going insane...

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Ok, so I wanna try a BG run-through silverstar style (or in other words, on insane diff and heavily modded for immense tactical challenges). Currently I am nearing the end of BG1 in what is my first ever go on insane difficulty... never used anything but core rules before.

I mainly just play the BG1 part for the books and to see what insane diff is like. don't have that many mods:

BGT
BG tweaks
D0tweak
EoU
BG2 Tweaks
BGT worldmap

But when I hit SoA I want to greatly enhance the difficulty of my game.
My party is Me (monk), Imoen (for RP reasons mostly), Kagain, FMT, Cleric/ranger MC, and a Sorcerer.
So basically what I want is a list of the hardest tactical encounters there is out there.

Keep in mind that I've already defeated BG2/ToB using tactics, improved irenicus, improved Firrkrag, and Improved Demogorgon; I do plan on defeating those again, as the last time I did it, it was on core rules, however should a particular mod you like be (semi-)incompatible with one of the above mods, it's not necessarily an issue as I don't *have* to be using those specific mods. For example, I've heard IA is incompatible with some of the tactics components, but also read a lot of great things about it, so if one of you guys can give a reason to use IA over tactics (or rather over the few of the components it's incompatible with) I'd go for that "instead".

Oh an if you would please be so kind as to give a small description of the mod and why you think it rocks I'd greatly appreciate it.
And a link or two wouldn't hurt either .

Thanks up-front!

 

Hello Olimikrig! So good to hear from you!

Why did not you try SCS for TuTu, that mod is great and enhances the difficulty of even the most mundane battle of BG1. BG1 battles are as exciting as BG2 ones with that mod!

As for your upcoming BG2 game...

Well...as the official mod freak here, I can vote for you to have IA in your next game. Why, I am suprised you haven't tried it up to now! I can honestly say that IA adds a level of challenge and fun factor unparalelled by any other difficulty enhancing mods. Why don't you do something like this: Get Tactics, Improved Battles and Ascension's compatible components with IA, and then get IA as the very last mod. This way you will have the most challenging battles ever possible in any IE game. (Like I do! )

What makes IA so great? IA totally turns BG2 into an all new game by introducing new quests, monsters, battles, areas, and item recipes, while still preserving the originality and awesomeness of BG2...Not only that, IA wonderfully modifies some aspects of game engine and items/spells to reduce cheese and further improve game play. And also do not forget the item randomisation program, this alone can be enough to try IA! While doing all these, the game does not lose its BG2 originality and air, if anything, IA improves and makes the Bhaalspawn Saga all the more epic!

I never ever thought about playing IA on insane difficulty though. I bet, playing IA on core for the first time would be much more difficult than playing tactics and the like on insane. As you all know the old mod's scripts and 'tactics' to beat them, why don't you try something new? You won't be dissapointed!

[ October 08, 2007, 19:49: Message edited by: Silverstar ]

 

Good to hear from you too!

Well, I haven't added that many mods mainly due to wanting to try how BGT works seeing is I hadn't tried that before; and most of the difficulty enhancing mods I found was build for tutu.

I don't think IA was actually around in a finished version back when I was playing BG2 regularly.. Mind you haven't actually finished any of the campaigns in over a year now!

Hehe, if you haven't defeated IA on insane before I must be crazy to attempt it .

I guess I'll be needing some item packs on-top of it all to really stand a chance?

What about Valen? Never did the Buffy fight, but heard it should be pretty challenging, and I do have a neutral protagonist.

 

I was able to beat IA on core difficulty but even I had to flinch from two most difficult fights the mod offered, and actually missed one big fight. The mod is 'that' difficult, large, and fun! I will try to beat them all in my next try! Plus, IA is a hot mod which Sikret works to enhance further.

You do not need uber powerful item packs to enjoy IA. IA offers very powerful items as well, but you have to work hard to be able to forge them and this makes them all the more precious!

You can ofcourse have BoM item pack, I have the latest version and will try it in my next run. I really love this mod, BTW. I am still off to Cloakwood in my current TuTu game though.

As for Valen, I never tried it but my friend used her once. Well, she becomes so ridiculously powerful it is kinda unbalancing. But, Buffy and Van Helsing battle is said to be very challenging so you may give it a try. Valen most assuredly brings a new air to the game, but greatly making things more difficult for you. Prepare for night-only adventures, lots of bloody and meaningless innocent killing, and never being able to enter a temple if you wish to play with her!

 

Well I could always grab her just for the fight and then ditch her afterwards.

 

IA is the most difficult tactical mod out there so if you want the ultimate challenge go for that one.

But you can also consider the brand new Sword Coast Stratagems 2 that was just released last night . It's easier then IA (from what I've seen so far) but offers more space for roleplaying which is something I found hard to do in IA. You can download SCS2 at Gibberlings 3.

