120 réponses à ce sujet

[Jianson]

Good choice holding off Planar Prison and Unseeing Eye quests for now. They are definitely two of the hardest main quests at this stage of the game.

Clay Golems require blunt weapons, +2 or better.
Iron Golem requires +3 weapons, any type (iirc).

[Grond0]

Pangaea wrote...
Have cleared the hold and killed the boss downstairs, but there is still a door I can't open (before it's repaired) and one piece of the flail hasn't been found either. Will have another look around today and see if I have missed something obvious. Usually go through containers and such systematically, but you never know.

Have you looked on the map to check you have explored the whole of the top floor of the Hold?  Someone with a piece of the flail is behind a secret door.

Oh, and that clay and iron golem were impossible to hurt. After a couple of futile attempts I gave up trying to grab the bow-item in the middle.

Clay golems need +1 or better blunt weapons to hit - you were probably trying with just piercing and slashing.  Iron golems need +3 or better weapons - there's an axe and a hammer that fit the bill to be found in the containers guarded by the golems.  If you want to loot them without being attacked an easy option would be to just send in Aerie under sanctuary.

[ussnorway]

Just so you know... All Vic really wants is the love of a good man!

Modifié par ussnorway, 15 octobre 2012 - 11:32 .

[Matuse]

"jump through portal"

Not sure which encounter you mean by this...are you referring to the fireplace portal after you return Haer'Dalis? That is a limited time portal. It closes after a bit and you cannot go to that area.

Clay golems need a magical blunt item to hurt. The flail (even a partial one) will work.

The iron golem needs any +3 weapon. There is an axe in the golem room that you can use...but the full flail remains best, due to its slowing component. Iron golems are seriously bad news opponents at this stage of the game, but there is one critical aspect in this encounter that makes it much easier: That golem cannot fit through the chapel door. You can hit and run him at your leisure.

Do NOT leave the keep until you have found everything. Once you leave, you CANNOT go back. That means not even setting foot out of doors once TorGal is dead. The instant you see daylight (or moonlight), you lose access to the keep forever.

There is one flail head on the main floor, and 2 on the second floor. None in the basement. Open up the main map and look for spots that rooms should be in. The layout of the keep is very regular, and those null spots are easy to locate. Then walk around the border with a thief in trap spotting mode and the secret door should reveal itself.

Doors that say they are broken beyond repair are really broken and have no plot relevance.

Good choice holding off Planar Prison and Unseeing Eye quests for now. They are definitely two of the hardest main quests at this stage of the game.

Unseeing Eye is fiendishly hard without the Shield of Balduran, no question there.

But the Planar Prison is silly-easy with a good backstabber. The first fight can be tricky, but just make sure you put death ward on whoever is going to keep the Yuan-Ti on the left busy, because he loves to throw death spells. Pound the thief and the mobs on the right to dust while the left one's protections expire, and done.

The trick with the rest of the prison are the suction-mouth thingies. Getting sucked into one of those is like ducking into a doorway in Athkatla...any spell targeted on you will fail, and unlike regular doors, the monsters can't follow you.

Sneak -> Run out -> Backstab -> Drop back in the safe zone. Rinse, Repeat. The Warden sees through sneak, but nothing else does (including the warden's mislead version, which can be backstabbed). You can just wait out the True Sight that the Yuan-Ti mages cast. I will summon up a skeleton or some nymphs and run them into the Warden's room to get him and his support casters to waste spells, then run my thief in to moon the warden and duck into a portal when he starts throwing spells at me.

I don't even bother with the orb from the master of thralls until everything else is dead. I view the other thralls as valuable sources of XP. Plus when both the warden and the master are dead, all of the floor portals stop working, and I like to wipe out the 2 portals immediately north of the entrance. So I break the orb as the absolute last thing I do before exiting the prison.

Modifié par Matuse, 15 octobre 2012 - 12:25 .

[Pangaea]

If the portal closes after some time, it may already be too late as I left for de Arnise. The first time through we actually killed everyone in the starting spot there, including the guy to the left, but not until he had killed 1 or 2 in my party. Not seen whatever else may be there, but it sounds difficult from the post above.

Found the last piece of the flail, was a secret door I hadn't seen. Stupid runt there was really tough to beat, and he kept running around hasted a long time when "Near Death". Annoying PoS he was. Actually tried the trick with standing outside the door with the now complete flail. But the bastard still hit me, and with 40-50 damage a hit Minsc can't even keep up with +27HP potions. Don't really have to fight them since I hasted out of the the room with the item, but I'm a completionist by nature. Think it's better to just leave though, because we're already getting low on potions from that mighty hard hulk fight.

