Author Topic: Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72  (Read 4360 times)

Althernai

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« on: September 27, 2002, 10:25:11 PM »
It has to be the gnome Fighter/Illusionist you meet in the docks. Check out what he does when you walk in with a high level paladin:

Chain Contingency: Spell Strike, Horrid Wilting

He has broken two rules here at once: 1) No 9th level spells in Chain Contingencies 2) Illusionists can't use Necromantic spells

followed by...

Spell Trigger: Prismatic Spray, Symbol Stun, Sphere of Chaos

Levels 7, 8, and 7 respectively. You can't use spells above level 6 in a Spell Trigger

He has different Chain Contingencies of you walk in with different characters - clever. At one point, I think I saw him use a Power Word: Kill in one of them, but I could not duplicate that.                    



[!--EDIT|Althernai|Sep 28 2002, 05:27 AM--]

Offline weimer

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2002, 10:29:47 PM »
This guy has been a personal favorite source of righteous indignation. I can't quite remember if he is GB's work or Kensai Ryu's, but in even event he's certainly not "core 2nd edition", shall we say. :-)
                   

Gospel

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2002, 10:34:02 PM »
The readme did say he cheats ?:)

Teno20

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2002, 08:32:00 AM »
Hmm... games are now fighting back (i.e. cheats) :)                    

INeedTheNetInMyRoom

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2002, 01:33:59 PM »
His cheating could be worse... he could have a spell trigger with three Comets or three Dragons breaths in it.                    

Tag

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2002, 07:49:36 AM »
Oh god, I met this guy last night with a level 11-13 party, the one in Valygar's place? First time I got 2xMeteor Swarms, Mordy's sword, Horrid Wilting and something else silly in my face the minute I spoke to him. Total party wipeout.

What *really* bugged me though was:

Illusionist: Do you know where Valygar is?
[CHARNAME]: Err, about 3 feet behind you to the left?

Took me about 10 attempts before I cheesed him and his mates to death without taking a scratch (all hail cloudkill!) - Valygar being in the room didn't help.

Something very odd happened on one of my attempts. I ran my PC up the stairs alone, chucked a Mislead and ran downstairs again, hoping to deplete his spells. Now, my Mislead cast...Simulacrum, then a crapload of Contingencies, Triggers etc that the PC doesn't even have written in her spellbook. I ended up with one copy that I couldn't control at all, one copy that I could move around and send into melee, and another copy (sim?) that had a few spells. Mousing over them brought up a blank nametag, and the two that I could select had the default female voiceset rather than the PC's. I would have played with them more, but they died pretty quickly ^_^

Any ideas what that was all about? I'm playing a Wild Mage but she ain't *that* wild, I'm sure.                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2002, 12:45:24 PM »
It's possible that this gnome F/M has special scripts for controlling his simulacrum or mislead or something and that they mistakenly took control of yours.                    

Guest

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2002, 02:56:52 AM »

Well, I pass through there and I must say I did not really enjoyed my encounter. In the end I had to cheese back by scouting ahead with Valen and web + stinking cloud + greater malison + cloudkill.

In a straight up fight my party gets slaughtered by their stun bolts. They had over 100 each of these. My party is very low level.

That Priestess and her unlimited Improved Mantle. My question is why ? Are there any strategy on how to beat this WITHOUT cheese ? I don't like using traps or laying skull traps. How do I survive this without lost ?

And now the Mindflayers, why the swallow brain ? I noticed my char was killed instantly by this. Them being invisible I can cope with, also some of their new spells. But a one hit kill capability with limitless invisibility is a bit much.



                   

Guest

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2002, 05:04:44 AM »
Quote
Well, I pass through there and I must say I did not really enjoyed my encounter. In the end I had to cheese back by scouting ahead with Valen and web + stinking cloud + greater malison + cloudkill.

In a straight up fight my party gets slaughtered by their stun bolts. They had over 100 each of these. My party is very low level.

That Priestess and her unlimited Improved Mantle. My question is why ? Are there any strategy on how to beat this WITHOUT cheese ? I don't like using traps or laying skull traps. How do I survive this without lost ?

And now the Mindflayers, why the swallow brain ? I noticed my char was killed instantly by this. Them being invisible I can cope with, also some of their new spells. But a one hit kill capability with limitless invisibility is a bit much.
                   Oops,

Wrong thread. I was refering to the Fish City.                    

Althernai

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2002, 02:47:13 PM »
Quote
Well, I pass through there and I must say I did not really enjoyed my encounter. In the end I had to cheese back by scouting ahead with Valen and web + stinking cloud + greater malison + cloudkill.

In a straight up fight my party gets slaughtered by their stun bolts. They had over 100 each of these. My party is very low level.

That Priestess and her unlimited Improved Mantle. My question is why ? Are there any strategy on how to beat this WITHOUT cheese ? I don't like using traps or laying skull traps. How do I survive this without lost ?

What the fish do is actually totally legit - I think they are all Archers using Called Shot so they hit just about anything and they hit hard. The priestess is annoying - there are not that many weapons that bypass Improved Mantle at that point, but you can use stuff like Insect Plague (which SHOULD, but doesn't prevent her from casting the Mantle again). Also, keep in mind that good summons (Mordies, Elementals, etc. but NOT Planetars) strike as +4 and thus have no trouble killing her.

