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I knew it was Davaeorn before even clicking on it.  Yeah he's incredible. I pop in to his SCS Insanity no save no death streams from time to time and he always has time to answer questions. Hell the content of his videos alone has made me a much better player. poo poo, before watching his videos I never bothered using stuff like sleep, silence 15' radius, chaos, or even slow. Basically I didn't crowd control and yeah looking back I was pretty stupid not to! No wonder I ended up reloading so often.
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Sep 2, 2023 00:12
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Ginette Reno posted:I have done a Shadowdancer run before. The HLAs are pretty fun for sure and it'd be a shame to miss out on those imo. Also playing it as a one hit wonder kinda fits the Shadowdancer playstyle. Sure more APR would be nice, but do you really need it? The playstyle lends itself to backstab--->hide--->backstab again. I don't feel like more APR actually does that much more for the spec since you want all of your attacks to be backstabs anyways. You don't want to stay in the thick of things after backstabbing. You want to hit and get right out and then hit again. I actually forgot that backstab gives that much of a THAC0 bonus - that does help a lot. I’ll keep going pure then. I have a lot of builds to check out on the back burner since I haven’t played the game for so long that there’s a lot I want to try after this run, so it’s true that it’d be a shame to not get to experience the HLAs. Thanks - appreciate the info. oswald ownenstein posted:You guys ever see this dude on youtube? I’ve watched a couple long videos he made of that’s the same guy I’m thinking of. Really a wealth of knowledge. Interesting about that sword too (didn’t know he did shorts so haven’t seen this) since I’ve been trying to think about how I could use it as it’s been in my bag for a couple weeks now.
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Sep 2, 2023 07:43
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The shorts are snippets from his 3-4 hour marathon videos on each subject. The guy has covered everything. Only complaint is that his play style is a little different from mine.
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Sep 2, 2023 19:56
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Do not get me wrong, I cherish that this man exists, but some of his verbal shorthand drives me crazy. Fortunately it rarely comes up when watching a 30-second video reminding me I can use a short sword with mirror image to give my fighter mirror image and then switch to a real weapon
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Sep 2, 2023 21:59
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oswald ownenstein posted:You guys ever see this dude on youtube? Yes, I've been following his stream for about a year now. He's got a discord as well I hang out in. All he does is Ironman runs on max SCS and insane/double damage difficulty so he's a fun person to watch to get a hang for what tactics to use on those type of settings. He also seems like a decently nice guy. His guides on youtube are pretty spot on for the most part. Not much I've ever disagreed with and I've been playing bg since it came out. He definitely knows his poo poo.
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Sep 2, 2023 22:05
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I like videos like that because it makes total sense. Like duh, use a weapon with a daily power on it on a class that usually doesn't have it but you never think to do so for some reason. My RPG brain is weak and small.
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Sep 3, 2023 00:26
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My problem always used to be trying to go as long as possible in those games without resting, alongside of course never using potions or scrolls or anything. I finally made great headway along those lines in the past couple of years but it apparently did not carry over to items with daily charges since I still almost never use them. Guide me Davaeorn
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Sep 3, 2023 01:43
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I listened to him while doing my pre-3 run through, and now I just listen to him like he's a podcast. I love the way he's really 'heeeey guys, what is going on man, today we're looking at xyz' initially: ten minutes into the video 'the WORST, absolute trash, C-tier all the way, it loving KILLS me.' Just great entertainment value.
