Author Topic: Improved Kitthix  (Read 13608 times)

Userunfriendly

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #25 on: December 15, 2002, 06:16:49 PM »
"and i think we all agree demons are on level with planetars and elemental princes when it comes to effectiveness... "
'
by that statement i was referring to something else entirely.....

i meant that demons and planetars and elemental princes cannot be deathspelled...by effectiveness i meant are they ok versus smarter mages and improved tob bosses and smarter dragons.....all of them deathspell via script...

i consider the vulnerability to deathspell makes me take a look twice at any summon other than demons, planetars and g elementals....

so inherently, i consider demons to be not fatally flawed, like skelly warriors, inv stalkers and kitty......

foogy, you're right....

"Actually a Marilith should clean house against a Deva, maybe even a Planetar, but you can't summon Mariliths (but you can summon Balors/Pit Fiends, go figure)."

two marys in a arena trial took out a planetar without even getting hurt, and when i summoned 4 planetars, the same two took them all out in 5-6 rounds...

hahahhahahhahha.....all you need to do to play with bare chested female demons is to add the innate

"summon abyssial horde" to your pc....

they are fun fun fun summons to use...lasts a long time too...yes, you control them,,,,                    

Althernai

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #26 on: December 15, 2002, 07:17:23 PM »
The AI of a Marileith is VASTLY superior to any other demon in the game. The only reason they are so good is because they cast Protection from Magic Weapons and Stoneskin. Any melee creature that uses PfMW (and is immune to Normal ones and has a high MR) is going to be unstoppable unless the Intelligence opposing it either knows to run away and wait for ti to wear off or cast Breach or the like. If you Breach the Marileith, the Planetar easily tears it to shreds.

Besides, we are talking about creatures you can actually summon - and of those, no Demon comes even close to a Planetar. Further, because you cannot control them, I would take Kitthix over any demon.

Death Spell = meh. You know when this is coming and if you use creatures in waves (send a kobold to draw the Death Spell, then send in the Skeleton Warriors or Mordies), it shouldn't bother you very much.                    

Offline weimer

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #27 on: December 15, 2002, 09:17:52 PM »
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Thank you for replying my (annoying?) posts. :-) I know my English can be quite difficult to understand sometimes.
Your posts are not annoying and your English is quite understandable. It's better than my French, say. I would like to thank you once again for sharing your opinion on the subject. You are convincing me that there is something here that I'm  not seeing ... but I can't seem to figure out what it is from your posts.

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What were difficulty settings?

Impossible.

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The point is that he is useful in almost all combats.

As above, he doesn't do anything against Liches. He seems to have a similar utility to Mordy.

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If he webs you and you are held, he can hit you automatically. However, you won't automatically fail your poison save or web save in the future, so he tends not to get the kind of luck that fury gives.
Althernai's calculations show the opposite.

Notably, Althernai's calculations do *not* show that "you will automatically fail your web save in the future" -- he seems to be giving an 80% chance for it. My personal experience (based on watching Imp Kitthix actually try to get a lock down on some spellcasters: cowlies, soercerous aman, rengard, etc.) is that he does not get a "lock" and that they flicker in and out of being held. That's what I observed in experimental trials. It's possible that all of the enemies I tried against were just really lucky, of course.

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Most 'humanoids' don't have very good Saves. With GM in,

In my experience, things that don't have very good saves fall easily without Kitthix. Sure, he takes down kobolds real fast. But so do you! He's not unbalancing anything if he helps you with some 4 hit dice shadow thieves.

My impression is that most players (solo druids and sorcs aside) do not walk around with summons *all the time*. Instead, you pull them out for big battles (not for small skirmishes against lowly humanoids). If Kitthix mops the floor with copper coronet guards, it's no big deal -- you would have done that anyway. My major concern is that somehow Kitthix will win all of the big quests for you -- take down Firkraag, kill all the trolls, destroy all golems in the planar sphere, kill all the beholders in the sewers, that kind of thing. If he did that, I would immediatley agree: he is too powerful.