Personally, I treat the rest of the city as an exercise to demonstrate the power of non-violence. Sure, you could go through killing everything that stands in your way - but why? What do you gain by doing so? 3000 XP per fish is pretty much meaningless; if you care so much, kill some of the elementals that come out of the Underdark portals and are worth at least twice as much. You get a huge number of nice paralytic bolts, but by the time you are done with the Cloak encounter, you probably have more than you will use. You also get some nice crossbows and spears - but face it, you are just going to sell the extras (and you will have extras by the time you are done with the priestess). So, use the spell Invisibility 10 foot Radius and just run through the place both ways.

Quote
And now the Mindflayers, why the swallow brain ? I noticed my char was killed instantly by this. Them being invisible I can cope with, also some of their new spells. But a one hit kill capability with limitless invisibility is a bit much.

Ok, the Improved Mind Flayers thing is not so much 'cheese' as 'playing by completely different rules'. It is the only component of Solafein that I don't use. I believe what was done there was essentially take all the methods commonly used against mind flayers and give them protection from these. Not only that, but for some reason they were given 50% resistance to all physical damage and they mostly had 90% MR. I'm fine with the MR, but the Circle of Zerthimon specifically mentions them being weak against steel. Furthermore, I'd honestly like to know how Psionics would hurt something without a brain (e.g. Mordy). That detonate thing is ridiculous  - 40 damage to everyone, apparently regardless of where they are. I also don't like creatures that instakill - mind flayers are already the only non-boss enemies from whom I ever retreat. They are still beatable of course, but the operative word here would be 'tedious' - and hence not fun, so I don't use them.                    

INeedTheNetInMyRoom

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2002, 02:59:00 PM »
I won't use that add-on either because Illithids have accounted half of my game overs (only 1 of 2) and I don't want them to be any stronger than they are.                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2002, 08:53:25 PM »
Quote
Plague (which SHOULD, but doesn't prevent her from casting the Mantle again). Also, keep in mind that good
                   Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It was a bug (typo) and in the next verison she will not be able to cast it all the time while being bitten by bugs or hammered by blows.                    

Guest

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« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2002, 01:26:33 AM »

Here are my thoughts, I agree partly with your said. I too like to see more non-volence options in quest. The final Watchers Keep quest in ToB springs to mind.

I don't kill everything that stand in my way. The problem I have is that in the fish city, I don't really have that option. As I approach them I am attack, so I fight back. I could cast invisibility and just pass through, but then I could do that for everything.

I sometime wonder whether this a bug. The Rebels are fighting the Guards, yet all of them attack you as soon as you see them.

The thing I really hated most was the Priestess with her limitless Improve Mantle, which is playing with an entire different set of rules.

I can understand in making things harder, but would have prefered if they stayed within the same set of rules.

Your description of the Mind Flayers is an example. They became easy because people discovered how to fight them. So they were made harder but as you said, why the high resistence to conventional attack ? It would have been more fair to allow them to dispel magic protection and go invisible.

This is just my opinion.
                   

Althernai

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2002, 01:04:53 PM »
Quote
I don't kill everything that stand in my way. The problem I have is that in the fish city, I don't really have that option. As I approach them I am attack, so I fight back. I could cast invisibility and just pass through, but then I could do that for everything.

I sometime wonder whether this a bug. The Rebels are fighting the Guards, yet all of them attack you as soon as you see them.

Right, you could do the invisibility thing with everything, but here doing it actually makes sense - you aren't really interested in killing the Sahuanin, you just want to get out of there. I am not sure if it is a bug or not - technically, the Guards should think you serve the king and only the rebels should attack you - but maybe they haven't received orders to leave you alone yet.

Quote
The thing I really hated most was the Priestess with her limitless Improve Mantle, which is playing with an entire different set of rules.

Look above - he said he is going to fix that. If you really don't like it that much, you don't have to use it - I don't use the mind flayer component.                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2002, 02:33:26 PM »
I can't really justify the Improved Flayers -- I didn't write them. I was talking to GB about it, though, and the physical damage resistance is based on some "harden the air around you with mental force" ability he read about in a psionics handbook that is apparently linked to mind flayres.

I personally don't mind them being a bit more difficult: if you're read the Drizzt books (and don't bother if you haven't), the Illithid are basically underdark demigods -- steel may work on them, but you'll never get the chance to find out because you're charmed as soon as they appear, and they can astral project at will. BG2 can't really mimic this -- the game would be no fun if they just charmed your whole party, and game engine limitations (e.g., only one kind of charm, and the helm already protects against it) also get in the way. Making them tougher in melee is a nice trade-off.                    

Althernai

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Cheesiest Encounter Award as of v72
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2002, 07:56:15 PM »
Ah, I see where you are coming from now. I haven't read the Drizzt books or any other fiction directly related to the setting of BG2, nor any handbook - my knowledge of what the illithid should be like comes entirely from PS:T where you read Dak'kon's Circle of Zerthimon. From there I get that the mind flayers were approximately as powerful as the Githzerai/Githyanki and had in fact lost a major war to the ancestor race thereof. The Githyanki in BG2 are already considerably less dangerous than the mind flayers. If you were aiming for Underdark demigods, then I suppose what you have done makes sense.

I might give them another try -- what initially happened was that I basically fought them with the same buffs quick-saving between fights. The result was that it took me three times as long to kill them (50% resistance + invisibility) with more frequent reloads - not exactly fun. Maybe had I played longer, I would have though of a different strategy.                    

 

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