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Sep 3, 2023 08:26
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oswald ownenstein posted:You guys ever see this dude on youtube? Watched a ton of his stuff recently, dude does bg1 to tob scs insane hardcore no reloads streams all the time with gimmick characters and just crazy seeing his skill. Real fun watching the gently caress up deaths too, or npcs getting permad and seeing how he handles it
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Sep 3, 2023 11:25
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Yeah, SoD was real good. The big battle stuff was ill thought-out, though. I can appreciate them going for something different but most of the time it was just frustrating but it was fun and the writing was pretty good. Like I said, I think the itemization was super great and a shame it never got ported to any of the other entries and it's a bummer Beamdog never got to make more of these. So, like all reasonable people, I decided to try out Icewind Dale EE again and play that alongside Baldur's Gate with my friend, if we get to that point. Are unkitted Bards worth trying in IWDEE? I really like Blades but I dunno how well they'd do in IDWEE. I know usual unkitted classes like Paladins really thrive in that game whereas they're kinda meh in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. Jimbot fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 19:14
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Jimbot posted:Yeah, SoD was real good. The big battle stuff was ill thought-out, though. I can appreciate them going for something different but most of the time it was just frustrating but it was fun and the writing was pretty good. Like I said, I think the itemization was super great and a shame it never got ported to any of the other entries and it's a bummer Beamdog never got to make more of these. Unkitted bards in IWDEE get much, much better bard songs at higher levels than they do in the Baldur's Gate games, and bards in general have some class specific cool items and unique interactions as well.
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Sep 3, 2023 19:53
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Really cool to listen to someone who knows every square inch of the game like that. I would caution against showing his item rankings to a newbie though. They're very much based around getting through the hardest fights in ascension/SCS TOB in an ironman, and the playstyle you need in order to achieve that.
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Sep 3, 2023 20:59
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S tier, can’t say enough good things about it
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Sep 4, 2023 01:07
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Down to another level in Durlag's Tower. There's like one of a handful of times when I might want to prepare Invisibility Purge or See Invisibility, but it turns out that those are both "Instant effect," but the enemy can cast invisibility at will, making those spells, designed to only do ONE THING, negate invisibility, are pretty much useless.
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Sep 4, 2023 04:03
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People talk about tarnesh being an early run-ender, i've never had trouble with him, one shot from imoen's missile wand and he's a goner. Instead I struggle with the dwarf mercenary in Beregost, Karlat. Without a Command he can slice through your lvl 1 tank like they're nothing, while having some weirdly low AC despite having only a medium shield and chain mail. So I'm trying to figure out his AC and THAC0, i have always struggled with this calculation but this time I turned on the option to display hit rolls, and maybe you guys can help me figure it out My thac0 18 fighter tank with an axe missed on a roll of 18 (the equation given is "18 + 0 = 18 : Miss") Khalid with a longbow and thac0 18 missed on a 19 ("19 - 2 = 17 : Miss") Karlat hit my fighter tank with 0 AC with a roll of 11 ("11 + 4 = 15 : Hit") idk is this enough to figure out Karlat's approximate thac0 and AC?
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Sep 4, 2023 04:07
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Jay Rust posted:People talk about tarnesh being an early run-ender, i've never had trouble with him, one shot from imoen's missile wand and he's a goner. From this, we can tell his AC is -1 or better and his THAC0 is somewhere between 11 and 15, inclusive.
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Sep 4, 2023 04:24
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Got a quick question if y’all don’t mind. Tldr; is it safe to keep items in the Gaelan house containers throughout the entire SoA story? I played the game a lot in the past but my memory is pretty poo poo for things over like 10 years back, so a lot of the game is almost like new (which can suck but for games it’s kind of nice, experiencing games I liked a lot like semi-new again). I am taking a lot of time before giving Gaelan his money to advance the story, generally mucking about and doing a lot of side content I forgot about (side note: just got the cheetah boots from Haer Dalis quest and holy crap is it nice for shadowdancer). But I don’t remember if this house stays accessible later. I want to make sure all the items I have stored inside don’t disappear since it is both my personal armory and the place I keep key items I’m not sure if I’ll need anymore, pieces of weapons etc. I can move everything if needed, but now that I’m reaching the point I will advance the story I want to be safe before doing so and check here.
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Sep 4, 2023 04:25
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Down to another level in Durlag's Tower. There's like one of a handful of times when I might want to prepare Invisibility Purge or See Invisibility, but it turns out that those are both "Instant effect," but the enemy can cast invisibility at will, making those spells, designed to only do ONE THING, negate invisibility, are pretty much useless. A Thief with Detect Illusion can also see through invisibility effects and it will constantly reproc every round so that will kind of solve the problem. It gets worse when you to later BG2 when you'll spot the thieves trying to backstab you but then they just chug an invis pot and backstab you anyway!
