Tactics

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Since this is my first shot at Tactics, I figured I'd post my thoughts and/or ways I beat the harder battles to see if anyone can give me any insight and/or opinions. I'm currently in chapter 4.

"Improved" Illych: Beat him by using some ultimately cheesy methods, as in running from the Fallen Deva and waiting for it to go away. Basically just funneled them to me using to hall and picked em off one at a time. To tell the truth, I liked him better before.

Improved Torgal: Loved this one. Most fun I've had with my armour on. Slightly confused about how the doors couldn't stay closed. Slighty pissed about how 6 Spirit Trolls cast Greater Command at you, and there's no way to buff against that.

Improved Shadow Dragon: Holy crap I cannot believe its' breath weapon. It drained Jahiera of 9 lvls. Aside from that I didn't really see much change, except that it was pathetically vulnerable to fear.

Improved Bodhi: Fighting her with a lvl 10 party in Ch. 3 is frustrating, not to mention a good way to give yourself a brain spasm. The only way I managed to beat her was by having my PC run around her like a moron while Jaheira beat up on her with Torgal's Claw. I kept doing that forever, then she pops up and says her "that's was educational..." bit. I think I may have drained her STR with Torgal's Claw. She's also Immune to Prot. from Undead? What the deal-eo?

Improved Beholders: Why do the Gauths do poison damage now? Do they need to brush their teeth real bad?

Improved Vamps: Slightly tougher, I guess. Didn't really notice much. I can still walk around with just one tank with Negetive Plane Prot. and kill the whole guild.

Improved Mages: Much needed. Now a thief can't just walk up and one-hit a mage (which, of course, I NEVER did )


Anyway, that's how far I am now. I'll update later, assuming I get some responses.

 

Some spoliers - stay away, Harbourboy!

Improved Bodhi is a nightmare - I ended up having to stash my party back at the entrance to the tomb, have the PC stake the last vampire, then run like he was on fire until Bodhi just gave up on him. I honestly think Imp. Bodhi would have been much better if she got her über-powers for Chapter 6, for fairly obvious reasons. Of course, with Undead Solaufein, there's really only one option that works, and that's run like hell and wait his defences out.

But if you think that was bad, wait until you run into Kangaxx or Firkraag... don't say I didn't warn you, MC.

Shouldn't Chaotic Commands work?

Apparently so, because beholders are well-known for their vicious melee abilities...

In Chapter Six, they are annoying. For some reason, they always charm Wulfgar, and then all of Drizzt's group leaves when Wulfgar starts wailing on my party with Aegis Fang.

 

Nice topic

I'd like to share my bits too:

Improved Torgal: I had my party wait in the Umberhulk room, all buffed up and set 7 traps, then had my thief sneak into the throne room to lure Torgal out. The traps did their parts and Torgal was badly wounded, a few more hits and he was dead. Cheesy, yes, but who care?

Improved Bodhi: I think she will run away after a while, so if you can't beat her, run

Improved Beholders: as usual, shield of balduran, there isn't much tactics involved here.

Improved Mages: use elemental arrows (eg: acid) on them, they won't be able to cast spell, then just hack them to piece, work in most case.

 

The great thing about Illych is that his Achilles Heel is (to me) perfectly believable. They send patrolers out (the suboptimal tactics that they joke about in the dialogue), and if you are really fast, you can kill one before the rest arrive. Kill him, then scatter into the rest of the dungeon and hide. The place is impossible to lock down because of all the hallways--it's like a rat's nest. The trick is getting one of the patrolers alone, since they frequently travel in pairs or triplets.

Improved TorGal gives me a ton of trouble. I find it essential to stop him in a doorway against a super-reliable tank, either in the doorway to his chamber or by leading him farther away from his spirit troll shock troops. Pelt him with everything you have.

(One of the easy ways to beat him is if you use Valen mod, as I am for my current game)

 

One thing I did notice is that the Fledgling Vampires Domination ability seems to have been souped up and it is horrifically less likely you'll save vs. spells. I had Anomen with NPP and it took him 10 minutes to kill this one vamp. She kept charming him. I was pissed. I just sat there waiting for the spell to wear off. I finally got tired of waiting, so I had everyone else run in there and finish her off (after a little dispel action).

Anyway, I'm in Brynlaw right now and I just finished offing Perth the Adept. Too easy considering he's got a string of buffs that reads about 6 inches long. Then again, I AM playing an Inquisitor, so that might have something to do with it. I figured I might as well play one of the most powerful classes if I was taking on Tactics.

