Finished soloing SoA

[Phantom Lord]

Now this was an interesting run, since it was my first solo game.

PC was a F/M/T, XP cap removed, all weidu.org mods installed.

My final and, ironically, only compromise was to uninstall improved Irenicus before the end fight. It was too much - I defeated his first two appearances, but the third saw me pretty exhausted. After he had casted roughly 100 lvl 7-9 spells I decided too shorten the process and wiped him off my hard disk. I think the first appearance with his four new friends is hard enough to beat, adding two others is a little too much. Altough the second was interesting somehow, because my Str got drained to 5 (no movement with almost nothing equipped, but you need at least some equipment to solve that situation) and I still managed to get out. The third one, as said above, was over the top for my taste.

But how was the rest of the game? Well, it was fun in the first place. F/M/T is an interesting class which evolves as levels rise. In the early part, the thief part dominated the game, later on it was the mage, but I guess in the end it was the fighter part, who got most of the 8.000.000 kill XP.

The best and most challeniging encounter was certainly the one with the two liches and their small army that guard the room above Kangaxx' tomb. I took the battle to the outside and there were some fireworks going down on the docks. It was pretty insane to say the least.

Was it difficult? Sometimes it was, especially in the early phase of the game. But in fact, soloing feels easier because you don't have to control a whole group of characters.

I ended up as F26/M22/T31, scary by numbers, but beyond level 18, it's basically the mage level that makes a difference - to have or not to have 9th level spells.

So what's next?

Well, this was enough soloing for me, so I'm gonna team up with a close relative and duo ToB.

[Sytze]

Three curious questions (mheh, else I wouldn't be asking them, non? )
1) How many level 9 spells did you have in the final fight?
2) What were you basic HLA's and mage spells set-up?
3) Where did you get your strength drained?

I fought against improved Irenicus a couple of times, always with a party though, but I did manage to beat the him. Granted, I had the most problems with the first fight and thought it became easier as the battles proceeded. I thought him turning into the slayer was the easiest part: Boots of Speed or Improved Haste in combination with some ranged weapons work wonders. The thing with his other form, when he casts those infinite number of spells -is that his third form?- is to stay very close to him. Timestop is a lifesaver and Irenicus disabler in that case, not to mention Wish. I guess it's easier to catch him when you have multiple party members going after him. Maybe you should’ve, when he was out of sight, placed a few spiketraps and/or summoned some HL allies to deal with the Shattered One?
I reckon it's a tough fight, but because it takes so long, it's also the best fight of the game in my humble opinion.

As for those two guardians at kangaxx's place, I always have fun sending in two high level mages. Both protected beyond believe, one to do the fighting, preferably with a SC spells active (the golem form with its magic resistance, and the werewolf form with its healing capabilities make a deadly combination), the other mage is the Lich disabler. Remove magic, Breach, Rube Ray, Spellstrike, Slow, Teleport Field, whatever does the trick against everything in that room. And then, when the room is severely weakened, the rest of the party barges in. Carnage all around!
It sure as hell is fun when you're powerful, but without the proper spells, levels, equipment, and most likely strategy too, you get your ass delivered on a plate quite nicely.

[Phantom Lord]

Contains Spoilers

[QUOTE=Sytze]Three curious questions (mheh, else I wouldn't be asking them, non? )
1) How many level 9 spells did you have in the final fight?
2) What were you basic HLA's and mage spells set-up?
3) Where did you get your strength drained?[/QUOTE]

1) Three: Planetar, Spellstrike, BBoD
Not knowing that there is more than one round in the fight, I used all three in the first round (I wouldn't have made it without the Planetar anyway and used BBoD for the dragon and the Orb).

2) 10 GWW, 2 Hardiness, 4 Spike Traps and 2 Time Traps set up losely in the area (the Time Traps helped a lot). I have practically all other available F/M/T HLA at least once. My memorized spells included an array of abjurations, buffing and some damage stuff, the usual. Pre-Buffing consisted of Stoneskin, Prot from Fear and Evil, Fireshield B/R, Spell Immunity Abjuration, Minor Globe, Imp Haste and whatever I got from several items. I also had a Chain Contingency loaded with three Abu Dhazims set to target my last attacker at 50% HP, which went off in the first round. The pre-fight summons consisted of the Planetar, three elementals (earth, fire, air from the item mod elemental staff) and a Simulacrum.

3) Second round. Jonny entered the arena in Slayer form with an of army shadows. I was "naked" - all my things were lying in the middle of the room and I was near one of the stairs to the test areas. I sunfired some shadows and ran to my equipment, but the remaining shadows and Jonny managed to surround me completely. I got drained to Str 3 before I could say "damn". After reaching the equipment, I picked up my rings, cloak, strength girdle (brought me up to 5) and Helm of Brillance and sunrayed the shadows. I fired a trigger with Stoneskin and Fireshield B/R. Used a potion of Cloud Giant Strength, but it didn't help much. Next I got a Simmie from the Helm of Vhailor and further managed to survive my "weak period" with the help of item based summons and some spells. It is truly annoying if you can't move - but moving would also have me taken away from my equipment, which I couldn't carry or equip (weapons or armor) and picked up / used only one item at a time for that reason.

