Nope, besides Zone of Sweet Air, no AoE dispels.
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Sword Coast Stratagems BG1
- Thread starter Wyrmlord
- Start date
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
Huh, yeah Dispel Magic doesn't work on Web. My brain fart there. And no, AI spell casters do not cast Zone of Clear Air, unfortunately.
Incantatar
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2012
- Messages
- 453
Yes they do. At least with SCS. And Dispel Magic doesn't dispel a static AoE with a duration like Web, but if i remember correctly it actually does dispel the status effect on a character.
With TotSC there is also the Greenstone Amulet, which works like a wand and can protect the whole group. It's available right after Candlekeep. But i agree Confusion/Chaos is a bit overpowered in BG1, although you can use it to your advantage. My bane in solo scs ironman runs always was the Duchal Palace fight. One scroll of Chaos and it's as good as won.
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
I've never seen enemy casters use it, not even when they are standing inside Cloudkill. I have a fair number of hours racked in BGT with SCS installed, so either you remember wrong or they only do it rarely.
Which is why many enemy casters use Remove Magic instead so they get to keep their buffs while you lose yours. I don't bother prebuffing in BG2 at all because every fight which includes an arcane caster starts with the enemy dispelling all my buffs, which they often follow up by dispelling Stoneskin on my casters, which is why I memorize it twice.
Oh, it's much worse than that. It's indiscriminate AOE spell, which is why I -wrongly- thought for a moment that it affects Web, as it dispels all buffs from everyone in the area, unless magic resistance comes to play. Well, by P&P rules it would check against the caster level of whoever did the original buff but I would wager that IE games don't actually do that.
Which is why many enemy casters use Remove Magic instead so they get to keep their buffs while you lose yours. I don't bother prebuffing in BG2 at all because every fight which includes an arcane caster starts with the enemy dispelling all my buffs, which they often follow up by dispelling Stoneskin on my casters, which is why I memorize it twice.
Not really, it's only sold at Ulgoth's Beard and it's fucking expensive. Though I've never tried to steal it from the innkeeper, so perhaps one could get very quickly by taking a little side journey there. But thanks for reminding me about that.
Greatness
Cipher
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2007
- Messages
- 288
Even though I despise RTwP and I'm not the biggest fan of AD&D, there's something special about Baldur's Gate (2) encounter design. So many memorable battles: Firkraag, the Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, the Celestial Fury compound, those early Liches, the cowled wizard battles, the bhaalspawn, etc, etc. On my earliest playthroughs those were all challenging and rewarding, then later on when I had "figured out" the character/combat systems enough to make them trivial SCS came along and made them even better than before. Even though there are games out there with far superior combat engines, like ToEE/JA2/KotC, none of them are as memorable for me. Does anyone even know of any other games out there with similar level of quality in encounter design?
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
I would argue that KotC has excellent encounter design but because the overall plot is so minimal, they don't stand out as easily as Firkraag, for example. IE games have the benefit of great music as well, which helps make things memorable. Several Gold Box games have some really good encounters but it can vary a lot, even inside a single game. The ending to PoD is of course legendary, and one of my personal favourites is the village under drow attack in Curse of the Azure Bonds.
Incantatar
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2012
- Messages
- 453
GarfunkeL
You can go to Ulgoths right after Candlekeep.
Zone of sweet air is a lvl 4 cleric spell only in the BG2 engine. Even with new spells in BG1 there aren't many NPCs to cast it. In BG2 SCS you'll see it cast.
Dispel Magic is bugged in the IE engine. ToBEX and Taimon's hack fixed it. It used to dispel all spells which have a lesser caster level and never spells which have a higher cl. Remove Magic is necessary for the AI because it't dumb. Dispel Magic can be used offensively and defensively by the player, but it requires skill to use it that way, since you should know exactly how big the AoE is.
You can go to Ulgoths right after Candlekeep.
Zone of sweet air is a lvl 4 cleric spell only in the BG2 engine. Even with new spells in BG1 there aren't many NPCs to cast it. In BG2 SCS you'll see it cast.
Dispel Magic is bugged in the IE engine. ToBEX and Taimon's hack fixed it. It used to dispel all spells which have a lesser caster level and never spells which have a higher cl. Remove Magic is necessary for the AI because it't dumb. Dispel Magic can be used offensively and defensively by the player, but it requires skill to use it that way, since you should know exactly how big the AoE is.
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
SCS bumps up the caster levels for pretty much every enemy in BG1, which is why I think it's weird that I haven't seen it used - but I haven't seen it used in BG2 part either.