 

Chaotic Commands, or even better a helm of charm protection, is very helpful in dealing with improved vampires. Their charming ability is very frustrating.

Hope you've got +3 weapons for going through Spellhold.

 

Just witnessed the Improved Demons part. To tell the truth I think that it's the worst part I've seen. A Pit Fiend can now: A) Cast Improved Invisibilty at will, will a casting time of 0, unlimited times, which he does if you're protected from evil. B) Cast Gate, which summons another Pit Fiend. That wouldn't be so horrible if the second demon couldn't also gate in another Pit Fiend. C) Can cause poison damage of 999 points.

To tell the truth, this last ability really really pissed me off. Why the hell did they pick 999 points of poison damage? Wouldn't it be wayyy cooler if it was 666 points?

 

I removed the improved demons as soon as I figured out that I could. They made every lich into a fight well able to annihilate your entire party. If you arent very high level and have great ecquipment you wont finish off the first pit fiend before it gates in another. When I was in Spellhold which I had rushed to cause I wanted Solaufein as soon as possible I ended up trying to fight four or more pit fiends every time and it was impossible. I was forced to uninstall that part. Demons, Bodhi and Firegiants are the tactic sections I have removed, those fights are just not fun just frustrating.

I have played through SoA twice now with tactics and still havent got a random encounter inside Athakatla. That is actually my biggest beef with tactics seeing as Aldeth's review said that it was one of the best parts of tactics.

[ Geez, I thought I wrote that review. ] - Beren

[ November 02, 2004, 07:27: Message edited by: Beren ]

 

The parts I didn't install/uninstalled later were:

Improved Ilych
Always Hardest Spawns
Improved Druid Grove
Improved Marching Mountains/Tougher Fire Giants
Red Badge Encounter
Improved Small Teeth Pass

All because I heard they were crappy or because I didn't like it when I did try it. Oh, and I definetly DON'T want tougher Fire Giants. Those guys chew me up already.

 

I found Improved Torgal to be too easy. Mind you, if I had rushed into the room I probably would have found him WAY too hard. Fortunately, being the knowledge oriented person that I am, the first time I came to enter Torgal's domain, I sent my thief forward, hidden in shadows, and discovered that torgal could see him, but no others. Fleeing, Torgal follows, and my entire party beat on him. He was still rather tough, but no match for an entire party, especially when he, like many other monsters with tactics, "lock on" to one party memeber and hound them. Can't they understand that they'll never hit that character since (s)he's running a circle around the other party members? gah!

I sided with Bodhi, so I haven't experienced any of these tough battles so frequently spoken of.

To unistall features, I just run the setup-tactics.exe again right? And it'll lead me through it?

 

Yes, that's right Geoff. Just re-run the setup program and install/reinstall/uninstall as desired.

You mention one of the things that really bugs me about Tactics, though - almost without exception, they go after the PC to the exclusion of anything else. I had a PC Monk standing back in the doorway of Firkraag's lair, and Korgan and Haer'Dalis stepped up to face him first (with a few summons to back them up). What does Mr. F do? Dragon Breath: PC. He can't even SEE the guy, and yet for some bizarre reason, he nukes him first despite there being several keen-to-kill fighters around him. In the end I just thought "sod this" and PW: Reloaded until Quivering Palm worked.

Improved Mae'var is painful but not impossible with True Sight, Invisibility 10ft and a bit of patience... and Iron/Stone Skins out the wazoo.

Improved Druid Grove is good, until you reach the end.

 

The problem with uninstalling tactics is if you've an entered an area already modified by it, it will act weird... For example, when I had to uninstall Maevar (damn bastard is REALLY hard with a level 8 party), afterwards all the Improved enemies were there, but without their AI. They just stood there while I beat on Maevar (who didn't attack either). Kinda dissappointing.

Maevar made me give up on tactics, but with Valen in my party now I'm thinking of giving it another try... it seems almost cheap to NOT use tactics with her in your party...

 

@ joacqin - really stupid question, but are you sure you have that particular component installed? Maybe when you installed Tactics, you skipped that component by mistake.

 

Back to the demons, many areas in the game have a lich, and so the odds of facing a pit fiend at a low level are very high (until you know to avoid those spots...). Two things:

First, all those powers are just to make the pit fiends match their pnp incarnation. At least they don't summon 1d4 more pit fiends every round!