A final interesting note here is that I almost never use Greater Malison. It is also my impression (from bug reports and saved games and screen shots sent to me) that the "average [mod] user" does not use it all the time either. If you are, it represents a "special strategy" on your part -- advanced tactics. Here's another idea: since Kitthix is immune to Webs, coat the whole area with three or four webs and then let him clean house. Similarly, casting GM before casting Chaos is usually a good idea.

These are all "strong" ideas, but coming up with tactics is also one of the points of the game. Saying that Chaos is too strong because the possibility of casting GM exists (and thus making it a save vs. spells at -8) is missing the point somehow. Every spell is stronger because GM exists. They should be judged without it. Similarly, you could already cast Web and then Spider Spawn (rather than Web + Imp Kitthix) and it was a good idea.

But you have to be a smart player to do these things. All of this "figuring out what spells combo together" business is not something you can do on auto-pilot. It's something that takes brains. And the game should reward you for that. I don't want to make something where no posssible good strategies exist -- that would be boring. If IK happens to have one or two good combos and you've found them -- great! But so does everything else in the game.

I'm concerned about people "sleep-walking" through SoA because of Imp Kitthix. I'm not concerned about smart people getting an advantage because they thought things through.

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Actually, some of the items are even more powerful.
Combine the Throwing Impaler with a Kensai, Grandmaster in Spears, GWW. :-)

Throwing Impaler doesn't do appreciably more damage than Impaler, so the GWW thing isn't really important. Ages +5 does more damage. In general, I'd rather have Ages than Throwing Impaler -- the ranged attack is a red herring unless you have strong party support. Monsters move too fast and visibility is too limited.

If you think that Throwing Impaler is stronger than the Staff of the Magi, ask Userunfriendly to explain Magi's many uses to you. :-)

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Parties right out of the underdark with a few nymphs can take down Mencar. Kitthix fails. Parties with a few fire elementals can take out the troll mound. Kitthix fails.
There is no reason why he shouldn't fail - a SoA summon shouldn't be as powerful as a post Underdark party with Nymphs, right?

Sorry, that was a typo. Parties right out of the *Irenicus Dungeon* with a few nymphs can take down Mencar. I do it routinely before leaving the Promenade.

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Take Althernai's example of a Mordy & IK VS. the Oasis.

I don't see how it argues for delaying him until after the Underdark -- the Oasis is *way* after the Underdark. :-)  In addition, Althernai's example shows a fine use of tactics.

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IK is a great offensive summons, but it must be used with care.

If the conclusion is "smart people can use IK to great advantage", should we really be concerned? I would be concerned with "people can sleep-walk through the game with this" or "smart people can use IK to an even greater advantage than most other things" ... but the same people who can use IK can also use web, GM, wands of monster summoning, wands of cloudkill, pro-undead scrolls, azuredge, daystar, etc.

At some level, isn't the game *about* using your resources intelligently?                    



[!--EDIT|weimer|Dec 15 2002, 09:19 PM--]

AvatarofInsolence

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #28 on: December 16, 2002, 12:51:59 AM »
In my experiance, IK is much more useful than 1 charge from the WoMS. Against tremendously strong opponents, IK is of little or no use without making full use GM etc. Firkraag toast IK immediately in all my games, and even with GM web and poison hardly ever work against the real toughies. Don't get me wrong, IK is very useful when not deathspelled and otherwise instantly destroyed, but in no way game breaking. I like him how he is :)                    

Userunfriendly

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #29 on: December 16, 2002, 02:27:01 AM »
actually, i consider the g bearweres to be much more powerful than kitty....the regen ability is just too nice,,,,and while i did notice the nerfing, like you said, wes, the game should reward you for smart tactics and ingenous use of resources...and i improve haste the bear weres for tough battles, since i know that impr haste doubles regeneration rate, thus making the bear weres unnerfed...hehhehehheh....and also making their attacks much nastier...hehheheheh

"Death Spell = meh. You know when this is coming and if you use creatures in waves (send a kobold to draw the Death Spell, then send in the Skeleton Warriors or Mordies), it shouldn't bother you very much. "

doesnt smarter liches and mages have infinite scripted deathspell???? like infinite scripted true sight?????????

i thought even if you send in waves, they wont run out of deathspells....

am i wrong????