Wyrmlord
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2008
- Messages
- 28,886
I thought I saw it in BG2. The Ogre Mage summoned by the genie uses a larger wider range of spells, f.e. I imagined it was not using them, because it was not of a high enough level to use them (although it could very well just be improved AI).
hoverdog
dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
After a new install (with mostly the same stuff, just using beta versions of SR and IR) I'm getting my ass kicked nicely.
hoverdog
dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
Not really, both have v3 official releases. They are still progressing though, and I'm just using v4 betas.
Incantatar
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2012
- Messages
- 453
No, IR v3 never went out of beta. IR v2 from 6 years ago is stll the latest (unsupported) release. I wish they would at least try to make v3 polished enough with BGT support and not just skip ahead to a closed for public v4.
hoverdog
dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
well whatver. it was a public beta so I didn't mind.
Anyhow, just wrapped up my BG1 playthrough (with SCS, new Item and Spell Revisions betas, randomizer and some minor doodles - with 25% less XP received). here's my thoughts:
tl;dr: it was AWESOME. Just the perfect difficulty level: hard but not frustrating, requiring heavy usage of wands, potions and scrolls, but fair.
My char was a cleric/mage (cheese unleashed!... but in SoA at best) and I planned to go with a canon party (Khalid/Jaheira, Minsc/Dynaheir, Imoen) but couldn't stand that fucking treehugger and swapped her for Yeslick and Khalid for archer-ified Coran.
I went FAI -> Beregost -> Nashkel -> Gnoll Fortress -> Mines -> whole (almost) wilderness ->Bandit Camp -> Cloakwood -> Baldur's Gate -> Candlekeep -> BG again -> Durlag -> Sarevok.
SCS all options on, without prebuffing.
Item randomizer made some funny stuff like finding Fullplate +1 (originally found just before the endbattle) before bandit camp and varscona (originally on grey wolf outside nashkel mines) on the undercity party.
the battles themselves:
Tarnesh (the first assassin) was random as it always is with 1st level. Killed me a couple of times when I was running around like headless chickens. A spell interruption or a critical makes it much easier.
Silke was hard - again, 1st level, and she was a mage/something (?) with stoneskin and sequencer, sometimes hasted herself and kicked ass in melee. Fun battle, that wand of missiles Imoen starts with was indispensable.
The d0rf assassin wasn't a pushover either - he did a lot of damage (thanks to a potion obviously),
The next killer, a cleric in Nashkel, did a good job of disabling my characters, but wasn't really able to do any damage. That's clerics for you.
Gnoll stronghold was a massacre. If any area in SCS needed some more love, then that's it. Adding a much more powerful gnoll king with a shaman or two could spice it up a little.
Grey Wolf was a tough bastard, even though he didn't have his premium sword.
Nashkel mines were at least a bit challenging now, with more kobolds, including guards with poisonous daggers and a chieftain+shaman fight, a much needed improvement over the cakewalk it was once. I did get lots and lots of flaming arrows out of it.
Mulahey was OK, not a big threa himself, though the number of guards he had made thing more difficult.
Bassilus was rather easy without his entourage (again, cleric).
Sirines were OMGWTFGGTHXBYENOOB, using charm, invisibility and some other spells and wreaking chaos. I decided to delay going to the lighthouse until after Cloakwood. Even then, with a Chaotic-Command'd Minsc they were a nuisance and I had to resort to nuking them with wands.
The Nereid on the coast (imprisoned by an ogre mage) was just as bad, charming&one-hit killing, moving around like mad and summoning some water elemental thingies. At least she was by herself so it was managable.
Two randomized bands of assassins (d0rfs-clerics and amazons) always seemed to appear at the wrong time when I was injured and out of spells. Molkar and his group was the bigger threat thanks to a number of disables they had.
Bandit Camp is quite easy if you get a few levels and know what you're doing. A couple of webs and heavy wand napalm clears the area fast.
Spiders Nest was quite nasty, disables galore.
Enemy party outside the mines is a very difficult but fun encounter. Took me a couple of tries before I managed to down mages before they cast confusion.
Fights with mages inside the mines - nice, all the corridors are perfect for crowd control, except I was the one being crowd controlled most of the time
Davaeorn is probably the worst battle in the game. It's a gigantic clusterfuck with webs, stinking clouds, battle horrors and guards coming out the back, and of course Davaeorn teleporting around. It's very easily winnable, though, if you concentrate fire on him when he teleports nearby, he goes down easily and both guards and horrors vanish.
I was overleveled for Ulcaster so the wolf didn't pose any problems.
Iron Throne party was even harder than the mine one. The two thieves were especially troublesome (being a mage without stoneskin is hard). No dedicated opponent mage helped somewhat.
Four dwarf ghosts in Durlag's tower were less difficult than I remembered. The warrior one hit hard but fell easily, the mage didn't cast any gamebreaking spells and thief didn't appear until the rest was dealt with. Only the ghoul was dangerous with his holding attack.
