Finished it - my thoughts (SPOILERS)

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ahh .. great game. nice to finally finish this saga.

played a half-elf kensai (level 32 at the end.. using 2-handed swords--grams sword of grief..hehe).. with minsc, valgar, jaheria (I know. my spelling is terrible), aerie and imoen practically the entire series..)

I do have a few comments if you will bear with me.

1. hardest battle---very tough to pick one. Unfortunately, most battles could be won by running away or summoning monsters. they also depended on the level of you party at the time and how many opponents you faced. IMHO:
a. toughest bg1 battle--sarevok.. very hard because his goons helped him alot.. but early in the game, just about anything (including xvarts!!!!!) gave me trouble.
b. toughest bg2 battle--well, the demilich sucked until I learned the secrets.

I will say, in general, that battles with gauths/beholders were extremely tough until I got that fabulous cloak.

but nothing seemed to help me with mindflayers and thier damned brain-eating tactics. when they were in mass, they were the toughest for me. even harder than the big 'I' or the red dragon (mainly because these opponents were alone and I could just pummel them with all my NPC's)
c. toughest tob battle--I agree with many that the fire giants are tough at first (in the entrance to their hall) but they fall easily when in groups of 3 or less.

Mareliths and succubi (and the alu (sp.) demons) could all spice up a battle.

the battle on the 5 th floor of watcher's keep (the one with the beholder, etc) was really tough if you don't run away.

I also believe the battle with the fallen solar and crew is extremely hard (because he has merileth, succubi, alu demons with him).

also, the battle in the hall with the slaves of sendai drove me INSANE... took 30+ minutes and I killed about 100+ monsters.. crazy..

but, overall, the battle with abzigal was my hardest.. his breath was just too tough and it took me forever to kill him.. esp with the sal's still alive (I had to pick them off before-hand)..

that battle was tougher for me than draconis---I don't know why, I must have just have gotten very very lucky with ol' drac.


some comments re: the plot and mechanichs:

things that burned me up:

1. for bg1--not much .. it was fairly smooth. I must say I would have rather have liked taking minsc WITHOUT dinaheir..

2. bg2-- simply awesome.. not many complaints..

EXCEPT Jan's quest--this was left open ended with a child abuser!!! running amok.. PLEASE black isle, give me some CLOSURE and let me find and kill this bastard!..

the slaver's quest seemed to not be pieced together well.. how was the house in the temple district connected??

killing the paladin's in the red dragon's forest was also too depressing....

3. tob--- several plot problems:

a. why no comment from the townsfolk in saradush when I killed the vampires?
b. there seemed to be something unfinished about the Van Goethe situation.. not sure what.....
c. I felt like a puppet of mellisan early on.. and I had no choice about it.. no alternative way of solving it.. sure, the '5' were clearly evil and needed taking care of.. but some other way than just marching in and killing them would have been nice
d. as noted in a post below, too many fights with a relatively weak main villian and 5 mean, nasty 'henchmen'


c. my biggest problem: how in the heck was I too believe that abzigal was a bhal-spawn? I mean, dragons take FOREVER to hatch and mature, being the rare and majestic beasts that they are. so how does a dragon get 'hatched' at the same time as a half-elf (me), a drow, a fire giant and countless other humans/humanoids and develop into a powerful adult (at least) dragon by the time I am about 20 something years old (or less!!!)

AND he had a child!!!! who was also a powerful dragon!!! in the same time frame!!! this is preposterous.. throw into the mix that draconis was not even the same kind of dragon as abzigal and you have massive confusion

d. final problem- the tests in the pocket plane were sort of .. go nowhere...

overall, the best RPG ever made for computer.. great everything---especially plot..


THANKS BLACK ISLE et. al.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



[This message has been edited by cotman68 (edited July 18, 2001).]

 

Well about the dragon hatching, considering there was also a rabbit, goblin, tasloi, and xvart that were also children of bhaal i wouldn't find it too suprising that something like that happened. Bhaal got around a lot, maybe screwed the dragon a lot earlier to be his pardon me being cheesy 'greatest creation'. You might have been an after thought.

 

Regarding the toughness of battles in ToB- I found that I became a lot more blase about characters dying, whereas in the first two games, the only battle with dead NPCs I didn't reload on were dragon battles. In ToB, I actually used mass raise dead and the rod of resurrection quite a bit. I agree with you about finding Abazigal much tougher than Draconis. In SoA, I think that the twisted rune gang under the bridge district was pretty tough, and who were these incredibly powerful people, just hanging out? One thing I'd like to know is if they are connected to the Celestial Fury party, the human flesh guys (they have "rune assasins"), and the guy who took Cernd's baby. If you are looking for closure in Jan's quest, you kind of get it in his little epilogue piece at the end of ToB.

 

I forgot about twisted rune. I defeated them with slight cheese--waiting in the anteroom and let them come to me. BTW--they are mentioned in the new FR campaign setting.. several references to this secret society...

