30 réponses à ce sujet

[DeeKayNL]

Hello Everyone.

I was thinking about making some kind of Logbook of my experiences playing through BG2 SOA+TOB with SCS2 installed. I think myself as an average or even below average player. So this could wel be an impossible playthrough for me but perhaps fun to read.

If this topic is unwanted please let me know.

I'll start off then.
I wanted to use Jan as a thief for my party but I accidently turned off traps and locks in some kind of mod and didnt know how to turn it on again. So this runthrough will be without a thief (maybe more challenging because of the lack of traps, i mostly used traps with the Nalmissra party and Demogorgon (never defeated them without traps))

Party Composition:

I made 2 PC's in the multiplayer mode

+ THRALL  -- Male Half-Orc Anti Paladin 
Will be wielding Two Handed Swords and Halberds

+ SAKURA - Female Human Fighter (to be Fighter/Mage)
Will be dual wielding Longswords

The rest of the Party at this point:

+ KORGAN
Will be wielding Axes and Warhammers and Off Hand handling a Shield

+ JAHEIRA
Will be wielding Quarterstaffs and Spears (currently on Sling duty)

+ VICONIA
Will Be wielding a Sling and Off Hand a Shield For the occasional Melee will be equipped with the Flail of Ages.

Yet to be recruited:

+EDWIN
Will be Wielding a Sling, Crimson Dart and Quarterstaffs.


Part 1:

When my party of three came out of the dungeon i first went to the Circus quest. I never noticed your dont get any XP for defeating the illusions (perhaps logical :-) ). This didn't seem any problem.

Then I travelled towards the Slums. Met with Gaelan Bayle giving me the task of gahtering the insane amount of 100K gold pieces. Then was escorted to the Copper Coronet where I joined with Korgan. Before doing the Slaver quest i wanted to go to the Government District first. Here I freed Viconia of her cruel fate and let her join my crew.

The Fight with the Fanatics seemed not that much more difficult. The priest seemed a little smarter in his spellcasting. After this fight Jan tried to stick me with some of his wares. I didnt report him despite me being of evil alignment.

After this i went to Waukeens Promenade and visited the The Adventurer's Mart. Bought a Belt of Hill Giant strenght for Viconia. Next up was the Slaver quest. So up to the Slums. When I travelled to the Slums I was waylaid by enemies. It was the party which drops the Arbane's Sword. This fight was a piece of cake in the vanilla game. (I set Random Encounter to Signifcant). I had to reload quite a few times to survive this fight. (perhaps I have to set the random encounters to Mild). After this encounter I rested in the Copper Coronet and I'm about to start the slavers Quest.

[DeeKayNL]

Some extra info on de installed SCS2 mod.

Installed:

Smarter general AI
Better calls for help
Smarter Genies
Enemy spellcasters use Simulacrum and Project Image spells
Smarter Githyanki
Smarter mages
Smarter Priests

Improved Shade Lord
Improved Random Encounters
Improved Bodhi (Tactics remix)
Improved fight with Irenicus in Spellhold
Improved Sahuagin
Slightly Improved Drow
Improved Fire Giant Temple
Improved Sendai's Enclave
Improved minor encounters

especially not selected (because of troubles with even in vanilla game):

Smarter Beholders
Smarter mind flayers
Improved Vampires
Improved D'Arnise Keep
Improved Unseeing Eye
Improved beholder hive
Improved Watcher's Keep
Improved Abazigal's Lair (last run i accidently turned this on and got obliterated in a few seconds) Though I might still try this one in my current run.

[The Potty 1]

Welcome & good luck.

What choice did you choose for mage pre-buffing?

Congrats on surviving the Suna Seni ambush, it is quite tough.

Just note, Korgan is on a quest timer, and when he wants to do it, you need to be ready. Get Edwin first, then perhaps clear out the spiders in the graveyard before the crypt. There are several nasties that level drain you in the crypt, which makes it tough at low levels. Korgan's rage does make him immune, but you need to survive the initial assault, then take out the vampire, then more wraiths etc. Viccy may be able to control some lesser undead, or not, depending on her level. You can always leave Edwin's side passage for later.

[DeeKayNL]

I believe i selected prebuffing allowed but not the maximum setting. Is there a way for me to check that? I still haven't used the party AI prebuf abilities. (are they good to use?)