The 3rd option is the old Tactics/Improved Battles, again not as difficult as IA but it gets the job done .

 

Hmmm reading about SCS it seems that it is actually compatible with BGT, and can be instaleld even after having started!
Might as well give it a go seeing as insane isn't actually coursing me much if any trouble... haven't even resorted to a single cheesy trick yet .

 

Okay, so I beat BG1 fairly easy, SSC proved to be a challenge alright, but nothing I couldn't handle really.

So I went onward to BGII, and my first impression was wow, just wow.

difficulty is insane, and I have the following mods installed:

Ascension
Improved Battles
Quest Pack
D0Tweak
Ease
Improved Asylum
Oversight
Tactics (some components)
UB
Virtue
IA

** SPOILERS **

Illych and his goons almost tore my party completely apart! They were hitting like trucks on insane and the random walking made it near impossible to separate them entirely... I had to use hit 'n' run tactics, luring them back to the dryad room (which was heavily trapped), quickly take one out before help arrived and then rest to break the scripts, or whatever.. whenever I tried not resting at any rate, a goon would show up soon after the first was gone and begin massacring my mortally wounded "tanks".
It didn't help a lot either that my level 9 fighter dualed to cleric at the very beginning .

A managed to beat the bastards in the end tho .

however as I left Irenicus' dungeon and began exploring the city of akathla I was attacked by a group lead by a certain suna sendai(sp?)...

And I got owned! again, and again, and again....
and no matter where I tried traveling (well, good as) they would show up; and even when I did succeed at going somewhere within the city, I'd just get attacked upon leaving the area again. Suffice to say, it got a little tiresome getting my ass handed all the time, and I didn't have the money to 'buy' a magic license so I could pre-buff, and I didn't want to go to the outside areas just yet, so instead I decided to go to Watcher's Keep (lol).

clearing the first level went smooth enough, but the altar battle .
The initial storm of vengance the dwarven cleric threw totally annihalated my party, so I ended up camping my party in the lich room to the NE corner, throwing an animate dead spell to provoke a storm of vengance from the cleric, placing the bell and candle and quickly hurrying back to the lich room before the statues spotted me.

it worked like a charm! the clerk wasted his spell, and my initial traps did some damage (tho far from killing any of the statues). after the storm had passed I had Yoshi sneak up and spot where the statues had positioned themselves, had my F/C and Jan remove some of their protections, threw a cloudkill and a chaos (all, of course, out-of-sight). Worked pretty well as well, the cloudkill got one of them, and had the rest of them around injured. I hasted my party and went in for the kill.

Then I rested, re-trapped the area (although as I discovered the traps didn't really do much in terms of damage), buffed up and initiated the 2nd encounter.
Again I used cludkill and chaos from out-of-sight but got spotted and quickly had to throw a party invis. as the cloudkill had disappeared the mage was dead and about half of the remaining statues were injured I again went in for the kill... didn't go as smooth this time though! they were taking about 3/4th of my hit points each hit, and I had to take advantage of haste A LOT, and lure some of the statues into following viccy so the rest of my party woulden't get chunked.

In the end, however, I stood victorious!

This game, and IA specifically, looks very promising indeed!

 

The Suna-Seni encounter could be postponed by taking the following route:

Promenade->Slums->Government district->City Gates->Umar Hills-> Trademeet

It's probably a better choise than flying to WK so early in the game.

Did you try pre-buffing inside a tavern? The cowled ones would only appear if you cast spells on the street.

Nice! Don't forget to return to the 1st level of WK after defeating Pai'Na in the crypts under the Graveyard District. You will see something new there.

Thank you. Glad to hear that you are enjoying.

 

I didn't plan on attempting all of WK just yet either, but just collect some gear and experience. Elemental labs and onward is going to be saved for later.

No I haven't, and I just might! Been flirting with the thought of taking out the cowled ones and "win" my license instead, because I usually just buy it out of laziness, and have actually only ever done those fights once, iirc.

 

Finally got Suna Sedi and co. down! I had done the Trademeet main quests and ganked improved Faldorn.. Cheesed it somewhat though as I positioned my party next to the fighting pit and transfered gear to Jaheira after the fight had started . smacked her before she even had a chance to get through Jaheiras Iron skin. Had her buffed with chaotic commands, Iron Skins, haste and a potion of cloud giant strength, I believe it was (the 23 str one).

So my F/C had regained his fighter abilities, which made things somewhat easier . I simply just had Jan throw Emotion and Viccy and my protagonist threw 2xhold person, which disabled like half of them, wasn't much tactic in the rest of the fight, which probably explain why I lost Minsc and Jaheira (should have thrown another Hold Person or two, Viccy and my protagonist still had plenty memorized.
As the Hold Persons wore off I simply just re-cast, and was lucky enough to land a successful one on the Mage and Priest (sweet).