                   

Althernai

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #30 on: December 16, 2002, 02:42:45 AM »
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doesnt smarter liches and mages have infinite scripted deathspell???? like infinite scripted true sight?????????
                   Huh? I've successfully used the "feed them summons 'till they run out of spells" in the past, maybe Wes has recently changed them? Infinite Death Spell would be more uber-Cheese -- they already have uber-Telefield, I don't think it would be necessary.                    

AvatarofInsolence

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #31 on: December 16, 2002, 03:31:10 AM »
I don't get much of a chance to use werebears as I usually solo a x/mage or a sorc. Maybe next game I'll play as a ranger/cleric. I'd play with a party more often, but moving around with a party is a genuine pain in the arse, and I get frustrated quickly trying to navigate more than 1 or 2 people around. Ranger/Cleric with Sola, Imoen, and Kelsey would probably be just about ideal.                    

serjeLeBlade

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #32 on: December 16, 2002, 05:58:03 AM »
I see many people saying that IK is the best summon available in the early game, so I'll put in my two cents...

In most of my games, the uber-summons clearing the house for me in the early game (and proving stronger than some party members) are called "Spirit Animals"... and they include no spiders  :P
(And then Fire Elementals just a little later)

You can get two of them a day for free in chapter one (earlier than any Khittix then), and they last more imho (but maybe it's just because IK has none of their immunities) ...  :rolleyes:

In my last fight against beholders, were the Spirit Wolf + Spirit Snake to save my ass... after IK lasted the best part of 1 round.

Tonight I'll try to pit IK against one of my spirit pets, if anybody cares of the outcome... ?  I'll take bets... :ph34r:

Cheers   :)                    



[!--EDIT|serjeLeBlade|Dec 16 2002, 01:59 PM--]

foogla

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #33 on: December 16, 2002, 06:41:27 AM »
Wes: the improved impaler is so awesome because of the +1 to numbers of attack wich is active even while used as a melee weapon. Imho it's a very good alternative to 2-Weaponstyle. Also GWW isn't necessary, just use improved haste (I hear that alot on this board, heh).

Userunfriendly

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #34 on: December 16, 2002, 10:44:36 AM »
actually, after winning the poison test while i was cheesing  the ritual, i think the blood spear is much much better....

and as wes mentioned, meelee weps are over all much more useful, as you need to defend your summoners and mages and clerics...

i got the poison challenge while i was doing the ritual, back in soa, so i got to use it a lot in tob...hehhehehheh....much better than the throwing impaler, and hits harder, does obscene damage, and generally nicer over all weapon...

yeah, serje has a point, spirit animals are simply wonderful, very durable and highly useful summons you get way early, and as sheer blockers and distractors while you snipe or spell cast, usefull all throughout the game, where as kitty is much more a chavalry attack force, not good as infantry for pinning down the enemy, but with spirit animals or skellys, will do a good job of going around the enemy meelee group and hitting the more vulnerable missile group or even magic group, relying on poison and web to inflict high damage to the enemy back row....

too many tactical games...sigh..

                   

alson

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #35 on: December 16, 2002, 11:29:25 AM »
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Your posts are not annoying and your English is quite understandable. It's better than my French, say. I would like to thank you once again for sharing your opinion on the subject.
Thank you for taking my opinion into consideration. :-)

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Impossible.
Exactly.
I just 'soloed' IK against Mecnar and Co. on Insane (with my guidance) and he was slaughtered.
Adjusting the setting to Core Rules turned the tide.
IMO, we should measure things in comparison to Core Rules - which is, after all, the original game setting.
[ With all fairness, i would like to point out that i do play on Insane. ]

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The point is that he is useful in almost all combats.
As above, he doesn't do anything against Liches.
That's way i said almost. Fights against Liches are less than 1% of the total fights in the game.

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He seems to have a similar utility to Mordy.
And we all know what a tactical asset this spell is. ;-)

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My impression is that most players (solo druids and sorcs aside) do not walk around with summons *all the time*. Instead, you pull them out for big battles (not for small skirmishes against lowly humanoids).
This is my impression too.

