Immune to energy drain?

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Is there some "code" that lets you get permanent protection vs level drain? There's way to many vampires in this game and I hate having to cheat in amulets of power for everyone. Then I have to cheat in "use any item" so that some of them can actually use them.

Sure there's the +2 mace of disruption but I have no idea where to upgrade it and what is needed.
There's also other items that protect from level drain but I don't want to be "forced" to use them. So I use the amulets.

 

I could tell you how to make the improved mace of disruption if you want. Also there are items in some of the mods that hadn that out such as improved dayster I think gives you that immunity.

You could give everybody one use of berserk and that will protect against energy drain (as will barbarian rage).

How well do you know how to use keeper? If you do make an undead hunter paladin. Then look at the affects tab and see if anything under there says anything about "energy drain immunity" or similar. If you can find that you could copy it and then add it to other character using shadow keeper.

 

I'm playing the vanilla BG2 EE. No mods. Don't know which ones work with the EE and how/where to install them. I would love to get the weapons upgrade and the tweaks.
What is "SCSII"?

Yoshimo's Heart that would be great if you could tell me how to upgrade the mace.
As for the keeper I only know the basics. Nothing about "Affects" or "Global Variables".

 

Could someone please explain why vampires drain 2 levels just for touching you? Shouldn't it be if they bite you and draw blood by succeeding on a grapple check? At least that's the way I ran them in my campaigns.
And why is it TWO levels?

 

I think it's more a case of "our vampires are different". Vampires in the Forgotten Realms (and D&D in general I think) are able to directly feed upon your life essence/soul, which in game terms means they can drain character levels via physical contact.

 

To upgrade the Mace of Disruption you'll need to bring the Mace of Disruption (which you can only find in the vampire lair when you visit it before going to Spellhold) and a chunk of Illithium Ore to the dwarvish smith in the docks area.

Getting the illithium is a bit involved. You get it from the house in the bridge district that is leftmost, all the way at the bottom of the map. As far as I know, though, the NPC that actually drops the ore is only there after you talk to a hidden duergar in the Copper Coronet, which in turn is only available to talk to after you talk to Jerlia the ore merchant in the promenade. Which in turn you can only do after talking to sir Sarles in the government district, which in turn is only available after you get the quest to gain the services of sir Sarles for the temple.

And the quest only triggers after you do the Cult of the Unseeing Eye quest for a temple.

It's a bit involved. It also means that you can't finish the quest for the services of sir Sarles by giving him the Illithium, but you must get Jerlia to create something that is like it (while still at the same time getting the duergar's name from her).


My general strategy for fighting vampires is usually to have one person with a helmet of charm protection and the amulet of power and then have him/her deal with the vampires while the rest of the party hangs back. It's easier that way. Also remember that there's a priest spell that gives negative plane protection. I.e. it protects against level drain.

 

Sounds like I'm sticking with the amulet. I'll EEkeeper in the mace though. Thanks for the input and info. Much appreciated.

 

What's wrong with Casting Negative Plane Protection on your characters? It's a level 3 Cleric spell. Once you add Aerie, Viccy or Anomen you ahve access to it let one you have it from the get go if your a cleric yourself. Once you go to war with Bohdi, use all your 3rd level spell slots for NPP. Items aren't necessary. The Mage Spell Hold Undead is pretty darn handy as well.....

 

Grapple checks are a 3rd edition D&D convention those do not exist in AD&D which is what BG2 is based on (2nd ed). IN 2e most level drain effects are based on getting hit which is the case for vampires and different enemies drain different amounts. Wights may drain just one level. Some vampires drain two but more powerful ones like Bodhi drain more (I think Bodhi can drain 3 or 4 levels per hit).

Also in 3e level drain was done by being hit by a slam attack while the blood drain after a grapple dealt con drain (or damage would have to look up that particular detail).

I agree with Henkie in that I had the best luck just equiping one to two characters with anti vampire equipment and just sending them alone. As long as they have a decent offense and defense you should have no problems killing the vampires so long as you can make sure they see your one character first.

For me it was Anomen. I had him wield the best weapon I could find for him (which was the flail of ages at the point I was fighting the lair of vampires before I had the mac of disruption), the helm of charm protection, the amulet of power, and sent him against the vampires alone. Generally speaking Anomen has enough AC, HP, and offensive potential that he can kill groups of vampires with just a few potions of extra healing to keep you up in an emergency. Other characters can do the job as well such as Keldorn or Jaheira. The lone exception are enemies that are spellcasters but then they are not going to be hitting you with level drain attacks so treat them like any other mage.