I will have to look up the jan epilogue. I couldn't even keep him on my team because I kept thinking about that damn child beater...

anyone have any other comments re: abzigal? My problem is not that bhal would mate with a dragon--my problem is that abzigal should be a century and a half old (or much older) and draconis should be pushing a century himself (or much older).. the timeline just doesn't make sense...

 

Who knows how long ago Bhall forsaw his death? Given that there are elven children of bhall he must have started a good hundred or so years back, obviously much longer for abazigal. This all stems from the very common misconception that bhall made his mortal progreny during the time of troubles.

Woohoo!!! I've leveled up!!!

[This message has been edited by Alex (edited July 18, 2001).]

 

Hardest Battle i have seen is the Sendai Statues. I tried it like 6 times before i got so sick of it i exported my 20 mage and reloaded him into a new game. I never even made it past the 5th statue with myself, Mage, and Anomen,Sarevok,Valygar(foolish), Keldorn, and Nalia. The first statue would just drive me nuts with the insect plague spell, and by the time i would have monsters holding the entrance to keep back the drow that poped in some mages would death spell them all and i would be caught with them right up my #$$. Tryed to split off the fighters but then i couldn't keep the mage under control.

Anyone got any idea what i should do before i just blow away that save and move on. i didn't like losin all the stuff when i imported into a new game.

 

2 comments:

1. valgar is not a foolish choice.. I have had him since early SoA and he has never let me down.. equip him with that armor that casts haste and crom faer/c-fury.. you will NOT be dissapointed.. he deals damage like nobody's business. very very powerful

2. my sendai strategy was similar to Blackthorne's.. I left most of my party at the entrance (j, imoen, aerie and val) and took minsc and my kensai around to each statue to chop up the 'sendai's as they animated.. the drow warriors fell 'easily' to val, j, a summoned golem, and a summoned elemental prince (NOT CHAN......not chan!!)

 

I agree, valygar is a great choice, however I use Axe of Unyielding and The Answerer, then improved haste and watch the heads roll.

You have Keldorn, who at that level can dispel magic 6-7/D; how in the heck are those insect swarm-like spells even hurting you?

 

They casted a lot. The first statue used the insect plague 2 times usually, the first mage liked to timestop/prot. from evil/gate, then the 5th encounter was the 2nd mage who liked the old time stop/symbol stun and fear.

I am gonna try what you guys said and focus my main party up on the drow.

 

hey, i killed her and her statues with just a sorcerer and his planetar, yeah it took me like four reload's but it was hella worth the exp, just bust out a tensors transformation with all your mirror images and blurs and stoneskins and hastes and strengths on, then you are set

 

A few points:

Mindflayers: chaotic commands protects against psionic blast, death ward prevents them sucking your brains out. So one or two protected tanks with a host of Mordenkainen's swords (who are also immune to MF attacks) can chop a roomful of mindflayers into calamari before the protective spells wear out. Best to clear out the Umber Hulks with cloudkill or similar spells first, though.

Twisted Rune: in Balthazar's village, the mage in the tavern hints that he is a twisted rune member and that Balthazar has hired others.

Ages of Bhaalspawn: ISTR that the introduction to SOA stated that Bhaal 'walked the earth' *before* the time of troubles. So it makes sense that the Bhaalspawn would have been 'spawned' over a period of time, whenever Daddy had time to nip out for a bit of nookie.

The Fire Giants: these can be tough, but can't do much to Mordenkainen's Swords either. So after a nasty experience in the entrance hall, my PC sneaked alone into what turned out to be the antechamber to Yaga Shura's bedroom. This is the room with lots of Fire Giants, one of whom casts spells, and where you find Yaga's heart. He positioned himself out of the Giants' view, summoned a lot of swords and a Planar, along with a Wizard eye to keep them in view, then sent those into battle. A nice easy way to win that one. And 'the Wave' rocks for disposing of fire elementals, salamanders and so on that you find elsewhere in that fortess!

[This message has been edited by GavinWheeler (edited July 25, 2001).]

 

excellent post GavinWheeler..

I think the Twisted Rune is fascinating.. I will have to check up on the Bathezar connection...I wonder if any DM's in NWN (i.e. ALFA) will incorporate that secret society....

The death ward protection vs. brain eating is new too me.. I will definitely try this one on my second time through..

I think I now see the light on the Abzigal situation.. I was just always of the belief that he only started to 'spawn offspring' just before he knew his time was up--thus the apparently close age of all the Bhaal-spawn (me, imoen, balthezar, Gromnir.. probably the first assasin, sarevok and likey the fire giant.. I guess the drow sendai could have been quite old)

 

You know, I've been wondering how the hell can you get into that cave in Balthazaar's kingdom. I killed him, got transported to the pocket plane did the stuff, decided I wanted to check the city so I went back, went to the gate and then all the guards start attacking me so I just went back to my pocket plane.

 

Yeah but I thought that you couldn't enter the Cave of the Dead. They said there was an invisible barrier there.

 

But I DID talk to the guy who needed help with his daughter. He wanted me to go to his house. I went to his house, found the daughter sleeping, went back, and when I tried to talk to him, it said he had nothing to say to me.