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If Kitthix mops the floor with copper coronet guards, it's no big deal -- you would have done that anyway. My major concern is that somehow Kitthix will win all of the big quests for you -- take down Firkraag, kill all the trolls, destroy all golems in the planar sphere, kill all the beholders in the sewers, that kind of thing. If he did that, I would immediatley agree: he is too powerful.
Maybe Kitthix can't take down Firkraag, but he can wipe his entire dungeon, probably excluding the Vampires and the Greater Werewolf.
[ Again, i'm talking Core Rules setting here. ]

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A final interesting note here is that I almost never use Greater Malison. It is also my impression (from bug reports and saved games and screen shots sent to me) that the "average [mod] user" does not use it all the time either. If you are,
Actually, i don't use GM all the time either.
When i can cast Sequencer, however, one of my Mages (I always plat with atleast 2.5 Mages) always have a Greater Malison-Teleport Field-Slow sequencer. A fine way to disable groups.

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it represents a "special strategy" on your part -- advanced tactics.
I wouldn't call casting GM advanced tactics... It's quite mandatory for many players. Myself excluded, as i said above.

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Here's another idea: since Kitthix is immune to Webs, coat the whole area with three or four webs and then let him clean house. Similarly, casting GM before casting Chaos is usually a good idea.
Yep. Stacking Webs is a very powerful tactic.

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These are all "strong" ideas, but coming up with tactics is also one of the points of the game.
And the only thing that keeps me playing.

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Saying that Chaos is too strong because the possibility of casting GM exists (and thus making it a save vs. spells at -8) is missing the point somehow.
I agree.

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Every spell is stronger because GM exists.
Every Save-or-Else spell, you mean. :P

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But you have to be a smart player to do these things. All of this "figuring out what spells combo together" business is not something you can do on auto-pilot. It's something that takes brains.
Not as smart as experienced, and most people that play with Mods are quite experienced.
And figuring out that casting GM will help you in some situations isn't exactly chess... :D

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And the game should reward you for that.
And it does.

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I'm concerned about people "sleep-walking" through SoA because of Imp Kitthix. I'm not concerned about smart people getting an advantage because they thought things through.
Thanks... I think. :D
I didn't meant IK will cause people to "sleep walk" through SoA.
It'll just make the game easier to them in some degree.
And we all know that making BG2 easier isn't exactly your 'thing'... :D

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Throwing Impaler doesn't do appreciably more damage than Impaler, so the GWW thing isn't really important. Ages +5 does more damage. In general, I'd rather have Ages than Throwing Impaler -- the ranged attack is a red herring unless you have strong party support. Monsters move too fast and visibility is too limited.
Most people who use mods tend to have strong support by either party members or summons (or both!).

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If you think that Throwing Impaler is stronger than the Staff of the Magi, ask Userunfriendly to explain Magi's many uses to you. :-)
Oh, trust me, i know the merits of the Staff of the Magi. :D
But you said it yourself - we aren't balancing things according to Ages or Magi. ;-)

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I don't see how it argues for delaying him until after the Underdark -- the Oasis is *way* after the Underdark. :-)  
Exactly!
If IK + Mordy makes a ToB battle so easy, think what it can do for SoA battles!

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If the conclusion is "smart people can use IK to great advantage", should we really be concerned?
In my opinion, yes, we should - you said it yourself quite a few times - people who use Mods tend to be intelligent.

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At some level, isn't the game *about* using your resources intelligently?
Yes, it is, and that's why the Tactics mod is so popular.
And that's why we should balance IK a bit in my opinion - that statemant is pointless if your resources are very powerful. :-)

Cheers.                    

Leonardo

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #36 on: December 16, 2002, 11:52:05 AM »
The use of Improved Kitthix took the "Improved" out of the Improved Guarded Compound. I summoned it in the middle of them, it drew the atention of Sion long enough for me to get rid of Koshi and Ketta. It was still alive after I finished the battle, having itself killed the minotaur looking fellows. Playing on core.
                   

Userunfriendly

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #37 on: December 16, 2002, 03:30:11 PM »
yeah, but a m sword would do just as well in that situation, and lets not forget, m swords cant be triggered on self, but stalkers and skellies can, so which is better distractor, a single spider dude, or 3 mean and nasty summons that can soak up the damage.....


