) - that doesn't work in my install unfortunately, so it doesn't matter whether points are in move silently or hide in shadows.  At 50% stealth she still fails stealth checks very regularly.  Therefore, although other thief skills could have been of minor use, I wouldn't want to have put less than the maximum into stealth.

A stalker could get a rather higher stealth score, but I don't think they would be able to do a number of the encounters on the way without charm person (assuming they were trying to maintain 0 XP, without use of items).

[Grimwald the Wise]

The twoways of killing Sarevok without getting experience are:
Beat him up first and then either get him kill ed with the exploding arrows.
Beat him up first and then either get him killed by setting of a trap.

In the similar game that I played. (i.e. No killing by my character) I don't know which of these two actually killed him as they happened simultaneously and I was running away at the time so Sarevok was out of sight.

However it is worth noting that traps can actually be beneficial, so DON'T disarm them.

[Grond0]

Unfortunately I don't think either of these works in SCS. There are no traps in the temple so that one is definitely out. All Sarevok's acolytes have to be killed before he is so they can't help either (otherwise charming one of them would be possible). They are replaced by skeleton warriors, two of whom are archers. I'm almost certain that they don't have exploding arrows, although one of them does have dispelling arrows.

Remaining possibilities I'm considering if I can get rid of the acolytes are:
- charm Sarevok and get the skeletons to beat him up for me (though I'm not sure if charming him is possible).
- use the character from the party outside the temple to kill him (just after they have stopped being charmed).
- I don't know what Semaj's spell book contains, but if he has skull trap this could also be used.

As you say, once his acolytes are dead, the plan will be to stealth and beat him up with fists to get him ready for the coup de grace.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Do you actually kill Sarevok in a SCS BGT game though?
Didn't he "plot-die", ie: take enough damage, then talk to you and finally drop dead on his own?

[Grond0]

I'm not sure now you raise it - presumably your point being that you may not get the XP for his death anyway. I had the impression XP was awarded, but could be wrong about that. In any event he can't plot die until his acolytes are all dead and that's the major complication in the fight - finishing him off may be a bit fiddly and time consuming, but don't think it will be a real challenge.

[Son of Imoen]

It be an amazing feat if you pull it off, in my opinion. I myself never managed to finish the SCS improved version of the fight, even under normal circumstances: a full party at level-cap. But I guess I'm not in the 'top range' of experienced BG-players (don't even do no-reload challenges).

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Grond0 wrote...
presumably your point being that you may not get the XP for his death anyway.

I know you get XP, I just don't know if it's for killing him, or for him dying.
If it's the latter, then you cannot avoid the XP.

[Grond0]

OK. If it is unavoidable I wouldn't really mind that. Killjoy did not want to earn any money, but couldn't avoid a reward for investigating the Iron Throne. Similarly she didn't want to pick up any items, but had to take letters to trigger a couple of chapter endings and the book to get back into Candlekeep.

[Grond0]

Right - time for another bash at finishing this off. 

Angelo was the first one targeted.  The other acolytes all stick close to Sarevok and their movement is thus predictable, but Angelo wanders all over the place, so he might interrupt plans later if left now.  He was hard to charm, due to good saving throws and magic resistance, but Killjoy got there in the end.  He came out of charm well before being killed, but Sarevok is an unforgiving sort and kept whacking away at him even after Angelo started shouting he was on Sarevok's side.

Next up was Diarmid.  As Tazok's saves are too good for charm person I wanted Diarmid to kill him.  To give him any chance of that Killjoy needed to expose herself to Sarevok while casting charm person so that he would chase her.


She then practiced hiding from him round the pillars while Diarmid was fighting. 


The additional complication was that Diarmid needed to kill Tazok after the charm had ended in order to avoid XP getting credited.  After several near misses at this Semaj provided a helping hand - kindly killing both Tazok and Diarmid with a fireball.


That's it for real progress to date.  I know Semaj can't be charmed and I suspect he can't be dominated by Shaldrissa either, but I'm testing that at the moment.  Got stuck for a while because Semaj's response to seeing Killjoy went into a loop and he always met her with an instant death acid arrow minor sequencer. 

Eventually broke out of that by charming Shaldrissa and using a summoned dire wolf to break the loop.


If he (or Sarevok) can't be dominated then Shaldrissa will have to be set up to try and finish Semaj off after he comes out of being charmed. 