Chesstable is deadly. When you're squishy and without stoneskin those two hyperfast rooks or whatever can kill you in a matter of seconds. Nuking out the rest is easy.
Demonknight was a pushover. He managed to power word kill Dynaheir, but then he died within seconds.
Cultist ambush in Ulgoth's Beard was surprisingly difficult, partly thanks to peasants getting in my way, partly because no time to buff and invisible assassin having my number. The secondthird fight against cultists, inside the building, was also quite hard and resulted in a few deaths.
Aec'Latec, on the other hand, was very disappointing. Apart from some holding and draining he didn't do much, and the cultists got slaughtered with nukes just like that.
The final battle though. DAT FINAL BATTLE. It definitely was final. I could dispatch Tazok and Diarmid easily, but Angelo and Semaj were nigh-untouchable with their spell protections (arrows of dispelling were really hit by the nerfhammer in IR and did nada) and ruined my life with fireballs and other unfun projectiles. Oh, not to mention lightspeed Sarevok with insane thac0 pulverizing anyone in his way. After about twenty tries (the closest I got was killing three henchmen) I decided to cheese out a bit and it finally worked. I sent three waves of summons while being invisible to make the enemies spawn and use some of their spels. Then I focused-fired (spell thrust, then three wands of fireball + arrows of detonation + potions of explosions) on Semaj who dropped dead instantly
. One char kited Sarevok still gulping potions of healing like mad while the rest killed Tazok then Diarmid then their skeletons and finally pierced through Angelo's protection and slaughtered him. I somehow managed to keep everyone alive up to this point, so Sarevok wasn't that much of a deal then. Killed Minsc but that was all he could do.
Marvelous stuff.
My char was a cleric/mage (cheese unleashed!... but in SoA at best) and I planned to go with a canon party (Khalid/Jaheira, Minsc/Dynaheir, Imoen) but couldn't stand that fucking treehugger and swapped her for Yeslick and Khalid for archer-ified Coran.
I went FAI -> Beregost -> Nashkel -> Gnoll Fortress -> Mines -> whole (almost) wilderness ->Bandit Camp -> Cloakwood -> Baldur's Gate -> Candlekeep -> BG again -> Durlag -> Sarevok.
SCS all options on, without prebuffing.
Item randomizer made some funny stuff like finding Fullplate +1 (originally found just before the endbattle) before bandit camp and varscona (originally on grey wolf outside nashkel mines) on the undercity party.
the battles themselves:
Tarnesh (the first assassin) was random as it always is with 1st level. Killed me a couple of times when I was running around like headless chickens. A spell interruption or a critical makes it much easier.
Silke was hard - again, 1st level, and she was a mage/something (?) with stoneskin and sequencer, sometimes hasted herself and kicked ass in melee. Fun battle, that wand of missiles Imoen starts with was indispensable.
The d0rf assassin wasn't a pushover either - he did a lot of damage (thanks to a potion obviously),
The next killer, a cleric in Nashkel, did a good job of disabling my characters, but wasn't really able to do any damage. That's clerics for you.
Gnoll stronghold was a massacre. If any area in SCS needed some more love, then that's it. Adding a much more powerful gnoll king with a shaman or two could spice it up a little.
Grey Wolf was a tough bastard, even though he didn't have his premium sword.
Nashkel mines were at least a bit challenging now, with more kobolds, including guards with poisonous daggers and a chieftain+shaman fight, a much needed improvement over the cakewalk it was once. I did get lots and lots of flaming arrows out of it.
Mulahey was OK, not a big threa himself, though the number of guards he had made thing more difficult.
Bassilus was rather easy without his entourage (again, cleric).
Sirines were OMGWTFGGTHXBYENOOB, using charm, invisibility and some other spells and wreaking chaos. I decided to delay going to the lighthouse until after Cloakwood. Even then, with a Chaotic-Command'd Minsc they were a nuisance and I had to resort to nuking them with wands.
The Nereid on the coast (imprisoned by an ogre mage) was just as bad, charming&one-hit killing, moving around like mad and summoning some water elemental thingies. At least she was by herself so it was managable.
Two randomized bands of assassins (d0rfs-clerics and amazons) always seemed to appear at the wrong time when I was injured and out of spells. Molkar and his group was the bigger threat thanks to a number of disables they had.
Bandit Camp is quite easy if you get a few levels and know what you're doing. A couple of webs and heavy wand napalm clears the area fast.
Spiders Nest was quite nasty, disables galore.
Enemy party outside the mines is a very difficult but fun encounter. Took me a couple of tries before I managed to down mages before they cast confusion.
