Guide to Tactical mods (spoilers)

The cheesy work-arounds with Chain Contingency are fixed in - i believe - fixpack, and from there it's no longer possible to bypass the "only one spell X" limitation.

I will be facing Irenicus again quite soon, so i shall respond to the stage 3 issue somewhat later.

Welcome to GB!

I use healing only out of combat to save potions. The only time I do use some healing spells is when I utilize Dryads' Mass Heals but that's mainly in SoA when it is still of use.

Imho SoA and ToB gameplay in general cannot be solved around healing in combat it takes too long, is in too little supply and beside Heal doesn't heal enough. I'd still use Heal on occasion to cure a PW:Blind for example.

A mage or sorc can soak up literally dozens of Heal spells in damage with just PfmW, Stones Skin and Mirror Images. Preventing damage is so much more powerful and important imho.

I think that PfnW is quite nice in a couple of areas like the Halfling fight in the planar sphere, it lasts quite long and it's also nice against all those pesky SCSII thieves.
One has to know which enemies do use normal weapons though.

There are two exceptions to "Healing is useless in combat:
First one of them being Rod of Resurrection, for the instant-heal (amazing tool!)
The second one being the regular long-cast-heal used on a withdrawing melee character, but only if you have another one taking the heat for the duration of the "maintenance".

Naturally preventing damage is the way to go - i have been saying, typing and coding that ever since i made that guide :laugh:

I do have to disagree on PfNW though, at least for sorcerers. Picking it is a waste of spell slot. Aside from a few SoA enemies and Sarevok in ToB, nobody uses normal weapons.

Even if They do, the lack of +Thac0 enchantment on the weapon makes the fighter miss quite often, and thus mirror image + stoneskin + eventual blur combo take care of them infinitely.

The only exception is Ascension-Sarevok with his I-WIN thac0 and instant-death attacks that ignore MI, Stone and so on. But there is a way to deal with him too : Hell immunity to normal weapons, that is given to the main character, or one of the few armor pieces that grant the immunity.

I do not play Sorcerers. I even deleted my first one after hitting 16 in the Underdark. Just too boring for me due to the immense repetition and lack of flexibility.
Furthermore I use a SCSII component which turns almost all +1 weapons into fine ones. Therefore a lot more are subjeced to PFnW.
True enough Heal has it's uses, but more due to the fact it heals almost all negative status effects like blindness, diseases, etc.

I also got a mod which (re)introduces Dimension Door and Teleort (level 7 spell). Both are barely justifyable for a Sorcerer but can be easily picked up by a mage. Of course Teleport mainly saves time but it's fun from a roleplaying point of view.

Oh and another nice modification by SCSII is to make individiual Spell Immunities available. Therefore I can get Imp Invis coupled with SI: Divination and maybe Stoneskin/PfmW/Spellshield into a Trigger, for example something which is impossible for a Sorc. Unless you want to sacrifice something for a seperate Spell Immunity which I doubt anyone would do.
Overall Mages are much better with some modifications like true PnP spell progression which gives them 7 slots per spell level up to level 9 spells.

Bioware really gutted wizards in favour of Sorcerers in the original game. Shameful.

Edit: I noticed in your fight with the demi lich you opt to protect yourself from MMM with PfmW. Why not MGoI? Stops them just the same.
By the way great music choice in your videos!

So apparently Kuroisan is scared witless of my party. I walked out of my guild house one day with Celestial Fury in hand. Castrati shows up, I refuse to hand over the sword, so he turns to attack. But then, he runs away. Aerie uses a Protection from Magic scroll on him through Simulacrum and he runs into the guild house. I run after him, but he is nowhere to be found. I rest for about 3 weeks and he still hasn't returned. I guess his awesome sword is lost to me now.

Added link to Twisted Rune fight video (Like this). I will probably re-record it in the future, with a bit "slower" pace though.

Regards!

Just completed The Ritual (Tactics mod) for the first time now. I think it's a little buggy, but fun despite everything. I was almost able to have Edwin 'solo' it at level 26. I only needed Korgan to reliably kill the skulls after Edwin had killed everyone else. Where it gets buggy is when you have to stop the girl from casting the ritual spell. I used scrolls of Power Word: Stun to stop her casting, but she just kept casting it after the spell wore off. So then I used another PW:S and got a message that said "The Ritual has been disrupted." Killed the golems, then waited for the spell to wear off and she finished casting anyway and died! Reload. Did the same thing except I left the map immediately after the golems were dead and I had gotten the message about disruption. Went back to WK and Ponty tells me I succeeded in stopping The Ritual and saving the sorceress. Whatever.