Second, and more applicable, is that this component resurrects an otherwise dead spell--protection from evil. You have to go right by a lich in Spellhold, so if you rush there, you *must* have protection from evil 10' radius, or enough protection from evil spells to get everyone past him. I ran into the same problem going through Umar Hills, where there are two liches that you can't avoid. This component also makes you treasure those +3 weapons--finding enough to take on pit fiends becomes a priority. That's the only reason I do D'Arnise Stronghold now--for the flail and the axe.

As for improved Mae'Var, that's just a matter of disabling all those evil little buggers and picking them apart with missile fire and spells. I usually toss a web, a stinking cloud, a chaos, and a slow, and that does the trick. Usually.

 

I never encounter Pit Fiends that often, Liches never summon them for me. They do have a billion timestops though....

 

Ericr Xanthus - I never saw no Lich in Spellhold. Wha the deal?

Anyhoo, Just finished off Improved Sahuagin City of Caverns, and I gotta say there's a few things about this that made me go "Uhhhh". Not to mention "F***!". First off, I had Anomen with the Shield Of Reflection, and then as soon as they shoot him and realize it doesn't work, then they abandon any whim of shooting him and go straight for some other character. Good and deadly AI there.

BUT, what is the deal with having 150 paralytic bolts that weigh 1 pound each?! Not to mention 12,000 scrolls of Oracle, which they never use. Anyway, the Minor Avatar of Sekolah leaves me feeling not-so-guilty for using the Cloak of Mirroring.

And I now like the Improved Demons because I figured out that I can summon my own superpowered freaks! MUHAHAHahahahaha. And Eric Xanthus? If you have Prot. from Evil on then the Pit Fiends just continually cast ImpInv on themselves, so you can't kill em'.

BTW, Earth Elementals are immune to the bolts those bastards fire. They just don't last too long when they start in with the spears. Just so ya know.

 

@Mystra: The Spellhold lich only appears if you go there with a high-level party. If your rush to chapter 4, you'll never see it. It's on the same level that has the umber hulk "trap" (where you get trapped in a room with umber hulks attacking from both sides, at the entrace to the level), to the south and slightly west of the trap in question.

 

As for the lich in Spellhold, I thought Tactics had changed it so that one always appeared there. I went through pretty fast and still ran into him just outside the library and the cursed vampire. Ah well.

And yeah, I know all about that stupid programming problem with Pit Fiend invisibility and protection from evil. The real problem is not that they can become invisible at will--that's just the way they are in pnp. The real problem is the way the game executes True Sight. True Sight *should* simply ignore invisibility spells--you *see* right through them. But instead, it dispels illusions, and the pit fiends just turn invisible again. So you either let them become invisible and go right by them (which is what you do when you don't have +3 weapons), or you keep one of your warriors (best defense, periapt of proof against poison, etc.) unprotected. The Pit Fiend goes for him, and all your protected guys beat him down. The other way to really take advantage of this is to use summons, or even just attack him before he kills off all the undead surrounding him. The Pit Fiend will become visible to attack them, and your protected warriors will beat him down.

 

Well, I'm outta the Underdark and into the big bad battles of Tactics.

Improved Guarded Compound: I didn't do this until now because I didn't need to... I've got no one using Katanas. Anyway, it's not too hard if you A) kill what's-his-name-the-mage-guy, and B) Cast Death Spell to rid the room of the fodder they summon. I personally liked this fight better when I tackled it with TDD installed. That one added a Frost Giant.

Improved Firkaag: I was an average of lvl 15 or so when I killed him, which is pretty high, but I found him to be a total pansy. Granted, 2 of my party were near death, but whatever. Also, the battle was real short.

Twisted Rune slaughter: Either I'm going to have to get real strong, or real smart in order to beat these mofo's. I think I'll try again later. They're hard as rock.

Time to tackle Kangaxx...

Improved Kangaxx: This was lame. I mean, it practically forces you to use both Scrolls of Prot. from Magic because you need 2 people whammin' on him just to beat his lvl drain. Other than that the fight last about 30 seconds. The fight upstairs was semi-hard, except for those friggin dwarves. They were beastly.

 

Yes, I have made sure that I have that component installed Splunge.

Kangaxx is still scripted to die instantly to teh Mace of Disruption+2, demi-Kangaxx dies instantly at the first strike from that mace every single time I play.