My current gameplan for the next few quest was gonna be:

- Slaver Quest
- Go get Edwin and with that some Shadowthief quests.
- Graveyard Tombs for Korgan's and Edwin's quests.
- City Gates (for a longsword)
- Trademeet and Druid Grove
- Cult of the Unseeying Eye (for the Gauntlets of Dexterity and Cloak of the Sewers)
- d'Anise Keep

I hope these are still do-able early on.

[Gate70]

I think the weidu.log file in your game directory will state what option you selected for pre-buffing.

[Alesia_BH]

Best of luck with your run DeeKayNL!

[DeeKayNL]

Thank you!!

I have checked the weidu.log and copied all concerning the SCS2 mod.

~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2019 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility -> Antimagic spells remain single-target, but affect the target creature whether or not it is invisible (default option): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Make individual versions of Spell Immunity available, so that players can use them in Contingencies etc.: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2060 // Revert Greater Restoration back to only affecting one creature: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2080 // Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2130 // Cosmetic change: stop Stoneskins from changing the caster's colour: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2160 // Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #2170 // True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Replace +1 magical weapons with Fine ones: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #3060 // Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #3070 // Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #3530 // Faster Bears: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4003 // Increase the price asked by Gaelan Bayle -> Gaelan wants 100,000 gold pieces: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4020 // Make Watchers' Keep accessible between SoA and ToB (warning: this will make it inaccessible until the end of SoA): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Retrieve Dropped Items from Hell: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4040 // Improved shapeshifting: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4050 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4092 // Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/3 the normal rate: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #4100 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #5010 // Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #5030 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Displacer Cloak: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6015 // More sensible choices of weapon proficiencies and kits for fighters (also fixes some errors in fighter stats): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6021 // Potions for NPCs -> One third of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6060 // Smarter genies -> Genies have fast, uninterruptable innate magic: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6108 // Enemy mages (and Elder Orbs) use Simulacrum and Project Image spells (this component will have no effect unless you install Smarter Mages or Smarter Beholders): v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6135 // Smarter githyanki: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6151 // Smarter Mages -> Mages only cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat if they are created in sight of the PC: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #6181 // Smarter Priests -> Priests only cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat if they are created in sight of the PC: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved Shade Lord: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7031 // Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Significantly increased difficulty: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Improved Random Encounters: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Spirit trolls have the same powers as in the original game: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> "Toned-down" version of the original Tactics Improved Bodhi, with SCSII scripting: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7078 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Sahuagin: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7150 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v21
~SCSII/SETUP-SCSII.TP2~ #0 #7160 // Improved Minor Encounters: v21

The only settings I really am second guessing about are:

+ The Early Watcherskeep settings. I DO want to do the Watcherskeep when I want to do it. Probably still in SOA. the setting Early_Watcherskeep is set to Yes.
+ Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities.. Not sure if this is a wise decision. Any comments/help?

[DeeKayNL]

Part 2:

After a little chat with Lehtinan i found out about the extra activities in the Copper Coronet. After entering I strolled into a room with Cells. After some conversation the fight was inevitable. Not that difficult. After that I went to the fighting pits and had a run in with the Beastmaster. Yet again not really difficult. When I freed Hendak he went to Lehtinan to confront and kill him. After that he asked me to look into the slavers.

Next were the sewers. Not really dificult and I am now the proud wielder of the little brother of the Hackmaster +12: Lilarcor. When I exit the sewers I find myself in the middle of the Slaverscompound. All attack me on sight. Yet again do-able. The trolls guarding the child were dispatched of (though they pack a punch). After freeing some other children I run into a group with 2 mages and some others. I get owned in a big way! After several reloads still no succes. I get beaten each time by the monster summoning and Melf's Minute Meteors. Reload again.
This time I send in a few horror's with my Anti Paladin. With some luck both the mages fail there saves and i can destroy the party. Rejoice! the Slavers are defeated. Yet again i beautiful example of the smarter mages of SCS2.A fullfilling battle.

