32 replies to this topic

[Gnikki]

You need to buff up more than that. Protect yourself from any possible magical attack, in addition to the spells you've listed. What are you talking about with sanctuary? Do you mean they're invisible, and you can't target spells on them because they are "sanctuaried creatures"? That problem is easy. Get their fighters to target your fighters, leaving your mages free to work. Then, move in the mage or cleric who can cast True Seeing. At that point, invisibility is gone, and you can use your mages to strip the protective spells off the enemy mages with spells like breach and pierce magic, ruby ray of reversal, whatever. As soon as spell protections have begun to come off one mage, I like to move in a fighter to beat the snot out of said mage. It disrupts further spell casting, and they die quickly. The whole time the fighter is doing this, I continue stripping off the spell protections, because I don't want some sort of contingency being activated and putting more up. Plus, magical weapons can't touch a mage who has cast protection against magical weapons. I try to take the spell protections off as many mages as possible at the same time so I can move in multiple fighters, and each mage gets disrupted.

[Delight]

It sounds like an overpowered encounter.

[Laufey]

It sounds like an overpowered encounter.

I realize that some players may find it so. Please bear in mind that this can be said of quite a few boss encounters though, including Melissan.

[Delight]

I realize that some players may find it so. Please bear in mind that this can be said of quite a few boss encounters though, including Melissan.

I Ctrlyed + Alted + Delled through Melissan.
The fact that other boss encounters are overpovered isn't a valid reason to add more overpowered encounters. A good cRPG shouldn't contain encounters that require SFLing (Save, Fail, Load).

[jester]

I Ctrlyed + Alted + Delled through Melissan.

So you switched your computer off entirely?

Edited by jester, 31 August 2006 - 08:54 AM.

[Gnikki]

Oh please, Melissan is easy! I've killed her lots of times without cheating. You just use a few wands of spell striking on her, lower her magical resistance, and then you can target her with all sorts of nasty spells. All the pets she summons go away as soon as you get her close to death and she goes to absorb more Bhaal essence. Plus, if you have a couple wish spells memorized, and you have your mage drink a wisdom potion, an option in the wish spell is to request that you have all your spells memorized as if you've just rested. That solves the problem where you're running out of spells and can't effectively damage her.

The last time I tried killing the Lich and Co, I realized I wasn't able to dispel the invisibility on the mages with true seeing at first. That seemed odd to me, but maybe they had non-detection cast. Anyway, I simply targeted the Thayan nights individually while I was waiting for the mages' spell protections to wear off. Some lower resistance spells allowed me to target them with spells as my fighters hacked away at them. One-by-one, they each died. We used wands of resurrection and healing potions to deal with the massive damage the party was doling out to us. The lich I simply ignored until the end, and tried to avoid his ice storms. I had heavy spell protections, including death ward on my party members, so he really couldn't do much to us. Eventually the spell protections began to wear off on the mages, so I was able to dispel all their protections and kill them all.

Boss encounters are challenging, yes. Impossible? No. You just have to sit and think about the problems you're running up against in the fight and figure out some way of dealing with them. Even then you may have to reload a few times, but eventually you can kill just about anything. It's much more satisfying to win a fight the normal way rather than by cheating.

[Delight]

I Ctrlyed + Alted + Delled through Melissan.

So you switched your computer off entirely?

Oops...
Ctrlyed + Yffed.

Even then you may have to reload a few times, but eventually you can kill just about anything. It's much more satisfying to win a fight the normal way rather than by cheating.

SFLing is cheating and kills the roleplaying part of cRPGs, because it makes players pick unreasonable challenges and survive, because they use immature and unRPG reasoning "OMG a challenge (OMG XP!!!)! OMG I died! OMG It's not fair! OMG I must reload! OMG Anomen died! OMG I must reload! OMG I won! OMG I passed a challenge!!!
It degrades cRPGs to semi-tactical adventure hackfests, because there's no risk (which limits character's ability to get exp and items).
Consequences are very important in RPGs and SFLing makes party avoid consequences of taking unnecessary risks.

[Delight]

I Ctrlyed + Alted + Delled through Melissan.

So you switched your computer off entirely?

Oops...
Ctrlyed + Yffed.

Even then you may have to reload a few times, but eventually you can kill just about anything. It's much more satisfying to win a fight the normal way rather than by cheating.

SFLing is cheating and kills the roleplaying part of cRPGs, because it makes players pick unreasonable challenges and survive, because they use immature and unRPG reasoning "OMG a challenge (OMG XP!!!)! OMG I died! OMG It's not fair! OMG I must reload! OMG Anomen died! OMG I must reload! OMG I won! OMG I passed a challenge!!!
It degrades cRPGs to semi-tactical adventure hackfests, because there's no risk (which limits character's ability to get exp and items).
Consequences are very important in RPGs and SFLing makes party avoid consequences of taking unnecessary risks.

[Delight]

sorry, triple post XD

Edited by Delight, 01 September 2006 - 03:58 AM.

[Delight]

sorry, triple post XD

Edited by Delight, 01 September 2006 - 03:58 AM.

[Gnikki]

Reloading is cheating, huh? Okay, it's a simple fact that if the Bhaalspawn pc dies in BG2, he or she turns into a pile of dust on the ground. I doubt there's a single person out there who hasn't reloaded at some point in the game.