I actually left the keep earlier and could go back in, but that was prior to killing that chap with the last flail part.

Have to be honest here, I'm getting frustrated at how hard every god damn fight is now. AC has almost gone out the window it seems, and almost everyone we meet either hit stupidly hard and fast, or kill us with magic more times than not. I miss BG1, where mages weren't like demonknights (or worse) and we could for the most part survive by ranged attacks.

[Matuse]

Give a melee character the flail of ages. It hits like a truck, the elemental damage disrupts spellcasters, and the auto-slow effect cripples melee attackers.

I almost always give the FoA to Minsc (and put the defender of easthaven offhand). But I also have no problem with using shadowkeeper to edit his proficiencies. As I mentioned earlier, weapon proficiencies for most of the melee NPCs are laid out horribly.

Don't be afraid to go nuts with magic and rest up frequently. I generally do 1 rest per adventure area (at most) because I find it more realistic, but I've also done all of these areas a dozen times or more, so I know what is coming.

I've never in all of my games paid the Coweled Wizards for a magic license. Mostly I just avoid using arcane magic in the city, but in my latest games, some combination of mods is producing an endless wave of city ambushes. So, this time I decided that I wanted to make these fights easier (some of them are pretty difficult) by using Haste and such. Instead of paying the bribe, I decided to wipe out the Coweled Wizards. I set up ambush points with thief traps and such to massacre the groups of wizards as the teleported in. Even the last fight against the two named wizards was over almost before it started simply by being prepared (that, and a lot of Jan's flasher bruisers).

Task one or two characters (who have magic or ranged attacks) with dealing with spellcasters. Insect spells, elemental arrows, silence 15' radius, holy smite (target right next to your victim, not on their circle directly), backstabbing, traps...these things all work quite well to deal with the casters. For melee monsters, mob them. Never let the party go 1 on 1 vs a target (unless they are sewer goblins and uber weak). Focus your efforts to kill one thing super fast, and then move on to the next thing.

For combat in other games, I often find it is best to clear up the little scrubs first, because they are much more fragile than the big guys, but still hit half to equally hard. Then once the gomers are gone, focus on the big guys. BG2 isn't like that. The bad ones are REALLY bad, and the little ones are fairly harmless. Use overwhelming force to splatter the dangerous stuff, and then mop up everything else.

But seriously, give someone the Flail of Ages. You will be amazed at how much difference it makes.

[ussnorway]

Haer’dalis is the only npc that tanks using AC... with good armour and defence spin (replace with improved bard song later) it is pretty simple to get to -24.

Well done so far... it's a hard game... that's why people spend so much time playing it.

[Pangaea]

Thanks guys. Suppose the main problem is that I'm totally new to this so I have no idea what is coming around the next corner. The need to know the intimate details of all fights to be left standing is oddly enough both a strength and weakness. It makes it extremely hard for first time players, but means the game has lots to offer for long-time players like you guys. High replay value. Maybe NPC choices aren't ideal either as most are multiclassed, but I wanted to keep it somewhat canon and with the people that were offered to me early, assuming that's how I'm "supposed" to play. The game should still be beatable that way, or Black Isle wouldn't have offered out these NPCs so early in the game.

I'll keep at it, and think I will actually respec Minsc to flails. I love some of the comments Lilarcor makes, but maybe he's better off with the Flail of Ages and (for now) a shield. Will try a bit more tomorrow I think, but right now it was pretty frustrating that every single battle is so difficult. Should probably rest more often though. Like to do as much as I can in a day, until spells run out, but maybe I have to swap to double sleeps instead of adventuring from morning to evening.

[Pangaea]

Lost my Guild

Was off adventuring, and had just cleared out just about everything in the dungeon in Windspear Hills. Was so happy because I had found out that the +3 bow I bought could hit that Giant of a Golem. Had just slayed them all (*that* took a while, with 1 damage a hit against the Adamantite Golem), and was about to enter the fight with the boss who greeted us at the entry. We were rather knackered after such a long fight with all kinds of creatures, so put down our backpacks to sleep. Upon waking, "Renal will no longer.... You have lost your Guild".

