Demogorgon... sadly helpless in ToB, near impossible in ASC

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So I was playing ToB with the Ascension module installed, and it wasn't particularly relevant yet since all the good upgrades are found near the end with the final boss battle. However, the ASC mod does considerably beef Demogorgon up, but I thought I have come up against all the games difficult challenges thus far (Twisted Rune, etc.) and I should be able to manage to pass the Demogorgon lair as well, even with the ASC module installed.

Boy, was I wrong!

The ASC Demogorgon fight begins with Demogorgon casting a chain contingency/timestop/summon demons so all his underlings from Hell come to play the very first round. I cheesed this first attack out by only sending Edwin in, then retreating back to my battle prepared party (Protect Evil, Bless, Chant, Defensive Harmony, etc) and slaughtering all the summons without Demogorgon to interfere.

Sounds easy. I then rest up, then get battle prepared again. I load up on my own Summons, then proceed to march down to confront Demogorgon.

Now, Gorg isn't particularly good at Magic Resistance, so Edwin can play a crucial role in this battle. I let all of my party attack but I hold Edwin back, having him cast Greater Alaricity/Time Stop to let him do his thing. I then cast about 8 Horrid Wiltings in a row, Time Stop again, then cast offensive magic spells like Chain Lightning and Magic Missle.

Now I should note that none of my party members were above level 30 when I got to the bottom of Watcher's Keep, but I wanted to beat it already.

Lo and behold, it worked! I got Demogorgon to "Near Death" and even though he is cranking out demonic summons like nobody's business (he can't run out of summons, and will always have 4-6 high level demons attacking you) he is Near Death and it should be simple to finish him off, right?

Wrong.

His regeneration ability, which I didn't know about, is ridiculously fast, even faster I believe than Bodhi. So in a few minutes, if your party can't get him down to death, he will recharge all of his health back in no time.

He also has an "Insanity Gaze" which turns one of your party members against you, not to mention mass-kill spells.

So I gave up. BGII is a time-consuming game, and I don't have the patience to wait and level up before defeating Watcher's Keep. So I uninstall the ASC mod, and try to see what Demogorgon looks like without all the juice.

He is way too easy. He only casts one summoned demon, and his Insanity Gaze has been toned down significantly. He was easier than the first Bhaalspawn you encounter in ToB.

In short, sadly there is no middle ground between original ToB and the ASC mod concerning Demogorgon. It's a pity that a great battle like Demogorgon couldn't be upped a little bit to be challenging, but at the same time the ASC mod is too much.

The Sendai battle was a classic.

 

Bleh, I would like to face a 23523456 HP Demogorgon, but not some goblin with 100HP / round regening, hate it

 

I wish there was a blood bath in Demogorgon's lair where you could drop a vial of Holy Water to drop his regeneration rate, like with Bodhi.

I hated that in Asc, too.

 

@ Wordsmith

That's the biggest fault of ALL difficulty enhancing mods: they go overboard from one end or another. You could think that the authors just want to make things as hard as possible for you without a clue of how to really make it interesting...

 

Without Ascension, Demogorgon always summoned four or five demons in my game and he was immune to Time Stop. I don't know why he was that much of a pushover for you.

 

@ Rastor

I think since he can't recharge his summons, or maybe my attacks were so fast that I kept interupting his summons. All my characters have some form of haste (Boots of Speed or an enchanted armor) and I really didn't need to use Time Stop for regular Demogorgon, just a deva and Elemental summons.

@ Wirhe

I read somewhere that the ASC mod was the original Demogorgon that the producers developed, but after play-testing they deemed it too difficult. I don't think it was a user-created mod but the original demogorgon. I agree with you though, I play with a internet Walkthrough and the author noted that a modded version of Sendai was impossible to beat.

 

The Ascension mod has scripting that adjusts for the Difficulty slider. If you pump the difficulty down to "easy" then there will literally be a middle ground.

But don't listen to me. I haven't played the game in 6 months (I left my game cd's 400 miles away. D'oh!), so this is all strictly IIRC.

 

The Ascension final battle responds to the difficulty slider, but I'm not sure if the Original Tougher Bosses do.