To get the Thayan nights to target your fighters, you move your fighters to the front as soon as you warp into the room. 9 times out of 10, your fighters are targeted. I wanted to summon a bunch of monsters and stuff too, but that's really hard to do when the entire room is filled with that death fog. If Edwin is dying because of the litch, it's because he doesn't have enough spell protections on. I had the following protections on Eddie: stoneskin, mirror image, vocalize, fireshield blue and red, improved invisibility, resist fear, speed, spell deflection, protection from magical weapons, and minor spell turning. I decided if the enemy mages could cast improved invisibility and avoid being targeted by spells, so could we! The only time I had to worry about Eddie dying was if his spell protections began to wear off. I had him memorize some extra spell protections, so he was able to re-cast those when we got to that point. Nalia had similar protections, although since she wasn't quite as advanced as Eddie, she had to have lower-level protections. She still had improved invisibility cast though, so she was just about as safe as Edwin. BTW, it also helps to cast a couple fire balls at the enemies in the very beginning of the fight. Not all of them are completely protected from fire. I found that one of the knights was particularly vulnerable to melf's minute meteors, as well.

[Minarvia]

Reloading is cheating, huh? Okay, it's a simple fact that if the Bhaalspawn pc dies in BG2, he or she turns into a pile of dust on the ground. I doubt there's a single person out there who hasn't reloaded at some point in the game.
To get the Thayan nights to target your fighters, you move your fighters to the front as soon as you warp into the room. 9 times out of 10, your fighters are targeted. I wanted to summon a bunch of monsters and stuff too, but that's really hard to do when the entire room is filled with that death fog. If Edwin is dying because of the litch, it's because he doesn't have enough spell protections on. I had the following protections on Eddie: stoneskin, mirror image, vocalize, fireshield blue and red, improved invisibility, resist fear, speed, spell deflection, protection from magical weapons, and minor spell turning. I decided if the enemy mages could cast improved invisibility and avoid being targeted by spells, so could we! The only time I had to worry about Eddie dying was if his spell protections began to wear off. I had him memorize some extra spell protections, so he was able to re-cast those when we got to that point. Nalia had similar protections, although since she wasn't quite as advanced as Eddie, she had to have lower-level protections. She still had improved invisibility cast though, so she was just about as safe as Edwin. BTW, it also helps to cast a couple fire balls at the enemies in the very beginning of the fight. Not all of them are completely protected from fire. I found that one of the knights was particularly vulnerable to melf's minute meteors, as well.

About the reloading - I totally agree with that. I've often thought the very same thing when people get on others for their occassional reload. I can't believe anyone NEVER has their pc die.

I like these battle ideas. I usually just begin with immediately having Anomen (or Viconia) and Eddie cast Skeleton Warriors right next to the closest mage and they become the first targets. I then pick and choose my strategies from there. I tell you, I am SO glad that my skeletons are the targets of the Time Stop and Horrid Wilting and my party is not hurt so badly. I then have time to pause and plan each step of the way.

Edited by Minarvia, 06 September 2006 - 02:11 PM.

[Delight]

Reloading is cheating, huh? Okay, it's a simple fact that if the Bhaalspawn pc dies in BG2, he or she turns into a pile of dust on the ground. I doubt there's a single person out there who hasn't reloaded at some point in the game.

Yes. He or she turns into a pile of dust on the ground and the game is over. It's just a question of maturity as a RPG player. If character dies, then character dies, it's time to move on and create another character and start a new game or play another game.

[WizWom]

er, um, I have not installed this mod, because, well, i like good parties. Just could never get past that my NPCs are happy when I get caught being a theif and killing people I don't need to...

But, almost every place I have ever been you can get away by leaving the zone. If you are in Athkatla, leave the zone, buff up however you need, and go right back to fight the battle on your terms. If you know your entrances and exits, you can probably set it up so you also get to use the "fringe" effect to only see one new enemy at a time (that can be done only work on Waukeen's promenade and the docks).

[Minarvia]

er, um, I have not installed this mod, because, well, i like good parties. Just could never get past that my NPCs are happy when I get caught being a theif and killing people I don't need to...

But, almost every place I have ever been you can get away by leaving the zone. If you are in Athkatla, leave the zone, buff up however you need, and go right back to fight the battle on your terms. If you know your entrances and exits, you can probably set it up so you also get to use the "fringe" effect to only see one new enemy at a time (that can be done only work on Waukeen's promenade and the docks).

You're right about the zone, but in this case you are trapped in one room and there is nowhere to escape to to buff up or use the fringe effect. That's what makes this battle so challenging.

[WizWom]

Reloading is cheating, huh? Okay, it's a simple fact that if the Bhaalspawn pc dies in BG2, he or she turns into a pile of dust on the ground. I doubt there's a single person out there who hasn't reloaded at some point in the game.

Check out The No Reload Challenge on Bioware's spoiler forums. (1) so far has made SoA/ToB without reloading. AFAIK no one has done the trilogy no Reload. something like 5 have finished SoA no Reload.

Currently, my party is just done with spellhold no-reload. I made 2 PCs, and started in Candlekeep, but died a few imes, so I started No-Reload again with them in SoA.