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Had totally forgotten about the time limit, didn't even know I had to show up to be honest. Can't they hand out the money they make without me there? Since it takes 24 hours to travel back to the Docks, I can't make it either - not without redoing the *whole* dungeon, with guardians and the massive trap we found ourselves in from that dear Senia. Cannot believe we survived that on the first time of asking, but we did (with the party spread out while walking to boot). Don't want to redo that at all.....

Not even tried that mask yet. Both intrigued and worried... 

Is there no way to save the guild without going back so many saves? And is there any particular benefits in having a guild? Suppose there will be money if the thieves are successful, but anything else?

Have liked these areas a lot better than the struggle I had in Athkatla, since we can actually win fights now. New levels are far between now, but hopefully those über-mages and Liches in Athkatla will eat our steel at some point too.

[ussnorway]

The den of thieves is mostly about money with some experience so the extra income is nice but not a major loss... What doesn't kill you...

p.s. Yes the wilds, while still dangerous are much simpler areas to collect items/ experience from.

[Pangaea]

That's reassuring. Right now money isn't an issue, so if the guild doesn't offer any great rewards apart from that, it's not exactly a huge loss. In any case, don't at all want to redo that dungeon, so will just move on. Can try out the guild business in a later playthrough.

[Grond0]

You do actually get the chance (once) to pay a fine and recover the thieves guild. However, as ussnorway says it's not a problem for the game if you lose it for good.

[Pangaea]

Cheers, will do that when I get back then, just so I can check out what this guild business is really about (thus far I had only given some conservative orders).

About the dungeon though... Holy Smokes!!!!!!!!!

Tried and failed with flying colours. Got.. ehm.. the boss to "Injured" but by then both Minsc and Keldorn got wiped, and things quickly went downhill from there. Think I'll have to come back to this at a much later stage.

However, in the room where DigDag and an old acquaintance was, I couldn't open the two last doors, one with a character inside. Is this impossible until after the very last fight, outside, or have I missed something along the way? Have opened every door and checked every loot drop and container (I think) and it doesn't look like there are any hidden rooms anywhere from looking at the map.

If I need a key from the final.. boss and come back and open the doors I'll have to do that much later. We won't be able to beat that chap for quite a while I suspect.

[morbidest2]

Pangaea wrote...

However, in the room where DigDag and an old acquaintance was, I couldn't open the two last doors, one with a character inside. Is this impossible until after the very last fight, outside, or have I missed something along the way? Have opened every door and checked every loot drop and container (I think) and it doesn't look like there are any hidden rooms anywhere from looking at the map.

If I need a key from the final.. boss and come back and open the doors I'll have to do that much later. We won't be able to beat that chap for quite a while I suspect.

Try talking affably to Firkraag instead of attacking him. He'll explain how to rescue Illya. You need to be able to cast 5th level spells like Breach before you take on Firkraag, and lightning wands help, since he's so big that they bounce around inside him - gives Aerie something useful to do.  

[Pangaea]

Oh.



Well, we had a long chat before he said I could come back later if I still fancied a challenge. Then I attacked shortly after as we were still very heavily buffed up from what I thought was the main fight in that previous room.

Odd about lightning bolts though. Maybe I'll actually try that suicide machine then. Did fire Breach at him actually, and it dispelled *something* - twice during the fight - but still barely any magic missiles hit him, and IIRC the only spell that did proper damage was Aerie's Flamestrike. If I hadn't summoned both Fire Elementals for the previous fight, those chaps could have helped out too.

Will try the hand around... something approach then. "Hey, give me a lift Minsc."

He did some wicked wild damage btw. At one point 100 HP got taken out in a quick blast. 75 form Yoshimo, which killed him, and 25 from somebody else. Could hardly believe what I saw.

[morbidest2]

It also helps to have a druid along to cast insect spells - but first the dragon has to be breeched so they can hit. Then your mage(s) can be casting Reduce Magic Resistence, as well as using wands. Since Firkie is a red dragon, presumably your party has dosed up on Resist. to Fire Damage, both spells and potions. Since vanilla dragons don't use their brains much, they are easily distracted by even trival Summons (rabid dog, wolf, kobold, etc.), giving your party time to chug healing potions. Invisibility doesn't work with dragons. Since wing buffets really smart, anyone who melees it out with Firkraag had better be good against crushing damage as well as fire damage. Firkie is tough, but not as tough as he thinks he is, and has excellent loot.