As for my surrender in the third round - I guess I can get through all fights with a different setup and a little luck (one Planetar each round should help). But Jonnys cyclic casting of all the high level stuff got on my nerves, because this was not a fair fight anymore. I had to waste my remaining Time Stop and Death Spell scrolls on armies of Mordekainen Swords, just to see him cast Time Stop + Imp Mantle + Imp Invisibility + Stoneskin + Immunity Abjuration + an array of other buffs and summons every fourth round, while I was already low on fuel from the first two battles. Maybe this is easier with a party, because a single character has too much work to keep the summons at bay while Jonny keeps his personal defence up. He simply wore me down and I was too annoyed to come up with something creative.

Anyway, I have a save of the end fight and may try this later again. It was by far my most difficult BG2 fight ever, made Imp Twisted Rune look like a walk in the park (for comparison, I did Imp Twisted Rune twice without any significant problems or reloads with this character).

The Imp Kangaxx guardians on the other hand gave me a perfect fight. This fight alone is worth to play through the whole game and the real fun was to take it outside, because the fight took place over a big area with different things happening in different places at the same time. First, I lured the skelly warriors up the stairs in the docks and killed them out of range of innocent bystanders. A Simmie kept the Liches busy. I ran back past the liches to the corner near the light house and into five Hakeahars that drained some of my spells. In the mean time, one lich started to gate in a Pit Fiend, while I had a bunch of Mordekainens sent into that area. Add the Telly Field cast by one Lich, my elemental summons that came on and imagine the chaos that ensued outside Mae'Vars place. Totally insane.

@Fable - sorry, this was supposed to be in the SoA forum, could you move it there?

[mbz]

So you had 3 level 9 mage spells...Why don't you fill them all up with summon Planetar? Read a chain Contingency scroll before the battle, fill it up with project image, set it to trigger when "helpless". Sleep. Cast stone skin, improved invisibility, spell immunity: divination, and then cast project image. When the four images come out, unleash all your planetars: you should have 12. If you want to, cast improved haste on them as well. Foray little Jon with this batch of planetars and bring him to hell.

I do this whenever I encounter a tough enemy that cannot be dealt with conventional spells. I soloed with a sorceror, and the maximum number of Planetars I could get under the newest patch was 24(granted that sors cannot restore spell levels on "simis"). That was more than enough. However, the most common thing I did was: cast a project image, use improved alacrity, use up 5 wish spells in 1 second. At least one of the Genies should have the option of "abi-dazem" on everyone in the area, party included. Choose it, and you no longer have to fight anyone anymore. Protect yourself with protection from magical energy if you want, or just endure the small pain.

[Phantom Lord]

Well, thanks for the tip, but multiple Planetar summon from contingency triggered PI is an exploit which I don't use. Same goes for massive scroll casting from Simulacrum. I actually use simmies to cast Restoration after battles sometimes, but that's my only compromise here, for organisational reasons rather than to save a few coppers. I didn't use Bag of Holding recharge as well, otherwise my elemental summons would be endless (from item mod ring and staff - both pretty powerful).

Altough under the given circumstances with an unlimited Irenicus anything would have been fair...

[Sytze]

Talk about taking all the fun out of a battle then. The fun lies in the challenge, the chance to die even after battling for half an hour, not by summoning a horde of devas. There's no fun or challenge in that.

[mbz]

[QUOTE=Sytze]Talk about taking all the fun out of a battle then. The fun lies in the challenge, the chance to die even after battling for half an hour, not by summoning a horde of devas. There's no fun or challenge in that.[/QUOTE]

Once I've had enough of challenge, I want revenge and SLAUGHTER!!!

[Phantom Lord]

Believe me, I had my fair share of that.

But I'm with Sytze concerning playing style, there's a lot you can do with limited resources and a few good ideas. I just try to keep the spirit of the rule system by not abusing (an otherwise great) game engines little loopholes.

But some news on the duo ToB approach: My kid brother and me just dusted Saladrex in our first approach, which was not very sophisticated at all (no traps or summons involved and only some basic buffing). I guess it was a good idea to team up for ToB, it's an intersting feel to play the game with the nemesis of BG1, but nonetheless your brother, at your side. Also, my PC sure can lay waste, but Sarevoks Death Bringer Assault is a class of its own. Caught a stray bullet when he got confused in WL level 3 - 150 hp damage.

We so far survived Saradush, the Sola snake party and WL levels 3 and 4, and I guess we're gonna get a little further in the near future.

[mbz]

I remember beating the game several times with different characters. One of my favorites was the ranger/cleric, who could combine energy disks and knock away attack (both are special abilities whose names I forgot) together. Tossing all the enemies away from you in mere seconds was a great fun. But nothing more is funnier than seeing poor old powerful Sarevok imprisoned and freed again and again by my sorceror. When I mutigamed BGII with my friend, I always punish him for running arround aimlessly by imprisoning and freeing him (He always waves his fist in protest). Sometimes I want to challenge our surviving skills by unleashing a horde of Planetars with the PI cheese tactic, and make one of them cast earth quake among all others...My friend, who was using a Kensai/thief, hid in shadows and ran his ass off. I casted Protection from Magical Weapons and watched how those demons slashed their weapons on me in futile. My magic ran out eventually and I died in the blink of an eye. We had to reload because I was hosting. Damn my friend was furious...