After this I was planning to go to the Docks for Edwin. But Korgan had other plans. He wanted to go after the book of Kazaa first. To prevent any troubles of losing Korgan we left for the Graveyard District. After entering the Tombs we were ambushed by a group of spiders. Thank God Viconia and Jaheira had some Slow and Neutralise Poison spells. A second group and third group welcomed us. Korgan yells that the entrance to the Tomb is near. But first we entered the Spider Hive. After a fierce battle we defeated Pai'Na the Spider Mistress. We took the loot and placed the Spider Figurine in the quickslot.

Next up was the Tomb. We headed south to the lower Tombs. When seeying the big room the goosebumps on our arms tell us there is a suprise waiting for us. We quickly use all our efforts to summon as many helpers as we can. After walking a bit forward in the hallway all doors fly open and we get overrun by undead. This is looking grim! Viconia quickly Turns Undead. Thank God her level isn't that bad. Two of the undead join us and the some other try to flee. Viconia saved the day (or night?). After further exploring we walk into more undead. Same tactics and same results. When we finally reach the tomb Korgan freaks, the tomb was empty!! His old mates beat us to it. We now promissed to track them down and downsize them.

We then went to the Slums. We first rested in the Copper Coronet. When we arrived on the roof Korgan's old crew awaited us. We dispatched of them and took the money and the book.
Now this was over we could continu with our plan to get Edwin. We travelled to the Docks and introduced ourselves to Renal Bloodscalp. We agreed to find proof of Mae'Var's treachery.

We got our letter from Renal Bloodscalp and went to Mae'Var. We first got our task to go to the Temple of Lathander to steal something. (Temple is based upon your alignment?) We were succesfull without alarming anyone. The we were redirected to Edwin, he had some tasks for us.
First he wanted us to get rid of the Cowled Wizard that has been investigating Edwin. With pleasure! When we enter the building we get ambushed by a couple of memphits. No real biggie.
The next floor... Two Stone Golems !! Ooops. Not so much a pretty fight. I had to heal quite a bit. When they hit me quite a bit of my health was gone.
Next up the top floor. The Cowled Wizard is already waiting for me. Definitly a smarter mage with more spells available. First time 2 people died, I reloaded (Still getting used to anticipating a more difficult fight). This time I used some summons and have most of my character stand out of the way. I kept out of the Area spells he threw and let them wear out. When I dispelled his protections he had a Spell Trigger go off and went invisible. After everything wore off I couldnt find him anymore. Apparently I missed the fact he went a floor down. I sent my Anti Paladin down to check. Immediately his second Spell Trigger went off. I rushed upstairs an waited for a while. After a while i went downstairs with the AP and Korgan. I immediately attacked the wizard. Korgan got stunned with a Bigsby? the AP eventually took him down. Quite a different experience than the vanilla game. I love It!!

After looting the place I went back and did some other stuff for Edwin and Mae'Var. When I went to the SeaBounty to get some documents, someone aprraoched Jaheira and after some insults his hired mages cursed Jaheira. I still got the documents and went back to Edwin. Edwin joined my party and together we found the proof of Mae'Var's treachery. On the next part we first go and try to get Jaheira uncursed and after that we are showing Renal the proof of Mae'Var's treachery and destroy Mae'Vars guild (hopefully). To be continued.

[DeeKayNL]

One quick question. How can I adjust the difficulty of the waylaid by enemies? When first traveling to trademeet I encounter a group of orogs and slavers and mage. I get owned by them everytime. I tried to adjust the setting in the ini file to mild and rerun the setup but the summery still says significant.

EDIT: I finally beated them. First I was taking them on melee and magic missile and some summons. I just tried one last time. A kind of all or nothing tactic. I send all my party members down and while running I had Edwin casting Web and Cloudkill. I send my AP after the mage with true sight. Most Orogs were caught in the web. The fighter/mage threw 2 skulltraps. Korgan also got caught in the web and all. One of the Orogs that didnt get in the web killed Edwin. Half of my party was confused by the mage. Korgan got free and he and my AP took care of the rest. Im lucky my party didnt suffer to much from my own web, cloudkill and skulltrap combi. All and all a difficult but satisfying victory.

Modifié par DeeKayNL, 15 février 2013 - 09:39 .