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Sep 4, 2023 04:47
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For AC and THAC0 values, I usually just check the wiki. They don't give you the full calculation but you can work it out from the numbers and gear listed. For Karlat: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Karlat He has a base AC of 10, goes down to 5 with chainmail (3 against slashing and 7 against crushing). Dex gives a bonus of -3, and a medium shield gives another -1. So add the -4 in bonuses to his base AC values and Karlat should be: AC 1 against missile or piercing damage; AC -1 against slashing; and AC 3 against crushing. For his THAC0 he has a base of 15. Str bonus of -1, and a weapon proficiency bonus of -1 for two pips in axes. So his THAC0 = 13. Someone correct me if I did some math wrong, I usually screw up a step somewhere. rio posted:Got a quick question if y’all don’t mind. Tldr; is it safe to keep items in the Gaelan house containers throughout the entire SoA story? Every container should be safe. The only exceptions are areas that become strongholds, because when you acquire it they swap out the map and all the items go with it. Gaelan's house should be fine, as should any other house in that area as well as the Copper Coronet. Edit: I think you get cut off from Watcher's Keep at some point, and I think the Umar Hills also updates its map after you finish that quest. Can't think of any other areas where it would be an issue off the top of my head. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 04:48
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Devorum posted:From this, we can tell his AC is -1 or better and his THAC0 is somewhere between 11 and 15, inclusive. Wicked Them Beats posted:For AC and THAC0 values, I usually just check the wiki. They don't give you the full calculation but you can work it out from the numbers and gear listed. For Karlat: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Karlat Thanks! Makes sense, except why did Khalid miss with his longbow on a roll of 19 with a thac0 of 18, if Karlat has AC 1 vs missile? The equation mentioned a -2, where is that number coming from?
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Sep 4, 2023 04:54
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Wicked Them Beats posted:
Awesome - thanks a lot. Didn’t realize that about the strongholds either so good to know for the future (already done with the thief stronghold for this run anyway but I lost it due to losing track of time and not paying my dues…might just leave it that way since I’m not really needing gold at this point anyway).
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Sep 4, 2023 05:08
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Note that when you leave for Spellhold it’s going to be a long, long while before you get back, so be sure to take anything with you you think you might need. (Don’t be afraid to load up, you’ll get something to help you store everything while you’re there.)
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Sep 4, 2023 05:11
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Jay Rust posted:Thanks! Makes sense, except why did Khalid miss with his longbow on a roll of 19 with a thac0 of 18, if Karlat has AC 1 vs missile? The equation mentioned a -2, where is that number coming from? Not sure where the -2 is coming from. If Khalid was in melee range while shooting he'd take a penalty, but it would be higher than that. Were any spells active, or was he fatigued? There's a crapton of potential modifiers for an attack roll. For the roll, yeah you should hit AC 1 on a 17 if you have a THAC0 of 18. Checked the figures again and that should be his missile defense, so I dunno about that. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 05:19
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Arivia posted:Note that when you leave for Spellhold it’s going to be a long, long while before you get back, so be sure to take anything with you you think you might need. (Don’t be afraid to load up, you’ll get something to help you store everything while you’re there.) Thanks - I remember bits and pieces of Spellhold but forgot how long I would be away when it happens. Things to help carry other things certainly welcome since I’ve just been using the bag of holding from Hexxat’s quest, which isn’t up to task for my hoarding purposes. Also reminded me, I hit an odd issue last night when I was doing nightly inventory management - the game allowed me to remove the coffin from the bag of holding, but then it was stuck in my inventory (weighing 500 lbs lol) and a dupe of it was still in the bag too. I’ve hit a number of odd bugs that were surprising since I didn’t remember many back in the day (though again might be my memory, or perhaps just that I’m more thorough now). Another interesting one was going into Valygar’s house and talking to his aide. I actually had Valygar talk to him and the aide still was suspicious of me, speaking like Valygar wasn’t there. I said I was going to look around, Valygar *left the party* without a word and went hostile on me. Everything was out of order since I was already done with Valygar’s quest at this point (now I’m stuck with the aide’s quest to find Valygar forever in my journal too) but it was confusing and funny. As long as it’s nothing game breaking it isn’t a big deal though. I just can’t have poo poo hit the fan too hard since I’m playing on iPad so can’t eekeeper or console my way out of problems.