I like the armor because my assassin can tank well with it, and the amulets are worth the *cursed* drawback (I have Viconia with Remove Curse since she has an obscene number of spell slots anyway). This is easily my favorite part of the Tactics mod because I actually had to use, well, tactics. Failing to be stealthy during this quest makes it quite hard, whereas being stealthy makes it easy to do but also easy to screw up if your party is detected by the patrols and you can't go back into hiding before the druids find you and start casting Insect Plague and Call Lighting (bah!). Pit Fiends (improved demons) and Planetars really helped here, since the Fiends just slaughter the Ritual guardians with ease and Planetars are immune to their +2 weapons. Next time I might just try to use Imprisonment + Freedom to stop the sorceress and see if that's less buggy. Using fists or a sap (Rogue Rebalancing item) to knock her out and do non-lethal damage might work too, but I've heard that any damage will kill her. I wonder if Flesh to Stone + Stone to Flesh would work as well. Imprisonment might be better because it doesn't allow a save, though.

I started my new game with Tactics+Ascension+Item Upgrade+Tweaks+Insanity. Why did I not install SCSII? I had done this before but just couldn't stand some side effects like slowering the game when mages were appearing. Tactics is more cheesy but at least steady on my laptop.

My setup:
* Sorcerer - I play sorcerers since forever, not only in BG
* Antipaladin (trained in great swords and maces) - dispelling
* Barbarian (flails and axes) - benefits from FoA and Azuredge
* Fighter-mage multi (swords and scimitars) - backup caster
* Wizard slayer 7/thief dual class (short bows and katanas) - lots of points in pickpocket because he can't drink potion of thievery untill he reaches UAI. And stealing items from shops is much more useful at the begining.
* Druid shapeshifter (rebalanced by one of the tweaks) - very strong at the beginning but I believe my other melee characters will overtake her later in the game. Also, great divine caster.

I would like to ask more experienced players (telling glance at Stworca) for advice:
1. Is this possible to make all these characters permanently immune to level drain? Amulet from Aran, upgraded Mace of disruption or Azuredge (I cannot have both because there is only one illith ore in the game), Amaunator's Buckler - there are only 3 items that I know.
2. In Stworca's LP, I found out, that he possessed both Ring of Wizardry and Staff of Power. How is this possible without having Jaheira in the party?
3. Are there any mods that add more boots of speed or illith? I mean well balanced, small item mods.

Best regards!

I have never used mods that add new items, so I can only help with those that are found in vanilla. Besides the Amulet of Power and the Mace of Disruption, the Runehammer, Angurvadal, and Spectral Brand all provide negative plane protection, though the latter three only do so when upgraded and are exclusive to ToB. Berserker rage protects against it, and Undead Hunters are immune to it naturally, so you could conceivably protect an entire party with a combination of items and classes.

One or two fighters with negative plane protection will get through any level drainers the game throws at you, with the sole exception of the Shadow Dragon which, without SCS II's HP enhancement and constant PfMW+Stoneskin casting, should go down relatively quickly to a strong party.

Pro guide. You're the man Stworca. Just make more vids and provide us with links in first post! Love how your insanity clearly shines through in voice commentary of your vids...

Thanks for all your advice Stworca, it was fun to watch your videos and it made me do an install of bg2, scs2, BP ascension, revised battles, tactics and other small mods. I always install item and spell revisions and recommend it to everyone, it allows different tactics and prevent some cheesy well known tactics. Unfortunetaly, the breudayael party was buggy in my install so i couldn't try this battle.

Like someone else here, irenicus in stage 2 turns into slayer form and use time stop and so can end the game (my main character is a monk so no PFMW for him). That's what happens the first time (despite being mirror image from the short sword). The same goes for the eclipse fight but here, i had the mace of detonation from item revisions which gives one use of PFMW.

Just one note : i don't recommend to install both the improved versions of fire giants from revised battles and tactics, it makes these creatures overpowered (for me an elite fire giants is now more to difficult to deal with than the improved yaga shura from ascension).

@Black_Majik : item revisions add illithium in the underdark. For the boots of speed, i found a few dozens in my game, but these are mainly from tactics added ennemy.

I find the Kuroisan fight really easy when there's an antipaladin with a non-magical weapon in the group.Pump him with prot from acid and have the mage focused by kuroisan protected with PFMW.When the anti paladin removes the protections whack him away with you other chars.Bah.Alternatively equip all your party with non magical stuff and again chop him up while the tanking char is protected from magical weapons. Also try to block the doors of nearby buildings with your npc because he will try to escape very often.