[DeeKayNL]

Part 3

The curse: went to the house of the culprit and slayed him and his mages. Thanks to quick reactions not a difficult fight. After resting enough the curse was gone.
The I went to the Den of Seven Ales. ( this thanks to another player who resently went there!) I had to reload once. The fight was done by first casting web, cloudkill, skulltrap and insects. While my AP with truesight and Korgan blocked the exit my mages threw magic missiles. With a beatup party I could do the looting.

With this done I went to Renal and showed proof of the betrayel of Maevar. I went to the guildhouse and cleared the entrance. When I reached maevar I summoned everything I could. I focused my efforts on the cleric and Maevar. Maevar seemed different than in the vanilla game. Nice fight. Not too difficult.

I went to the city gates to get the daystar. I dont know if scs2 has something to do with it but I couldnt exit the room with the lich. Also when I used the ability of the daystar the lich was still uninjured. I tried this a couple of times. I didnt get close even once. So the daystar still resides with the lich and I continued to trademeet emptyhanded.

While traveling I was waylaid by enemies which you can read above. Now I arrived at Trademeet and am about to go talk to the mayor. Ps at which level can Jaheira fight for the druidgrove?

[ussnorway]

DeeKayNL wrote...

+ Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities.. Not sure if this is a wise decision. Any comments/help?

You can't stop the cast with damage eg. 'Magic Missile' and can also cast in different forms like a druid in Bear form... not that big a deal IMO but it's your game.

[DeeKayNL]

But then again I could only use dark planetar summon only once if I have it as an inate ability am I right?

[DeeKayNL]

Part 4

First when I arrived at Trademeet is saw the city was overrun by hostile animals. I helped dispatching. Then I went to talk with the high merchant. I asked me to talk to Cernd and help him in anyway I could. I told Cernd to go ahead and I would follow.

When I At the druidgrove things went wild! I ran into quite a few trolls. Luckily my maes had a lot of acid arrows and fire arrows memorized. I also encountered more spirit trolls then I could remember from the vanilla game. Slowly but steady I explored more of the druidgrove until I reached a trollcave. When I went inside all hell broke loose. In the vanilla game I could slowly work my way through the cave taking on max 2 or 3 trolls at a time. This time they all came at me at once. I summoned a lot of help and used a lot of fireballs and cloudkill just out of reach of my party. Slowly but steady the trolls fell by my hand. After clearing out the cave I equiped Jaheira with the Spear of the Unicorn. When I went futhrr north in the druidgrove I encountered yet another new enemy I had never seen here. The greater earth elemental. After dispatching of the elemental I encountered a group of people who were fighting a group of trolls I defeated the trolls but the other party was already dead. The nearing a bridge a encountered a group of shadowdruids. Not a real fight. On the bridge I had another new encounter. A large group of spore colonies! Nicely in a long row across the whole bridge. Quite the fight but exciting! When finally and somewhat lucky I defeated them toghether with some extra trolls I entered a kind of storage tower.

In there I went toe to toe with the rashaka mentioned by the djini in trademeet. We defeated them but not without a death on our side. After resurrecting and healing we could follow our journey ( belm is nowhere to be found????) Another bridge introduced us to yet another new enemy. Several Chambering Mouth ( or something like that) never seen them there before. We dispatch of them quite easy and see 2 more spore colonys. We defeat them and some myconids (?). At this point I save and went to see a movie stay tuned!

[Grond0]

DeeKayNL wrote...

But then again I could only use dark planetar summon only once if I have it as an inate ability am I right?

That's right - SCS2 treats the advantages of innate casting as a reasonable trade-off for only being able to use the abilities once a day.

[The Potty 1]

Belm is in a tower to the right of the bridge where you fought the first set of spore colonies.

[DeeKayNL]

Thank you Grond0 I think I will try to revert the inate ability setting. I would like more control over the HLA spells.

Thanks to your help The Potty 1 I found the Belm. I use it for my fighter mage even though I dont have profincies in scimitar.only in longswords.

Btw today I had a crazy downgrade of my reputation. I believe 5 points down in one room!! In the D'arnise Keep. More about this in part 5 coming tomorow.

[DeeKayNL]

Part5

I continued my path and ran in to another group of shadow druids. I dispatched of them and then went in where I had to fight faldorn. When done I reported my succes back to the high merchant. I was appraoched by two rich families to retreave a mantle. I did. Next they slaughtered eachother. I also delivered the head of the raskshaka (?) to the djinni. Ps I found belm thanks to the potty 1 .