 

I always "win" my licence from the Cowled Wizards. I always go on top of the Copper Coronet or another place in town where there´s no chance of killing civilians, and then cast spells to pull them out. Once I´ve been through like 5 battles or so and trash their champions (PFFFFFFHHHHH!!!) they never bother me again. Why would I ever want to give those Cowled sheepshaggers 5000 g´s for that license? Out of gratitude for kidnapping my sister and forcing me to go through the Underdark? Hell no! Awful Good characters would probably respect the law and fork up the cash, even though I´ve always earned my license the hard way as a Lawful Good character.

 

I trust you are referring to the Imp. Faldorn from Tactics mod (as IA v4.2 doesn't improve Faldorn); but IA v5 has its own Imp. Faldorn in which the duel is fully fixed and the abovementioned method will not work in it as you can read in the Progress report topic in the mod's forum:

Faldorn's duel with the protagonist is fixed. The duel is supposed to be a fair one-on-one combat. Now, you won't be able to pass any items (weapons, potions,...) from your NPCs to your protagonist during the battle. You can't actually interfere in any way. Moreover, all of your buffs will be dispelled before starting the duel (Faldorn also starts the duel with no buffs). This is in addition to item no.2 above which refers to Faldorn being slightly improved during the duel.

Since olimikrig is playing the game with IA installed, he couldn't do that in that way so early in the game. The cowled ones (and specially their final group) are improved.

 

I am.. Looking forward to that as I'd say that the tactics Imp. Faldorn is more than a little cheesy as is, and a more straight up and fair fight would preferable. Of course an insanely hard battle, but still a fair one .

 

Ok, I'm kinda stuck, can't really make up my mind regarding what to do now .

I've done most or parts of most of the major quests already.. Done Mae'var, Trademeet (the easy), Umar Hills up to the dragon and shade lord, slavers up to the ship compound (reckon I can take that now I've got imp haste though) all the trademeet subquests (the founder was an interesting battle but fairly manageable if done "right" ), Temple quests (up unto boringal, that dude is wicked! couldn't get him below 'barely injured'! Last try it even went on so far that my F/M had the Amber Golem all the way at badly injured and the bugger was still stuck on barely injured, heh - no spoilers please though!).. I squashed the rakshasa as well (he was actually very easy ), but bailed on the sewer party (KNOW I can take them though, and suspect a malison+emo combo combined with a buffed F/M using some of the many pfmw scrolls I found is the ticket).

So, my choices as I see them now are: Shade Lord and dwagon, slavers, De'Arnise, Firrkragg, some of the various non-quest-related encounters I still haven't done or do the chapter three quests first and then either a) go to spellhold or b) say I'm not ready and then take on the above "quests".

By the way I've totally re-done my party. Felt like I needed something more so replaced all but Jaheira with PC's instead and gave them exp equivalent to the NPCs places they were taking.
Might be a little cheating-like, but meh.

Also had some problems I suspect is related to some of the other difficulty enhancing mods, so restored my clean save and chose only to install IA this time... hope it doesn't mess up my game , and I regret missing out of some of the content I haven't tried (like ascensions and almost all ToB content as I good as never play ToB through). Better safe than sorry though.

Anyways, what now?

 

You didn't mention your party members' levels, but I guess you are now high level enough to give D'Arnise keep a try.

 

Windspear hills is pretty doable (minus Samia, the maze and Firkraag himself) at level 11/12ish, I'd rate it easier than the keep. I found Shade Lord much harder than the others, and at a higher level, so I'd suggest putting it off until you're (well) above level13. Have you done the planar sphere? - I found it very enjoyable at lvl13, it was very tough but I think I only needed one reload (the dynamics of the area were perfect).
Keep us posted - its a good read

 

My party is 12ish with my Thief being either 14 or 15, can't remember right now, also have a lot of multi-classes (Jaheira, R/C and F/M) and they're around 10-11 in each class or some such.

Think I'll handle the planar sphere as I've already done the prerequisite quest and gotten the doors open. Wouldn't mind getting my hands on FoA either though .

 

D'Arnise keep is easier than Planar Sphere. It's certainly doable with a 12th level party with the right tactics. Slaver's Ship building in slums is also doable for your party.

As for the temple quest, did you also pick the Ashideena hammer and defeat its guardians? If so, you can also consider going for the Belm scimitar. It's guardians are of the same power.

What's your protagonist's class?

 

The what hammer? As far as I know I've cleared the entire temple area (in- and exterior) .
Oh so belm is guarded! didn't need it for my current party really, so didn't think of it.

My protagonist is a Wild Mage.