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Guest
Posted: Apr 30 2004, 04:59 PM
Eh... completely missed the part about summons being defendable as well...
This still won't work with improved illthids (I think you used illthids as one of the examples...?) who just teleport over to you... btw, anyone noticed that these guys are actually LESS effective against a straight summon-buff-charge party then the usual illthids...?
Oh, and I'm just wondering... Userfriendly... why do you keep recommending level 16+ cheese tactics for chapter 2-3 encounters?
This isn'tat noticeable here, but what really messed me up is "Using multiple mage casting sunfire" at the sewers party... which can be massacred via straight bashing and abuse of their AI tactics...
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Guest
Posted: Apr 30 2004, 09:29 PM
Many of your suggestions involve potion swapping or handing your druid equipment when they're in the arena. Both of these are cheesy tactics since one is a blatant abuse of the engine and the other is "illegal" (they remove all your equipment for a reason).
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Userunfriendly
Posted: May 1 2004, 12:04 AM
QUOTE (Guest @ May 1 2004, 12:59 AM)
Eh... completely missed the part about summons being defendable as well...
This still won't work with improved illthids (I think you used illthids as one of the examples...?) who just teleport over to you... btw, anyone noticed that these guys are actually LESS effective against a straight summon-buff-charge party then the usual illthids...?
Oh, and I'm just wondering... Userfriendly... why do you keep recommending level 16+ cheese tactics for chapter 2-3 encounters?
This isn'tat noticeable here, but what really messed me up is "Using multiple mage casting sunfire" at the sewers party... which can be massacred via straight bashing and abuse of their AI tactics...
oh yeah, improved illithid are nasty...for them, i like using fireseeds/arrows of detonation and g deathblow...
i actually don't really write recommendations...i actually in the cheese guide try to come up with ways of doing encounters, and using spell triggered sunfires is really a tactic i designed to attack dragons...I happen to mention it on the guide for that particular encounter, and i think i was simply stating an example of a tactic you can use for that particular encounter...
tactically, i would actually use summon insects for that encounter...and actually in version 2, soon to be released, i list an evil naughty new trick...cast summon insects on a friendly, like valygar, and have him rush to the attack...the rest of the party is well out of sight range, so can't be hurt...the summoned insects will jump from valygar to all hostiles..
yep, its illegal to give jaheira or cernd equipment in the arena, but its actually quite simple to do...simply give all jaheira's or cernd's equipment to a npc, and station them near the duel pit, and as long as the npc is close enough, in the inventory screen you can transfer equipment to jaheira once she's in the pit...
yes, of course I'm cheesy and use blatant abuses of the game engine, and use illegal tactics...that's because I am VERY naughty...
just installed new tactics mod component...will try a 10th level cernd with faldorn...with of course every single cheesy tactic i know of, or invented...
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Guest
Posted: May 1 2004, 05:59 AM
No - I'm not saying cheese is bad... I don't think I ever let that Druid fight be won in an honoruable manner...
What I'm wondering about, is using stuff like simularcum/sunfire - high level stuff, for encounters that you'll run into in chapter 2-3... Seriously - Greater deathblow for illthids? If you complete every quest before going to the underdark, how many characters can you have in your party for even one of them to gain the level to get ToB abilities?
Anyways, about improved illthids... maybe I'm missing something, or mine aren't working the way they're supposed to be - ok, so they illiminate the "close the doors and cloudkill/summons" cheese (actually, sending in summons isn't cheesy, and I wish they would deal with the summons before the teleport over to me...) but if your party approach is a cheese free "Summon help, buff up, rush the bastards" tactic, the improved illthids are actually less effective:
They go invisible, wait a while, use some minor damage dealing attack, and then consider using mind blasts or dominations... when the party and the summons are already upon them, and hacking them up.
While the regular illthids, would respond to a party rush with a whole bunch of psionic blasts... and unless your entire party had chaotic commands or an equivalent on, it was a toss up wether the encounter would end with a save or a load...
As for teleporting over to the party, all to often, that can be used to lure the illthids out one at a time via summons - the entire party is waiting for them to DD in, hacking up the Umber Hulk (free exp) and then the illthid...
In other words, with regular illthids, 70-80% of the rooms (I clear them a room at a time) would be cleared with no damage or lives lost, and 20-30% would get 2-3 NPC's killed and a reload.
With improved illthids, 95% of all encounters end with moderate HP damage and no dead NPC's...
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Userunfriendly
Posted: May 1 2004, 08:14 AM
that would depend on the number of people in the party...
a party of four, or even 3 can easily have greater deathblow before the underdark...and its not just the underdark that has improved illithid, you know...
there's a lot in watchers keep...and most people will have g deathblow by the time they get to watcher's keep..
the cheese guide has never been a tactics guide, it never does list the optimal tactics and strategy...lots of tactics guides are around...my guide is actually an exploration of what's possible with cheese, what works, a guide into expoiting the game engine...its up to the reader to try out their own tactics, to make and test their own cheese...
so my suggestions are really examples...one path or possible method of doing an encounter...
oh yeah...I cheat a lot...
i mostly play the game to check out quest mods, and relationship mods, and I've been quite active in beta testing... and when i test components of a mod, i test them using a fairly heavily hacked party...