Fights with mages inside the mines - nice, all the corridors are perfect for crowd control, except I was the one being crowd controlled most of the time
Davaeorn is probably the worst battle in the game. It's a gigantic clusterfuck with webs, stinking clouds, battle horrors and guards coming out the back, and of course Davaeorn teleporting around. It's very easily winnable, though, if you concentrate fire on him when he teleports nearby, he goes down easily and both guards and horrors vanish.
I was overleveled for Ulcaster so the wolf didn't pose any problems.
Iron Throne party was even harder than the mine one. The two thieves were especially troublesome (being a mage without stoneskin is hard). No dedicated opponent mage helped somewhat.
Four dwarf ghosts in Durlag's tower were less difficult than I remembered. The warrior one hit hard but fell easily, the mage didn't cast any gamebreaking spells and thief didn't appear until the rest was dealt with. Only the ghoul was dangerous with his holding attack.
Chesstable is deadly. When you're squishy and without stoneskin those two hyperfast rooks or whatever can kill you in a matter of seconds. Nuking out the rest is easy.
Demonknight was a pushover. He managed to power word kill Dynaheir, but then he died within seconds.
Cultist ambush in Ulgoth's Beard was surprisingly difficult, partly thanks to peasants getting in my way, partly because no time to buff and invisible assassin having my number. The
Aec'Latec, on the other hand, was very disappointing. Apart from some holding and draining he didn't do much, and the cultists got slaughtered with nukes just like that.
The final battle though. DAT FINAL BATTLE. It definitely was final. I could dispatch Tazok and Diarmid easily, but Angelo and Semaj were nigh-untouchable with their spell protections (arrows of dispelling were really hit by the nerfhammer in IR and did nada) and ruined my life with fireballs and other unfun projectiles. Oh, not to mention lightspeed Sarevok with insane thac0 pulverizing anyone in his way. After about twenty tries (the closest I got was killing three henchmen) I decided to cheese out a bit and it finally worked. I sent three waves of summons while being invisible to make the enemies spawn and use some of their spels. Then I focused-fired (spell thrust, then three wands of fireball + arrows of detonation + potions of explosions) on Semaj who dropped dead instantly
. One char kited Sarevok still gulping potions of healing like mad while the rest killed Tazok then Diarmid then their skeletons and finally pierced through Angelo's protection and slaughtered him. I somehow managed to keep everyone alive up to this point, so Sarevok wasn't that much of a deal then. Killed Minsc but that was all he could do.Marvelous stuff.
Nice summary there, hoverdog.
My favourite battle in BG1 using SCS was probably against the Iron Throne leaders and the Bandit Camp.
Most difficult (excluding final battles) was Red Wizards (if Edwin not in party) and Chess Board.
Most anticlimactic was the Demonknight.
I agree more should have been done with the Gnoll Fortress, but I know DavidW prefers to always do the Gnoll Fortress before heading for the Nashkel Mines, so maybe he didn't want to make it too difficult.
Going for the Nashkel Mines first (like I always do) and using the full Darkside Kobolds component, the Mines are very hard, especially that battle that included several Kobold Shamans.
My favourite battle in BG1 using SCS was probably against the Iron Throne leaders and the Bandit Camp.
Most difficult (excluding final battles) was Red Wizards (if Edwin not in party) and Chess Board.
Most anticlimactic was the Demonknight.
I agree more should have been done with the Gnoll Fortress, but I know DavidW prefers to always do the Gnoll Fortress before heading for the Nashkel Mines, so maybe he didn't want to make it too difficult.
Going for the Nashkel Mines first (like I always do) and using the full Darkside Kobolds component, the Mines are very hard, especially that battle that included several Kobold Shamans.
hoverdog
dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
I did the Red Wizards after Cloakwood, I think, and it wasn't that crazy. I had more problems with the assassins or sirines. Lot of stuff happening, but they weren't that high a level (probably 7-8th max). Depends when you tackle them, of course.
god yes.
I did go the fortress before the mines, and even with helmets not protecting from crits (IR change) it was a cakewalk.
I had only one shaman in SCS, several could indeed turn the battle into a tasteful rape.
Sounds like it has been toned down in later revisions, then. So I think I'll include that component next time.
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
When Minsc is berserking, the Sirine Charm/Dire Charm doesn't work. Just be careful because they can cast it twice IIRC, so don't send in others until that has happened. If he has good AC, Minsc can solo all the Sirines.
You don't have to fight the Nereid and killing the Ogre Mage is easier.
It's even more fun when you retry if someone dies. That's what I've been doing for a while.
You don't have to fight the Nereid and killing the Ogre Mage is easier.
It's even more fun when you retry if someone dies. That's what I've been doing for a while.
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