Ascension or not

Remove all ads!

Hi!

I have only ever finished ToB once, so I never tried Ascension. But it has been around seven years I last went all the way, I usually stop somewhere in the beginning of ToB.

My question: Should I aim for a game without Ascention to try the final stages again (I must admit I don't remember it) to see how it really is or could I install Ascension without having too different an ending?

Regards

 

I think the Ascention is a great mod to have and adds more of a challenge, but since you havent played ToB in awhile may I suggest you go through it without the Ascention mod and then once again with the Ascention mod.

 

Ascension makes some major changes to the final battle. If you like a challenge (and it is very challenging), then go for it. But I agree with Danilus - you might want to try the regular game again first.

And I'll leave it up to someone else to make a smart-assed comment about the fact that it's been seven years since you've gone all the way.

 

Maybe I'll postpone Ascension then... Is it only the final battle it alters?

 

It depends on the components you install, if you install them all then you will get this

*Tougher Abazigal
*Tougher Demogorgon
*Tougher Gromnir
*Tougher Illasera
*Tougher Yaga-Shura

Needless to say that you will reckognize some of those in the final battle.

 

Right, well, personally, I don't like uber fights. I'm more about the story. However, I do like Ascension for the reason it adds in some Imoen and Sarevok stuff that got left out of the final release (notably, Sarevok's alignment changing dialogues are better timed so that you can actually get him to change by the end of the game - but also, if you kept his +2 Chaos sword from the Irenicus Dungeon in SoA, you can give it to him and he'll upgrade it). Imoen gains some Bhaal abilities, and if you're of a mind to, you can also convince Balthazar to join you in the end battle instead of fighting you prior to that.
You will also gain Bhaal powers with each challenge in the pocket plane, as well as some additional ones during the final battle. Which is all good stuff.

The end battle is uber. There's a demon goon squad at each of the pools, but in addition, you'll see some old "friends" from SoA at the start of the fight.
The climax of the fight involves fighting all of the Five (well, minus Balthazar if you convinced him to fight for you instead) before tackling Melissan.
Imoen and Sarevok also have important contributions to this battle (Sarevok's outcome depends on how you treated him during the game).
I have to admit I mainly put up with the toughness of this battle because of the other content, but having said that, I'd find it hard to go back to vanilla ToB now.

Other battles have been beefed up a bit but these components are optional. I like and use Tougher Illasera, Tougher Gromnir and occassionally Tougher Yaga-Shura (that fight is fun but can be a little buggy) but skip the others. I tried Tougher Demogorgon and it was too insane for me. As I said, I don't like stuff that's ridiculously hard for the sake of it...the ones I normally install are more challenging but also fun (and Tougher Illasera gives out nice boots!)

Ascension is always the first thing I install, mod-wise, now, but with that in place you can end up mods like Turnabout or Longer Road (nb these aren't especially compatible with each other). Turnabout gives you the chance to recall past fallen allies (like Dynaheir, Yoshimo, Xzar and Gorion) and you have the option to grant life back to one of those - I chose Yoshimo in my game as I always hated that he died in SoA, and his epilogue was nice. I gather Dynaheir has a good epilogue as well.

Longer Road gives you the chance to resurrect and redeem Jon Irenicus and has a load of new content. It's very interesting but it's also challenging (he is not easy to redeem) and does have some bugs. I found it very rewarding and enjoyable, though.

 

This sounds like it's worth the install.

Could be fun to see whom I'll encounter then.

I'll be withholding some of the components I think - especially the demogorgon dude whom I earlier allways had to reload on.

I have to try Turnabout but not this time. I've heard a lot of bad stuff 'bout LR - read: loads of bugs.

Actually I've forgotten most...

Thanks for the answers

 

I've just finished Longer Road. There are bugs but they were fairly minor in my case, though there were a lot of typos. I liked the mod a lot but Irenicus is very hard to redeem - one small dialogue slip-up will prevent his redemption, even if you've done everything else right. I got there in the end, though (after reloading almost a day's play-worth!). It's worth playing but I'd recommend not having too many other mods (aside from Ascension) running.