 

At what level do you need to be in order to turn/destroy vampires?

 

That is a good question and one where I do not have a specific answer though it depends on how old the vampire is. For instance a fledgling vampire would require a lower level than a standard vampire, which often would require a lower level than most named vampires, which would be less than Bodhi, etc.

Generally you need to be fairly high level and once you are that high you might as well just have your one buffed character pound them into the ground. I also find that turning is more annoying than helpful unless you know you can destroy the undead since them running away is annoying.


Another good idea is to memorize sunray (or use items like daystar that give you that spell 1/day). Have a character protected by your amulet of power (or similar) and have him unleash a sunray spell. All the swarming vampires will either be dead or near death with just one spell. It is about the single most brutal spell in the game against undead. Definitely worth using.

Sorry I can't give you a specific level on the turning attempts.

 

I've read somewhere that to destroy or command an undead with turn undead, your level needs to be 2x the HD of the undead you are trying to turn. In terms of the vampires in Bodhi's lair, there's the fledgeling vampires, the normal vampires and the named vampires (the named vampires are not necessarily higher HD than the normal, as I recall).

I still don't really know what level you need to be to destroy or command the vampires in Bodhi's lair, but I know for sure that a lvl 25 cleric can destroy all the vampires (except for Bodhi, but she's scripted).

Sure you can just hack them to pieces by that level, as Yoshimo's Heart points out, but it sure is fun to come back to the vampire lair after the underdark and have them all group around you and then switch on turn undead. Boom. Very satisfying

Of course you'd not normally be high enough level, but for smaller parties it's not unfeasable to reach that level by that time.

Yes it is. Five rounds is barely enough for a single encounter.

 

Simple anti-vampire protection: don't wander the streets of Athkatla at night.

More elaborate: employ some tactics in your encounters with them, instead of simply chucking every team member in the melee. Vampires are nowhere near amongst the toughest of the monsters of the Baldur's Gate series, and in my honest opinion NOBODY should be feeling the need to cheat in extra protection items. If they are such a problem to you then I suggest re-evaluating the manner in which you approach them, using the advice offered in the comments above.

Negative Plane Protection has a short duration but also a reasonably short casting time. It can be timed to coincide with whichever melee-er you send in actually closing with the enemy vampires. It even saved my ass once in combat with the Shadow Dragon, in which I only just slammed up the spell a split second before the Dragon's breath hit my Sorcerer, whose purpose for the entire fight was bringing down the Dragon's MR; any loss of levels would have made him redundant and the fight impossible by the tactics I employed.

 

I forgot about the shadow dragon. I was looking at the area in Firkaag's dungeon and Bhodi's area. Sure I can avoid area of Firkraag's dungeon but I'm one of those people that like to finish everything.

I don't. I try to lure one out at a time (Firkraag's dungeon) and use 1 or 2 melee attackers and 4 archers &/or slingers. (slingers? Is that even word? Lol)
But for some abnormal reason the vampires don't always agree with my tactics and turn on the missile attackers. Also if I get more than 1 vamp in attacking the party then there is almost certainty that at least 1 turns on the ranged attackers. I try to bottleneck the doorway but that doesn't always turn out the way I planed it. Lol.

Thanks for the advice/tactics/input people. Much appreciated.....Slingers???

 

Slingers are what we hang up when it's someone's birthday.
In english, though, it seems it is an actual word with, as far as I can tell, the meaning you intended.

If you have one or two people protected from level drain and protected from charm, just let them handle it alone. Backrow people are out of sight, hiding. Even if they don't attack your backrow people outright, vampires have a tendency to try to charm anyone that isn't protected from charm.

Also, turning undead fun:
<image deleted>

 

For a cleric turning guide, see this thread:
http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=21706&highlight=cleric+fun
I'll post back in about 10 minutes to give instructions on how to CHEAT over the Undead Hunter's immunity to level drain to other characters if you really want to know.
I need to create an undead hunter and figure out the correct code as I haven't played one in years and I lost all my saved characters in the hard drive crash of 2012.

 

Thanks for the link and knowing how do the Undead Hunter cheat would be great.