"Oh, trust me, i know the merits of the Staff of the Magi.
But you said it yourself - we aren't balancing things according to Ages or Magi. ;-)"

hey alson, buddy, did littiz talk to you about that wonderful new ability we both saw in this forum about mislead???

turns out if the clone is outside of the sight range of the monster casting dispell magic or true sight, you cannot get rid of the invisibility....wow....spell immunity div and invisibility all in one...

i dont consider the staff as seriously overpowering as it used to be,,, i mostly use it to avoid expending a mislead spell...its convient, but i get a lot more milage out of mislead...

                   

Leonardo

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #38 on: December 17, 2002, 08:34:39 AM »
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"yeah, but a m sword would do just as well in that situation, and lets not forget, m swords cant be triggered on self, but stalkers and skellies can, so which is better distractor, a single spider dude, or 3 mean and nasty summons that can soak up the damage....."

M swords an skellies which, without a level 14+ mage and/or a level 15+ cleric, I was unnable to summon. The party was in the 11-12 level. And I've yet to find a non-random Mordekainen Sword scroll in Athkatla before Spellhold...
I could have used a Invisible Stalker, but my mages were busy doing something else (fireball spree). The beauty of IK was that one of the fighters summoned it between his whacks at Ketta.                    

alson

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #39 on: December 17, 2002, 12:47:27 PM »
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hey alson, buddy, did littiz talk to you about that wonderful new ability we both saw in this forum about mislead???

turns out if the clone is outside of the sight range of the monster casting dispell magic or true sight, you cannot get rid of the invisibility....wow....spell immunity div and invisibility all in one...
That was the whole point of Mislead...
Send the clone away, and you have permanent, undispellable Invisibility AND Improved Invisibility for the duration of the spell...
I knew that...

Havn't you fought Improved Mae'Var?
Or was it just too easy with Bun Bun? :D

How can Mislead be cheesy otherwise?



AvatarofInsolence

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #40 on: December 17, 2002, 01:11:37 PM »
I don't think IK cleaning house against the Oasis party is much of an argument. I mean, truly, other than a few vampires, ToB enemies are just plain easy. I solo through ToB with amage/theif regularly, and only have trouble when fighting Bhaalspawn like Abazigal and Yaga-Shura. I'm sure my Soloing days ended with Ascension, for awhile anyway. Really, it's not so much that IK is overpowered, I think ToB is extremely underpowered. The soldiers in the oasis are all like level 12 or something, with the exeption of the mage.

Off-topic: Is there any way to get some decent random encounters in ToB? I think Abazigal's drakes would be a nifty thing to bump into out of the blue. Same with the fire giants.                    

alson

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #41 on: December 17, 2002, 01:29:32 PM »
Don't underestimate the power of Fire Giants.
They've caused many newbies severe headaches...

From my impression, ToB (and probably SoA, too) is all about one thing - tactics. Really.
Your level 12 parties can take on the Guarded Compound just because Sion and Co.'s ploys are inferior to yours. Weimer made superb AI for them - and still, my level 10 party took them down with ease on the first try. No AI in the world can overcome the tactical thinking of a skilled player.

And on a completely different note, in my opinion, soloing is even eaiser than party play. It is very hard - if nay impossible - for the computer to defeat a single character with the Staff of the Magi, Robe of Vecna, Ring of Gaxx, Cloak of Mirroring, etc...
Take Kuriosan for example - even with their 'superior tactical skills' i mentioned before, many players still find him extremely challenging. Just imagine how hard it is for the computer. ;-)

serjeLeBlade

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #42 on: December 18, 2002, 10:36:18 AM »
Ok, I have to report that Imp. Kitthix actually eats Imp. Spirit Animals for breakfast...  
Do as I've said nothing in my previous post please :huh:

Now I guess I'm going to stay quiet and silent until I manage to bring it to some serious battle that can happen in chapter 2 (the Ritual comes to mind) and see what happens...  :ph34r:                    

Althernai

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #43 on: December 18, 2002, 01:55:44 PM »
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No AI in the world can overcome the tactical thinking of a skilled player.
If the odds were fair, then actually it would be a very skilled player who can defeat all of SoA and ToB. See, the problem is that human beings plan - the first time you face Ascension, you probably lose. However, you learn the strengths and weaknesses of each enemy and try again. You come back with better and better strategies each time, while the poor machine uses the same tricks time and time again, until eventually you win.