From here I went to D'Arnise Keep. When I got there the place was overrun by trolls. When clearing out the place I also constructed The flail of Ages. Also my fighter/mage got his fightrr class active again.
When I freed the lady of the castle she was terribly rude to me and commented how her behavere worth killing. They turned hostile! I belive that costed me 4 reputation points. When I killed her another reputation point was deducted. My rep was now 3! I quickly finished D'Arnise Keep and went on my way to the temple sewers. There I got my hand on the cloak of the sewers. The fight with the dwarves was a difficult one. I cleared the cult but it was quite difficult esp. The beholders en gauth. Then again it gave me the gauntlets of dex for Korgan.

Next I went to a temple to get my rep to 5 this to avoid attacks on my party.

After this I did the skinner murders quest and went on to free haerdalis. I entered the prison plane and fought my way through there. Especially the fisrt fight was challengin! I loved it! I got some boots of speed and other cool stuff. After this adventure I went to get the netherscroll. The licht got me to reload a couple of times. But the netherscoll is now in possession of Edwin. After this I went to Umar Hills to hunt down Valygar. I killed him and took his body back to the slums. I enterred to sphere and dispatched the saughi..... fishdudes quickly. The halflings were more difficult. After clearing that floor I wnet to see Larok. I had to reload quite a few times and the last fight I still had 2 dead partymembers.. when defeated I went to hunt for demon hearts. Ive got two of them and am now readyy to continue. Mord in part 6

[DeeKayNL]

I already played quite some more BG2. I wont go into detail. I will only discibe the significatn changes I experienced.

In the Sphere I had to to fight Tolgerias. This fight was way more challenging than before. It was quite entertaining!

After the Sphere I went to Umar Hills for the Shadow dragon and Shade Lord. The Shade Lord gave me alot of problems. After reloading about ten times a set the difficulty lower. Then I could defeat the Shade Lord. I immidiately set the difficulty back to Core Rules. My Sunfire and Sunray didnt seem to work at all.

After this I went to Windspear Hills to confront Firkraag. All went well. No real problems here.

I did go for Kangaxx ... kindy cheesy with scrolls of Protection from Magic (which last very long!) no real problems here.

I went to the sewers for the Illithid's camp. I thought I could get a Mind Control Circlet there but there werent any. Last room gave me some problems but I used the same tactics with summoning a lot of Skeletons.

I accidently forgot the Harpersquest. I hope I can still do it when I exit the Underdark.

I choose sides with Bodhi and destroyed the Shadow Thiefs and Aran Linvail. No real problems there.

I went to Brynnlaw and found an entrance to Spellhold. Asylum Dungeon wasn't to bad. The improved battle with Irenicus was pretty challenging. I had to reload around 5 times. But after changing stragegies i finally did it! Fun battle! After this I choose to take the boat and ended up in the Underwater City. I fooled to King and slayed him and after that I also slayed the Prince. The fight with the King was more satisfiying with Improved Sauhagin. I am now ready to go to the Underdark.

Modifié par DeeKayNL, 27 février 2013 - 11:00 .

[DreamMorpheus]

I've been doing the same thing, but I actually combined this mod with Weimar's Tactics (another great difficulty mod) My BGT installer knew how to combine the two mods fairly well.

The Improved Kangaxx was such an **** for me. He seems to imprison the most dangerous target he can, and he wont just cast it on berserking Korgan (my usual strategy) He also ignores invisibility and protection scrolls with Tactics. (Protection from Abjuration wont protect you either) He also doesn't take jack for damage and regenerates very rapidly. Also, he will actually keep casting high level magic at you in his final form and wont just engage in melee. My only recourse was to cheese his first form. (My kensai/thief backstabs with Daystar while Viccy casts sunray.) And then take his second form out to the Docks, where I could let him go nuts on the poor townsfolk and I could gradually chip away at his spells. It was literally impossible to get a breach in on him without having my caster get imprisoned, so I was kind of stuck waiting out all his sequencers. Mercifully, he doesn't seem to imprison the PC now. But he got one off on Viccy and it bugged out my Romance!

