Throne of Bhaal: Newbie Thoughts

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...Not that you need them, though, both of them being practically useless.

 

Minh so, do you mean a wish scroll? No, we don't have a wish scroll, only 'limited wish' which is mostly useless because only bad things ever happen when Nalia casts it.

Meanwhile, we're trying to work out what the heck we're supposed to be doing on this level. There doesn't seem to be any obvious objective, other than something to do with the nut in the machine. Oh well, I'm sure if we wander around long enough, we'll work it out.

My latest pet hate is Magic Resistance. So many enemies seem to be resistant to magic nowadays that most of Nalia's spells are a complete waste of time. Plus I can never remember which spells bypass magic resistance and be bothered casting Lower Resistance a million times. For this reason, playing a solo magic-user must be a complete pain.

 

melf's minute meteors ignore magic resistance, she still has to hit the target tho. And people playing a solo magic user, still always have to get into melee combat sometimes because of MR foes. But that's were they use the staff of staves to it's full effect

Ow and a hint, in the oppening sequence when you entered the level, there were gith and mindflayers. Both ran towards a certain part of the dungeon, why not explore those sides?

 

Not that there is any real reason to use limited wish but if you want some better results you can try giving Nalia a wisdom boosting potion before casting limited wish, or if you are feeling particularly cheesy have a high wisdom character talk to the genie before it begins talking to Nalia.

 

hey, it's your first wish scroll and it can be powerful if ppl wanna abuse it

aside melf-meteor, there're lv5 sunfire and lv9 dragon breath, and maybe sunray for undead. Cleric can cast lv6 bolt of glory as well. But why bother, your fighters can wipe out everything in the way

 

Skull Trap also bypasses MR, and does some hefty damage at this point (it caps at level 20, unlike Fireball). IIRC, wands of cloudkill also bypass MR, but the Cloudkill spell doesn't (odd isn't it?)

Stop giving him hints about what to do next! Let him "wander around" and figure things out on his own, there are enough hints strewn about the level.

 

Skull trap doesn't bypass MR, lest it would be the doom to baddie - because it does godly magic dmg

 

Ouch. Just run into some guy called Demi Lich who systematically dismantled my party, person by person. It took me AGES to get past him. I almost gave up, he was so hard. In the end, not really sure what I did right - I think it was a combination of some spell turning spell from Nalia + Time Stop + not introducing every character at the same time.

Man, if "Demi"-Lich is this hard, I don't think I want to meet the "Full"-Lich.....

But Cespenar says I need Lich's head in order to upgrade Arya's cool Spectral Brand.

 

demi-lich is basically kangaxx without a pre-lich form. The guy is hard, unless you remember the tactics you used for kangaxx (cheesy or no).

 

Who is Kangaxx (other than the guy whose name is on the back of the Sorcerer’s Place t-shirt)?

After seeing his name on the t-shirt I thought he must have been the big boss at the end of Baldur’s Gate. But that was Sarevok, so then I thought he must have been the enemy at the end of Shadows over Amn, but that was Irenicus, so then I thought he must be the boss at the end of Throne of Bhaal – but from what you are saying, I’m supposed to have already met him. Somehow I must have missed him, which means he can’t be very important, which makes me wonder why it’s his name on that was chosen to appear on the SP t-shirt.

 

Kangaax is a villain you didn't stumble across while in Amn.

 

I guess spoilers are off now that you've played through once. In SoA, there was a fun little sidequest where you found an imprisoned lich. If you brought him his body parts, he'd reassemble and try to kill you. Once you killed the lich, he'd turn into a demi-lich. First time playing the game, he's an absolute whore--as you discovered fighting the demi-lich in WK. He has several weaknesses though, and can be killed quite easily in any number of ways.

Anyway, Kangaxx the demi-lich was good fun the first time around, and he drops a FANTASTIC ring. Now that you've killed a demi-lich, though, he's nothing special.

 

Demi-liches...the bane of newbie players So hard when you take them the first time, so easy when you really know all the weaknesses! And worth a lot of xp's to I still don't understand the part this demi-lich plays inside watcher keep though...

And demi-liches are NOT a lesser form of lich, but actually the next form a lich takes when it no longer needs a physicalbody. The demi-lich is the connection the essence of a former lich has with it's former body, while the rest is exploring the planes and other forms of excistence. There are also rumours of liches past even this stage of lichdom!

 

Nicely put

I'm guessing that the reason he is on an SP T-shirt is that he is by far and away the most frequently asked question on these forums.

 

yes, Kangaxx is a regular for posters. Not only have numrous threads been made with people asking the same question, but many will continue to be made in the future I'm sure.

 

Yep...that's true. I'm embarassed enough to admit that I myself have created atleast 7-8 threads over the course of the last two years.

He IS pretty easy once you cast Spell Immunity:Abjuration though...especially with a melee character...or with a wizard...just cast Spell Immunity Abjuration, Melf's Minute Meteors, and keep beating on him, and he will die in the end.

 

Well, we’ve FINALLY managed to complete the ‘mad machine’ level. It took ages to work out how to find the crystal mallet with those silly coloured fires. But it was worth it because, hooray, hooray. Arya got to get one of her precious Dexterity points back by playing with the machine. She also got some extra hit points from improved constitution and Nalia is now a proper wizard now that she has 18 intelligence. The Charisma and Strength increases were of less use due to the use of items that already set those stats to specific levels.

 

wow! you gave those points to other people in your party??? You must really be roleplaying! How many bonusses did you get out of the machine? Maybe you've missed some?

 

Well, there was absolutely no point in giving 1 point of intelligence to Arya when Nalia was the only person who would get any benefit from it.

 

I do the same thing. I usually give the intelligence to my mage if needed. I give my Character what is needed and spread the rest around.