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Sep 4, 2023 07:23
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Oh, yeah, in that case: you get another bag of holding in Spellhold but it doesn't have most of it taken up by a giant rear end coffin so you can put a bunch more in there.
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Sep 4, 2023 10:37
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No one crosses the Shadow Thieves and lives!
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Sep 4, 2023 14:18
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Desperately need to know how much stuff you're carting around that you need to stuff it in other people's chests.
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Sep 4, 2023 15:51
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The Shame Boy posted:A Thief with Detect Illusion can also see through invisibility effects and it will constantly reproc every round so that will kind of solve the problem. It gets worse when you to later BG2 when you'll spot the thieves trying to backstab you but then they just chug an invis pot and backstab you anyway! In order to be able to spot all traps and disarm all the locks, I had to spend my points there. I only have 5 in Detect Illusion. Devorum posted:Desperately need to know how much stuff you're carting around that you need to stuff it in other people's chests. Could be spare ammo, or extra wands, or spell scrolls or potions. There's a lot of stuff I've found which isn't worth using on normal encounters, but could be situationally very useful. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 16:10
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Down to another level in Durlag's Tower. There's like one of a handful of times when I might want to prepare Invisibility Purge or See Invisibility, but it turns out that those are both "Instant effect," but the enemy can cast invisibility at will, making those spells, designed to only do ONE THING, negate invisibility, are pretty much useless.
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Sep 4, 2023 16:14
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Devorum posted:Desperately need to know how much stuff you're carting around that you need to stuff it in other people's chests. No motorboat shaming
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Sep 4, 2023 16:18
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Devorum posted:Desperately need to know how much stuff you're carting around that you need to stuff it in other people's chests. I’m a loot goblin so if a weapon, piece of armor or accessory seems like it could be useful even once in the future then I want to store it. Add that to wands, potions and quest related items I’m not sure if I should keep I just itemize them all in different storage containers and manage them at the end of each play session.
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Sep 4, 2023 16:26
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Vargatron posted:No one crosses the Shadow Thieves and lives! The most hated illithid
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Sep 4, 2023 19:58
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I'm curious what would count as a consistent strategy vs SCS double damage beholders.
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Sep 4, 2023 21:18
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Suspicious posted:I'm curious what would count as a consistent strategy vs SCS double damage beholders. Summon Skeleton Warriors, basically. You summon as many of those as you can, buff them, and let them do the work. The high level Skeletons have like 90% MR so Beholders even on SCS are mostly helpless against them. You can't really rely on the shield of Balduran because SCS gives Beholders a ray that can yank it from you. If you fight them straight up you're prolly gonna die Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 21:42
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Assuming all hardest settings, SCS beholders with a full install are actually surprisingly consistent, in my experience. The highest level spawned group is always two gauths and 3 beholders. They can't do anything to you if you go in fully buffed (Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, Protection from Lightning, Protection from Magic Energy and Free Action makes you immune to everything both gauths and non-elder orbs can do) until the first Anti-Magic Ray, which almost always takes a full round to occur because the beholder AI has to learn, for lack of a better word, that you're immune to all their rays. You can usually kill one before this. On the hardest settings, Anti-Magic Ray not only stops your spellcasting but also blocks all magic regardless of its source from affecting the target for 1 round. This includes other beholders, so paradoxically despite having no protective buffs you're actually completely safe for that round. You can still use physical attacks, and beholders are not exactly hard to hit in melee and have relatively low HP, so you can at least injure, if not kill another one. Once Anti-Magic Ray wears off, immediately use an Invisibility potion and retreat to rebuff. Repeat until every beholder is dead. Only Hive Mothers can see through Invisibility naturally, and there's only 4 in the entire game I think, and thats including the one SCS adds to the Underdark hive. Alternatively, if you want a really cheesy way to beat them though, use a Protection from Magic scroll. It blocks literally everything they can do, except the Anti-Magic Ray from Hive Mothers. Every other type is completely helpless against them, except in the very unlikely case of an Elder Orb getting Spellstrike in its randomly generated spell list.