(Always hated that bug)

Thank jeebus for Shadowkeeper.

Also, Shadow Dragon was *way* harder for me than Firekrag was. His breath attack can take away 10 or 12 levels at a time!

I find myself still having to cheese a lot of the liches. Wish Timestop, improved alacrity, remove magic, summon dark planetear, and bust out 4 or 5 horrid wiltings with a greater malison and an imprison thrown in is just hard as hell to deal with!

Honestly, I did LOVE the improved Twisted Rune fight! Ive found myself using a lot of spells and tactics I've never used before, Like Ottilukes Sphere to deal with the vampire and the warrior in that battle. (While I deal with Planatear/Gate spam from the mages)

[DeeKayNL]

Wow the adding of Tactics seem quite impossible for me. I didnt have much problems with the shadowdragon meening I had to reload only once. The second time I got away with only 1 death in my party.

Liches are still a problem for me. I am currently in the underdark and had to go toe to toe with Alchra Diagott and Raevilin Strathi. Raevilin went down fast because of instant melee with 5 characters. Alchra Diagott was another type of fight. First time around i got tottally overwhelmed. Imprisonments spells took out Korgan before I could enrage him. And 2 other members dead. Reload. This round I let my summons do the melee. I tried all kinds of True Sight, Breach, Spell Thrust, Remove Magic and Dispel Magic spells. none really seemed to work. So while summoning more skeletons I waited out his protections. Had to do a really fast protection from evil with his gated in demon. Most of the time I stayed out of his way. Just occassionally checking the progress with my F/M with improved invisibility. Eventually it was slaying him with the daystar after his protections where gone.

[R.U.N]

DeeKayNL wrote...

Wow the adding of Tactics seem quite impossible for me. I didnt have much problems with the shadowdragon meening I had to reload only once. The second time I got away with only 1 death in my party.

Liches are still a problem for me. I am currently in the underdark and had to go toe to toe with Alchra Diagott and Raevilin Strathi. Raevilin went down fast because of instant melee with 5 characters. Alchra Diagott was another type of fight. First time around i got tottally overwhelmed. Imprisonments spells took out Korgan before I could enrage him. And 2 other members dead. Reload. This round I let my summons do the melee. I tried all kinds of True Sight, Breach, Spell Thrust, Remove Magic and Dispel Magic spells. none really seemed to work. So while summoning more skeletons I waited out his protections. Had to do a really fast protection from evil with his gated in demon. Most of the time I stayed out of his way. Just occassionally checking the progress with my F/M with improved invisibility. Eventually it was slaying him with the daystar after his protections where gone.

Try a Chain of True Sight->Spellthrust->Spellthrust->Ruby Ray of Reversal->Breach.
That should take down just about any defence a mage can erect.
Keep the order in mind though.

I wish the SCS 2 readme would explain certain details a bit more, because the problem with Liches is not that they're incredibly difficult, but rather players don't understand the Vanilla Bg2 spellsystem and don't understand/ know about the changes SCS 2 makes to it.

I've read threads where people thought Spell Immunity: Abjuration protects from all Abjuration magic, including spells which target spell defences, such as Spellthrust/Pierce Magic/Spell Strike/Ruby Ray of Reversal.
I was suprised to find out that it doesn't, atleast in my last playthrough.
It probably never did, but most people never had to use those spells, because they only relied on dispel/remove magic and Breach.

Forget all of your old BG2 habits, a lot of spells I've never used are now mandatory and numerous spells I thought were ''useless'' are incredibly powerful if used properly.
Outside of some of the tactical challenges, HLA for SoA ,and to a certain extent pre-buffs for, mages, SCS 2 is pretty well balanced.

Maybe you want to play without pre-buffs for mages?
It's the third option in the ''smarter mages'' component and my prefered option during the install.
With pre-buffs it just gets tedious after a while and having your mages entire spellbook filled with spells targeting magic defences just to be able to counter any, often random, mage in the game isn't something I find interesting to do.

It's your call though, I haven't played through the entire game with pre-buffs to make a complete assessment, yet.
That's my impression from early to midgame BG2, for all it's worth.

Modifié par R.U.N, 02 mars 2013 - 01:28 .