[Grond0]

Further testing demonstrated that Semaj can't even be affected by Shaldrissa's domination, i.e. his saves against spell are -1 at worst.  Therefore considered how best Shaldrissa might be able to kill Semaj in the less than 5 rounds available of being charmed.  A possibility seemed to be 2 x acid arrow + 2 x flame arrow - the advantage of the acid arrows being that they continue to do damage for some time after being cast.  Still wasn't easy, but eventually this tactic proved its worth.

As Shaldrissa had gone neutral again before Semaj's death there was no XP.

There was still a bit of work to do as there was now a skeleton warrior standing next to Sarevok, but showing herself at a distance and then running and hiding dragged the skelly over to the other side of the board - his friends also following.


That means Sarevok is all alone on the west side of the temple with all those pillars to hide behind. I've said a couple of times it should be fairly easy to kill him from this position - now I've actually got to prove it.

[Son of Imoen]

How do you manage to save your progress, Grond? You seem to do the battle one step at the time, then continue from where you left off, but how do you manage to avoid the 'you can't save while enemies are about'?

[Grond0]

If you're not in visual range of an enemy you can save, even if they are actually pretty close, so all Killjoy has to do is be able to stealth to be able to save. With all the pillars in this temple it's a very easy location to stealth. You're quite right that this battle has very much been step by step with saves at each stage, but the only other one where that's been true was against Slythe (and to a rather lesser extent Daveorn). Those 2 fights would be difficult to do as a no-reload, but certainly not impossible; all the others would be very doable no-reload. Technically of course the temple fight could also be done that way, but even having worked out a possible strategy I think the odds of winning the lottery would be a lot better than winning this fight no-reload!

I've already hit Sarevok a number of times and can't see any problem with the fight from here, except that it will still take a long time! Even with her backstab (rabbit punch) bonus she still needs a 17 to hit and normally only does 2 damage - the conclusion will have to wait for tomorrow.

[Grond0]

Killjoy has made progress, though it's hard going - Sarevok is now at injured status.  However, based on progress to date I reckon it would take at least another 6 hours of continuous micro-managed play to beat him up just with fists.  That doesn't sound like fun, so I'm going to get Shaldrissa to speed things up with her direct damage spells.

In case anyone is curious about how stealth is possible using the pillars, here are a few examples:

Sarevok has just become visible at one side of the pillar.


A tiny movement back and he's gone.


And there he is again at the other side.


Even this small pillar provides a considerable obstruction to sight.  As it hinders Sarevok's vision so much, but is quick to move around it is better suited to stealth than the large pillars (though they are possible as well it is more difficult to prevent Sarevok getting an attack in as he moves quite a bit quicker).

A combat example.  Here Sarevok takes a vicious blow.


Moving round Sarevok is now hidden by the pillar.  Note that you can still see his outline - this is the 'persistence of vision' effect that allows you still to know where something is for a short while after going out of visual range.  This does not affect stealth.


And a moment later Sarevok reappears round the pillar to find his opponent has gone.


You'll notice a lot of pausing on the screenshots.  I think this is probably essential for anyone to stealth like this - certainly in my install the action is far too quick for me to judge accurately the right point to pause the game.  Hence when timing is crucial I use double-taps on the space bar to move things forward in small increments.

Modifié par Grond0, 27 octobre 2011 - 07:52 .

[Grond0]

The run is over, though regrettably not without accumulating any XP.  As Humanoid_Taifun pointed out earlier Sarevok's death is scripted when he gets to low HPs rather than dying a normal death.  The XP you get for him is actually quest experience rather than directly relating to him.  Just to make sure Killjoy first beat him to death with her fists:


Then Sarevok was persuaded to attack Shaldrissa protected by fire shield - she was neutral well before he reached her.



Just as a final point note that the tactics I used won't always be available in vanilla or if you have a different set of mods.  In most cases the encounters on the way would be easier in vanilla - the only one I'm not sure about is the final battle with Sarevok.  I've got the rest anywhere mod that allows resting in the final temple and this is essential for a no items, level 1 character to beat SCS.  Obviously resting like this isn't possible in vanilla; however, as Sarevok can be killed so much more easily in vanilla than SCS, I suspect that the final battle would actually be more straightforward in vanilla (though I have no desire to test this out for the time being).