To balance this, the AI is given some very interesting tricks - although, as you say, they still fail in the end. It is possible to design a situation where the player appears to have a chance of winning, but will actually always lose. Off the top of my head, (not to be taken for a fact - I have not given it any thought) a Solo Jester will probably lose to Ascension on Insane every time.
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And on a completely different note, in my opinion, soloing is even eaiser than party play. It is very hard - if nay impossible - for the computer to defeat a single character with the Staff of the Magi, Robe of Vecna, Ring of Gaxx, Cloak of Mirroring, etc...
Take Kuriosan for example - even with their 'superior tactical skills' i mentioned before, many players still find him extremely challenging. Just imagine how hard it is for the computer. ;-)
Kuirosan is not just "a single character."  Kensai13-]Mage is the epitome of munchkinness. Add to that the fact that his katana is one of the cheesier items in the game ("cheesier," not "cheesiest" as that title is reserved for SotM and CoM and the like) and he has excellent AI (there aren't that many human beings who would actually know to use the spells that he uses).

I had all of those items when facing Ascension with a solo sorc. The only ones that considerably helped me were the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power - and even then, it took upwards of 10 tries.                    

Userunfriendly

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #44 on: December 18, 2002, 03:33:36 PM »
actually i recently found out there is an even cheesier weapon....

eclipse avenger...

that sword regens at rate of 3 hp a second...it cannot be dual wielded, but its speed for regen is breathtaking...same as a regen spell..hehhehehheh                    

Assassin

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #45 on: December 18, 2002, 09:08:31 PM »
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Kuirosan is not just "a single character."  Kensai13->Mage is the epitome of munchkinness. Add to that the fact that his katana is one of the cheesier items in the game ("cheesier," not "cheesiest" as that title is reserved for SotM and CoM and the like) and he has excellent AI (there aren't that many human beings who would actually know to use the spells that he uses).

I had all of those items when facing Ascension with a solo sorc. The only ones that considerably helped me were the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power - and even then, it took upwards of 10 tries.
                   *Sigh* The easiest way to defeat him is waiting out his 14 rounds for his SI to run out, Breach him, set up a SI: Con, then set up a Spell Trigger with the 2 Fire Shields and 1 Pro-Magic Weapons.

Quite simple, really. Breaching is a problem, but random Stoneskins here and there take advantage of his limited Breaches, and you can easily just dance out of his two Death Fogs.

I learnt the hard way that Fire Shield is the easiest way to defeat anyone using Sanchuudoku (damn Improved Mages :)).  You hit me, it fails due to my Pro-Magic Weapons, then my two Fire Shields activate.  Do full damage to him, he respons with Acidic Backlash, doesn't work due to SI.  I'm not sure whether or not that triggers the Fireshields again, but it doesn't take that long to kill him just using that method.

Actually, the cheesiest weapon would have to be the paw of the Shapeshifter for the Greater Werewolf, with the Ease of Use mod.  Pretty much the only bad thing about it is that it has a crappy user (the Shapeshifter), it only hits as +3, and it doesn't really do all that much damage.

In reality, IK is like your attacker with a Celestial Fury, only with 1/2 more attacks, and can poison as well.  Of course, that comparison is fairly bad, but it's easily quite powerful.  I'm trying out a Peanilean (sp? Tashia's figurine) and IK combination.  So far, so good :)                    

serjeLeBlade

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #46 on: December 19, 2002, 08:07:27 AM »
I reviewed the figurine's stats and I have to agree that's really powerful.
But this means nothing special, Celestial Fury +5 is really powerful as well and you *can* have it in chapter 2.

What makes the real difference are the components. A demon heart is pretty more difficult to find than, say, scrolls and poisoned daggers that are sold in local stores, not to mention the CF itself to begin with!