[Alesia_BH]

Just a quick note on Liches. Bear in mind that Liches have innate immunity to level 1-5 spells. Remove and Dispel are exceptions to the immunity. Breach is an exception as well if you have SCS's Consistent Breach component installed. It's also worth noting that with Consistent Breach installed, Breach will bypass Spell Shield but -depending on your install options- may not bypass Spell Protections.

Without Consistent Breach, Breach cast from book is foiled by Lich immunities and Spell Shield, but not Spell Protections. Breach cast via wand, on the other hand, may work against Liches while being stopped by Spell Protections but not Spell Shield (assuming G3 hasn't changed this recently).

Anyhoo: Best of luck DeeKayNL!

Best,

A.

EDIT: It's fairly common for players to mistakenly assume that SI:A stops single target spell protection removers from the Abjuration school. It does actually work that way in Improved Anvil installs, but not in other setups. Spell Shield, of course, does stop those spells- as well as the Alteration school targeted debuffer, Ruby Ray.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 03 mars 2013 - 07:42 .

[R.U.N]

Alesia_BH wrote...

Just a quick note on Liches. Bear in mind that Liches have innate immunity to level 1-5 spells. Remove and Dispel are exceptions to the immunity. Breach is an exception as well if you have SCS's Consistent Breach component installed. It's also worth noting that with Consistent Breach installed, Breach will bypass Spell Shield but -depending on your install options- may not bypass Spell Protections. 

This also applies to Spellthrust.
I am not sure though, if you need to install Consistent Breach for Spellthrust to work on Liches or not, as I've never played without it.

I might also add to my previous list of things I would avoid in a SCS2 install->Beholders with Burn Through and Vanilla Magic Ray.
I see you didn't install smarter Beholders, should you ever consider to do so, the default quick-install option of SCS2 is burn through and PnP Magic Ray, which is a lot more managable.

Just finished the Beholder Hive in the Underdark, and let me tell you, Elder Orbs are far more frustrating to fight with those options installed and make Liches look like a level one mage starting off in Candlekeep.
At one point in the fight 5 out of 6 party members couldn't cast magic due to ''Anti-Magic Ray'', while the Elder Orb managed to get through the entire spell defence of a character in 1 round.

In comparison, a similar defence would last an entire fight against a Lich.
The Beholders will also team up, probably because of better calls for help.
At one point my party was facing 6 at once.

I did get my payback though.
Don't think I've ever seen an Elder Orb being unconscious and affected with confusion, blindness, fear, silence, no magic resistance and miscast magic.
Being beaten up by a bunch of strangers with just their fists is pretty odd too.

[AnonymousHero]

R.U.N wrote...
Just finished the Beholder Hive in the Underdark, and let me tell you, Elder Orbs are far more frustrating to fight with those options installed and make Liches look like a level one mage starting off in Candlekeep.
At one point in the fight 5 out of 6 party members couldn't cast magic due to ''Anti-Magic Ray'', while the Elder Orb managed to get through the entire spell defence of a character in 1 round.

Personally, I could never stand the Beholder-kin... improved or not.

They've always been pretty buggy (e.g. sending rays after PCs/NPCs that they can't see instead of after the summons that they can see), and absurdly unfair unless the player has lots of metagame knowledge or is prepared to play (extremely) dirty.

A real DM could perhaps balance this to some degree, but in the game it's just ridiculous -- either they're the deadliest thing out there or trivial (metagaming/Shield of Balduran).

[Alesia_BH]

Just a quick note on Liches. Bear in mind that Liches have innate immunity to level 1-5 spells. Remove and Dispel are exceptions to the immunity. Breach is an exception as well if you have SCS's Consistent Breach component installed. It's also worth noting that with Consistent Breach installed, Breach will bypass Spell Shield but -depending on your install options- may not bypass Spell Protections.

R.U.N wrote...This also applies to Spellthrust.

Indeed- assuming you have SCS's version of Spell Thrust installed. Spell Shield still catches it.

I am not sure though, if you need to install Consistent Breach for Spellthrust to work on Liches or not, as I've never played without it.

There is a seperate component which overhauls Spell Thrust. Notably, it also changes Spell Thrust so that it dispels all active spell protections L5 and lower rather than just one.

Happy Lich hunting!

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 14 mars 2013 - 10:33 .