Soulafien mod - Minor Spoilers

[Vanidar]

Holy hell!

Ok long time player and I have beaten ToB standard, Ascension mod, with improved AI for Dragons and such without cheating. In all it's gotten to be fairly routine and now what I usually do with new mods is I equip up my chars from the start with items so I don't have to do that tedium and I power my way through to the new parts and then I take my time.

Well I got the Soulafien mod with that intention in mind. The first dugeon was as expeced, however once I got to the city things started to change. First bandit attack was against some really tough guys. Spell casters and such casting rather high level spells. Different but ok.

Start doing Nalias keep and here is where the real shocker hit me.

Spirit trolls were decimating my party right and left. It appears they are clerics and they make full of domination, and Unholy Blight at a very high level of casting ability. These guys were doing 30 and 40 damage per spell and it seemed to be one of their favorite spells to cast. Never have I had this much trouble going through Nalias keep.

Then there was TorGal himself who had turned into a juggernaught. He makes himself invisible with Improved invis and seems to have a near never ending supply of potions. He hits like a mack truck now and it didn't take him long to chew through my fighter. I gulped down potions, used all my healing spells, traded off tanks, and still this guy kept drinking his own potions and healing himself back to uninjured. Finally I beat him.

After all was said and done I had to sit there and think to myself, how could this possibly be done with a party that hasn't been modified at all? My guys were not hacked but had very good equipment they would not normally have access to at this point in the game. And I very nearly didn't make it even with all the extra gear.

So what do you guys think? Anyone tried this mod all the way through yet? I am bound and determined to beat this now but I can tell it's going to be a long hard fight already.

[kopywrite]

Wow, Vanidar you must have been one of the first people ever to sign up to GB...long term player indeed

OK, the Sola mod improves all the encounters in which any of the 'super weapons' are involved. I won't spoil it any more for you in that regard, but be prepared for some very tough fights. If you've managed Ascension, improved Abazigal etc you should be used to some nasty encounters.

I for one was so used to going around in chapter 2 and collecting all the top goodies, but the mod has changed this -- rightly so, as the best gear should have the best guardians. Some quests haven't been altered too much (such as the planar sphere) so I'd recommend doing those first. I didn't attempt Nalia's keep till my party where all well past the original XP cap, so I doubt any of the tactics I used would be relevant to your party now...sorry.

[Leonardo]

I installed the Solaufein (and Valen, and Kelsey, and Tashia, and Item-upgrade MOD) and am enjoying it very VERY much. TorGal slaughtered my PC thrice before I managed to attract him to the previous room and slam the door behind him, so his buddies don't interfere. The weapon he carries is awesome! Firkraag put on a very nice fight too, and the Archlich is several zillion times harder than Kangaxx himself (even with the improved Kangaxx AI)
My only complain on the Solaufein mod is in the improved city encounters. They were challenging at the very beggining of the game, but as the day passes and you get attacked more and more by increasing levels of enemies, you end up collecting such an amount of XP and wealth (through selling the bandits equipment) that you get to a high power level too fast.
I'm on day 21, still on chapter 2 and am close to 2000000 XP with a full 6 member party, and had no money problems for a good time.

[Littiz]

I really loved those too, unfortunately the item mod has some bugs yet.
For instance, when you upgrade the boots, you get the wrong ones (boots of avoidance and grounding are exchanged)
Anyone else experienced this?

Maybe I'll e-mail the autor, but I wouldn't want to be much of a nuisance!!!

[kopywrite]

Originally posted by Littiz
Maybe I'll e-mail the autor, but I wouldn't want to be much of a nuisance!!!

I'm sure he'd appreciate the response -- its how he'll know what things need fixing or whatnot. Wes was very helpful when I had my tree of life troubles...and its a great opportunity to say thankyou to him for all the work he's done.

[Leonardo]

I experienced the same thing with the boots, but I had no net access available at the time so I CLUA'd in the right ones and threw the wrong ones in the street... plenty of young adventures in Athkatla would be very happy to find a magical pair of boots lying in the sidewalk

[Nomer]

TorGal took me down 8 times, before it dawned on me to use magic. I'm enjoying this mod better than TDD, bugs and all.