[Pangaea]

Good advice there, I'll try to remember it when I get back at some point in the distant future. Released the prisoner and paid off Renal to get the guild back. Hopefully I'll remember the deadlines better in the future. It's every five days, right? I set some more risky instructions now, so maybe they'll all get nabbed by the guards

We are dragging so much stuff with us now that inventory management is becoming a real hassle. Piles of keys and lots of weapons and some weapon parts, and loads of scrolls and gems. Will sell some now when I'm back in the city, but what do I need to keep for the future?

The weapon parts are obvious, but what about all the keys? And odd-ball items like De'Tranion's Baalor Ale? Jaheira's Hair, the Mask we just got in Windspear Hills, several notes and a tax notice. We have many wands too, though they seem less useful in BG2 than BG1. Fireball and summoning wands were great in BG1. After reading the above posts, I regret selling the lightning wands earlier, but that was the one type I figured we wouldn't use anyway. Burnt myself too often on it.

Would love to find a bag of holding, though, because that would take care of inventory management problems.

[morbidest2]

If the item was part of an adventure - like the lock of Jah's hair - and the adventure is over, you can dump it, or leave it in cold storage at a chest at the Copper Coronet, or anyplace else you often visit. No one is going to steal anything from those chests, so feel free to unload the best armor and weapons that you think you might possibly need for new NPC's, but don't need now. Sell the routine stuff. The only gem you really have to worry about hanging on to is one Rogue stone. There is a minor reason for keeping one Bajuril and 2 diamonds, but it isn't all that important. Any other jewels, cash in. For most things, Bernard at the CC will give you the best prices in Athkatla. If you have already used a key, or a non-magic scroll, file or forget. If not, hang on to it. "Weapon parts" will be very useful much later in the game, so carefully store them at the CC, and/or take them to the dwarven smith Cromwell in the South Docks, who will tell you more about them. You will eventually find a Bag of Holding, but that's later in the game.

[Pangaea]

Thanks. Sold all the gems and lots of weapons and armour, and bought Plate of Balduran. Mighty expensive, but it looked good. Still lugging around all the keys though. Perhaps best to store them in the CC for example.

Then I was retardedly naive enough to try to do ANYTHING in the city again. WTF did the developers put in a creature that attacks our weakest point and is impossible to kill? There is ONE mind flayer ffs, but he eats us up in about one second. On about the 10th try I had been very careful and luring out the enemies in the sewers under temple district one at a time, so only a cleric and the mind **** was left. Still no use. No matter who I send in, even my PC with 20 intelligence, he's dead in seconds.

Sick and tired of it now. There are probably more of these **** too, so I can forget about doing whatever area these guys are in. If they decided to put put a Sarevok around every corner at the very start of BG1, it would be about as difficult and fun as this game is for me right now.

[ussnorway]

In all fairness you got a notice... as soon as you open that door a cut-scene should have kicked in to say “WARNING Will Robertson... DANGER!” in case the pile of dead adventures at your feet was too subtle a hint.

Did you look inside the well before talking to Big Red?

Who got the armour and why did they need charisma... (it's your game of course) IMO the more useful item would have been  “Vhailor's Helm”... have you already got it?

[Matuse]

We are dragging so much stuff with us now that inventory management is becoming a real hassle. Piles of keys and lots of weapons and some weapon parts, and loads of scrolls and gems. Will sell some now when I'm back in the city, but what do I need to keep for the future?

Hardly any gems. One diamond, one rogue stone, one berjuril. There are a few other gems needed for upgrades in ToB, but gems are fairly plentiful there, and your butler will tell you what you need.

The weapon parts are obvious, but what about all the keys? And odd-ball items like De'Tranion's Baalor Ale? Jaheira's Hair

Old keys, locks of hair can be safely stowed away. The Baalor Ale is somewhat useful in an optional quest in the Umar hills, but there's a source of it there, so you don't need to lug it around.

, the Mask we just got in Windspear Hills, several notes and a tax notice.

Notes you can dispose of, the tax notice is a bit of fluff for finding Valgyar's cabin, and can also be dropped. The mask is an interesting bit. It has no stats, but it can be worn by anyone, even classes that can't normally use a helmet (like your main character). Any item in the head slot will prevent critical hits, so this is a great protective item for thieves, mages, and bards.

We have many wands too, though they seem less useful in BG2 than BG1. Fireball and summoning wands were great in BG1. After reading the above posts, I regret selling the lightning wands earlier, but that was the one type I figured we wouldn't use anyway. Burnt myself too often on it.

The only wands I keep are spellstrike and cloudkill. The others I just don't find very useful. Wands of the Heavens and Wands of Frost can also be good, but usually my solution to those kinds of targets is to poke them full of holes.