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Sep 4, 2023 21:48
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biscuits and crazy posted:Assuming all hardest settings, SCS beholders with a full install are actually surprisingly consistent, in my experience. The highest level spawned group is always two gauths and 3 beholders. They can't do anything to you if you go in fully buffed (Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, Protection from Lightning, Protection from Magic Energy and Free Action makes you immune to everything both gauths and non-elder orbs can do) until the first Anti-Magic Ray, which almost always takes a full round to occur because the beholder AI has to learn, for lack of a better word, that you're immune to all their rays. You can usually kill one before this. Yeah you could probably brute force them if you're buffed up and quick before they dispel you enough to hurt you. I've gotten used to doing it with Skeleton Warriors because I was Ironmanning a lot the last time I played and that's by far the safest way to handle them. It's funny that whether you're playing vanilla or SCS cheese is still the answer to Beholders. I think the problem is BG throws a lot of them at you and I don't think dnd intended to do that. They have so many abilities that fighting a pack of them is just nasty.
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Sep 4, 2023 22:00
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Ginette Reno posted:Yeah you could probably brute force them if you're buffed up and quick before they dispel you enough to hurt you. I've gotten used to doing it with Skeleton Warriors because I was Ironmanning a lot the last time I played and that's by far the safest way to handle them. Do SCS beholders use their death ray on summons? I've never considered skeleton warriors as an option because I just assumed that death ray goes right through their MR. It should do, like Death Spell does with summons, but I've never got around to trying them. I know vanilla beholders don't use their rays against summons, but they do have *exactly* 1 cast of Death Spell that they will use immediately if they see a summon, but then do nothing else. Its the most trivial thing in the world to bait out with a nymph or something once you know about it. Vanilla BG2 is weird. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 22:17
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biscuits and crazy posted:Do SCS beholders use their death ray on summons? I've never considered skeleton warriors as an option because I just assumed that death ray goes right through their MR. It should do, like Death Spell does with summons, but I've never got around to trying them. I don't think they do, or at least I can't recall them doing it. Hive Mothers will cast death spell sometimes so that can be a problem. But even so sending another wave of skeles at them is still usually my answer. I don't think regular Beholders use death spell on SCS unless they've made recent changes. The last few times I played I was on SCS/Insane and basically cranked stuff up all the way and Skeleton Warriors got me through most Beholder packs just fine. Pretty sure if you watch Davaeorn's stream that is his normal tactic for them as well
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Sep 4, 2023 22:41
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I always play vanilla on core rules, and fire elementals (from Jaheira) is how I handle them because the shield is too expensive. I don't remember them ever getting death spell'd. I knew about them yanking the balduran shield away from you with telekinesis but I thought I had also read that they had a super deadly bite attack that decimated summons, but that might have been Tactics. I remember thinking "Cool. literally impossible to beat other than by sheer luck."
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Sep 4, 2023 23:38
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Suspicious posted:I always play vanilla on core rules, and fire elementals (from Jaheira) is how I handle them because the shield is too expensive. I don't remember them ever getting death spell'd. That's probably tactics. I don't remember them being dangerous in melee on cranked SCS settings. They're a bullshit enemy regardless of mods though. You either cheese em on vanilla with shield or with summons on scs. Or you can do what Biscuits said but that's dangerous unless you're playing with reloads
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Sep 5, 2023 00:04
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