What about, so, just making IK required components something harder to get?
(But please, not something just "impossible to get until chapter six"... there are already too many things "you can't do until chapter six"!)

Maybe something hard to part with... or components needed for other things too... it's interesting to have to make choices.
(As opposed to "is boring to have to go to underdark just to find the last components for everything") [_[
Some ideas... Pixie Prick, Ixil Spike or Neb's Nasty Cutter.
The flail head: poison.... The dagger of Venom... The scarlet Ninja-To...
Thoughts?                    

Userunfriendly

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #47 on: December 19, 2002, 11:18:28 AM »
"*Sigh* The easiest way to defeat him is waiting out his 14 rounds for his SI to run out, Breach him, set up a SI: Con, then set up a Spell Trigger with the 2 Fire Shields and 1 Pro-Magic Weapons. "



easy 3 step process for killing kurosian....

1. choose the ground...after doing the slaver lords, go away from athlanka for about 3 days, make sure celestial fury is equipped so the timer works, then go back to the docks at day time, so you have room to maneuver....he should spawn right away, when you enter the docks...

2 pick the right spells...you only need 3, spell immunity impr haste, breach...spell immunity for the designated killer, or 2 scrolls of acid protection....impr haste for the killer, and breach for kuro...

3 right weapon...get the heavy crossbow of searing before heading out...and 40 plain, unmagical bolts...

once you hit the docks, protect minsc or keldy or sola....with scrolls or spell immunity conjuration (this makes you immune to acid arrow....hehheheh)

impr haste sola, minsc or keldy...

then breach kuro....he immediately puts back protection from magic weapons via scroll, and he has a lot of them, so its uninterruptable, but he wont put back protection from energy...so you fire unmagical bolts at kuro with impr haste, with a acid immune fighter, and heavy crossbow of searing, the unmagical bolts pass right thru protection from magic weapons, and the fire damage punches right thru stoneskin...crispy fry him to death...hehehhehehhe

note, using unmagical bolts to punch thru prot from magic weapons and heavy crossbow of searing to push fire damage thru stoneskin works on all mages...except the ones who stack protection from normal missiles with protection from magic weapons....

works even better with firetooth +5.....

this works every time, until wes upgrades tactics mod...works for 7 and below....

the other, even cheesier trick is to duck into a house, like a temple, then wait for him to follow the party in, then duck out....he will stay inside, and then you wait for about 2 minutes until his protections are toast, go in and slice and dice...i like the first tech better, you feel like youve earned sanchu.....

incredible weapon, well worth the hassle...
 :o                    

foogla

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #48 on: December 19, 2002, 01:35:56 PM »
But Kuro has SI: abjuration right? That's what makes it either a fight of endurance (wait the SI out) or power (ruby ray contigencies or stuff like that) or luck (remove magic/dispel magic).


Imho the IK can be adjusted by making the fight vs the drow under the graveyard harder (smarter drows? ;) ).

AvatarofInsolence

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Improved Kitthix
« Reply #49 on: December 19, 2002, 04:07:08 PM »
That's a pretty good suggestion. Those normal spiders are all toasted with a single fireball, then it's just a matter of beating whatshername to death. Now if she summoned a handful of revenge spiders or wraith spiders, and was tougher herself, it wouldn't be quite so easy. Personally though, I don't think Kithixx is more powerful than say a Mordie, partly because a high level mage can cast 3 or 4 of them a day, whereas no matter what level you are, you get IK once. That in itself is a major restriction. The suggestion that IK is as strong as a planetar is pretty out there as well. Don't planetars have like vorpal maces of disruption+2? I'd have to check the cre in NI again, but I'm pretty sure they have a 5% chance of killing anything in one hit. Kithixx doesn't. Unless IK's web attack has an enormous save penalty, it's nearly useless in ToB anyway, because all the enemies you'd want to web are going to make their saves, or they happen to be immune to it. Mencar and Co. Thrashed IK, and all he managed to do was whack Smaeluv and Pooky. That was on Normal! Besides, I tend to solo a lot, and I need absolutely every edge I can get.                    

 

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