[Grond0]

Pangaea wrote...
There is ONE mind flayer ffs, but he eats us up in about one second. On about the 10th try I had been very careful and luring out the enemies in the sewers under temple district one at a time, so only a cleric and the mind **** was left. Still no use. No matter who I send in, even my PC with 20 intelligence, he's dead in seconds.

Rather than hit for damage mind flayers' standard attack is an intelligence drain.  However, they still have to hit you to cause the drain and their attack is not that great, so a character with low AC and high intelligence is pretty safe.  Try getting a particular characters effective AC as low as possible - there are lots of spells that can help with this, e.g. blur, improved invisibility, spirit armour, chant, defensive harmony etc. 

[Matuse]

Chaotic Commands is the key to beating mind flayers, since it makes you immune to their psy-blasts (and the confusion gaze of the umber hulks that 'flayers are frequently found with).

Each hit from a mindflayer drains 5 int, which is why people often recommend having at least an 11, since it lets you survive 3 attacks. Mindflayers do not have super good attack ratings, so even a fairly modest AC will help a lot.

Personally though, I just backstab them to little chunky bits. One chaotic commands, the boots of speed, and a thief with good hide/sneak skills, and cleaning out an entire dungeon of mind flayers is trivial.

[Pangaea]

ussnorway wrote...

In all fairness you got a notice... as soon as you open that door a cut-scene should have kicked in to say “WARNING Will Robertson... DANGER!” in case the pile of dead adventures at your feet was too subtle a hint.

Did you look inside the well before talking to Big Red?

Who got the armour and why did they need charisma... (it's your game of course) IMO the more useful item would have been  “Vhailor's Helm”... have you already got it?

True, we were warned. However, I have basically run out of other stuff to do, especially in the city. The only other stuff to do is even harder (Liches, Graveyard) or outside the city (Umar Hills), which I wanted to wait a little with now so I don't forget the guild timelimit again. It takes a while to travel back and forth.

The main reason I bought it was to lower AC a little as its base is -1, and it adds a little HP too. I put it on Minsc. But I can actually put it temporarily on Keldorn for shop purposes, as with the Helm of Balduran that takes his charisma to 20, which means cheaper stuff. Haven't bought Vhailor's Helm as I've no idea what it does. Loved all the Planescape Torment references though (but a little surprises people can actually get spoiled reading their descriptions).

The well... You mean in that dungeon right? Yes, I pulled up some wacky creature that we thankfully managed to dispose of. There was an item too, but I forget which one. It was related to Big Red IIRC. Shield, helmet or sword, but I think the sword was found elsewhere.

[Pangaea]

(Don't see an easy way to multiquote (nor preview, which is even worse), so I'll just write a few posts instead. Sorry about that)

Matuse wrote...

Hardly any gems. One diamond, one rogue stone, one berjuril. There are a few other gems needed for upgrades in ToB, but gems are fairly plentiful there, and your butler will tell you what you need.

Hmm, I sold all the gems yesterday, but it's all with Deidre so can find it there if I need it. Even made a custom note in the journal about it so I don't forget where I sold it.

Old keys, locks of hair can be safely stowed away. The Baalor Ale is
somewhat useful in an optional quest in the Umar hills, but there's a
source of it there, so you don't need to lug it around.

Thanks, will store it outside the CC.

Notes you can dispose of, the tax notice is a bit of fluff for finding Valgyar's cabin, and can also be dropped. The mask is an interesting bit. It has no stats, but it can be worn by anyone, even classes that can't normally use a helmet (like your main character). Any item in the head slot will prevent critical hits, so this is a great protective item for thieves, mages, and bards.

Good to know the mask at least protects against criticals then, will put it on my main char.

The only wands I keep are spellstrike and cloudkill. The others I just don't find very useful. Wands of the Heavens and Wands of Frost can also be good, but usually my solution to those kinds of targets is to poke them full of holes.

I've sold some duplicates, but right now I have wand of fear, summoning, cloudkill, fireball (2 or 3), and frost, plus a few magic missile. Not found a spellstrike one yet (what does it do?). So I guess the go-to trick of fireball and/or summoning won't work very well here. Heck, nothing seems to work right now so I can see how 5 summons won't be a huge differential  Maybe I would be better off a refilled cloudkill wand, then, instead of the Plate of Balduran. Made a save before buying/selling so can always go back to that point. Can always try to go back to the mindflayer when we have hit level 99 or thereabouts.