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Guest
Posted: May 1 2004, 11:54 PM
QUOTE (weimer @ Apr 28 2004, 12:46 PM)
I am getting the impression from many sources that Imp Faldorn is, shall we say, a bit strong. However, I'd like to give this a bit more time -- almost invariably a tougher opponent is initially viewed as impossible before some common strategy comes to light.
Getting there...managed to survive her onslaught of spells (2X potions of magic resistance from Roger the fence) but after that I could not beat her without being handed equipment.
She also seems to throw something which looks like restoration but deals damage and bypasses my 100% MR...?
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kopywrite
Posted: May 1 2004, 11:56 PM
^^^^^
Was me
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Guest
Posted: May 2 2004, 01:01 AM
It's been a few days since I last dealt with her, so my memory is a bit hazy, but doesn't Improved Faldorn has a permanent, undispellable Regeneration effect? That, more than anything else, is probably what transforms her from "very difficult" to "stupid."
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kopywrite
Posted: May 2 2004, 01:52 AM
I don't recall the Revenge Spiders or even earlier versions of improved mindflayers being so unbeatable without cheese... or even the early immproved Adalon who'd retreat and heal several times (ahh, nostalgia!). Tough yes, but several reloads (cheese in itself?) would usually result in victory...
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maidros
Posted: May 3 2004, 11:03 AM
Okay finally did the battle without cheese. I was partially guided to the solution by Kopywrite's technique.
Spoiler:
This is what I did - I had my PC - kensai dualled to druid at 12 with grand mastery in quarterstaffs and I was at 12/13 level. I had my PC drink a potion of cloud giant strength, a potion of invulnerability, 2 potions of magic protection effectively raising the magic resistance to 100, a potion of magic shielding and had improved haste cast on him by Aerie. Then I had spells of chant, defensive harmony, and bless on the PC before allowing him to take on Faldorn. Grabbed the staff immediately and pounded her with everything my PC had. Even so I had to reload three times before, I hit the right strategy in the fight - as when to recast my PC's ironskins twice during the fight. Once I disrupted her heal spell, the rest was easy. Before she could recover to recast her ironskins, she was dead. This is a monstrously tough battle and I think there are a few things that are extremely unfair.
1) The dread wolves land right on the staff so you have to lead them away from the staff before you can get it.
suggested change - the staff should begin in the challenger's inventory - come on, Faldorn did not have to run for the staff even during the Bio version - she started with the staff in her hand.
2) She can be casting a spell and still attacks - even Demogorgon cannot do this. This is blatantly unfair. She should either cast a spell or attack - she should not be able to to both simultaneously.
3) Her number of attacks is far too high - 4 per round. A dual wielding fighter class PC at the end of ToB does not have that many attacks.
suggested change - reduce the number of attacks to 3 or 2.5
All in all, it is a very challenging fight - thanks to Wes Weimer for creating it.
Regards,
Maidros
This post has been edited by maidros on May 3 2004, 01:10 PM
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Guest
Posted: May 4 2004, 08:25 AM
Maidros duel-wielding haves 4, two handed guy has 3 attacks.
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maidros
Posted: May 4 2004, 08:37 AM
QUOTE (Guest @ May 4 2004, 04:25 PM)
Maidros duel-wielding haves 4, two handed guy has 3 attacks.
Only with some weapons. With some weapons, the number of attacks is 3.5 (try dual wielding the Answerer or some such weapon)
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Guest
Posted: May 4 2004, 09:52 PM
This all depends, in part, on whether or not you have a mod installed that includes the "True Grandmastery" fix. If you don't, a single-weapon warrior gets at most ~2.5 attacks per round. A dual-wielding warrior would thus get ~3.5 attacks per round. With the fix installed, the single-weapon warrior should get ~4.5 attacks per round while the two-weapon fighter gets ~5 attacks per round.
I say approximately ( "~" ) because my memory is a wee bit hazy. My point is that there's a difference based on what mods you have installed (as always).
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Userunfriendly
Posted: May 7 2004, 10:33 PM
QUOTE (Zaephir-Moth @ Apr 30 2004, 03:35 PM)
YES ! And another 'uber-cheese' method by our specialist !!
Thanks for your dedication to such noble goals, Userfriendly !!!
Cheers.
I just killed faldorn using CERND...
wot....
and boy, is wes naughty and tricky...
first, most of the shadowdruids are either above level 12 or deathwarded, so my hacked characters with g deathblow and fireseeds got laughed at...since my pc doesn't like being laughed at by annoying nature boys, out came celestial fury +5...laugh now, treehuggers...hee hee...
this is perfectly acceptable, since druids do get deathward spell, so it makes sense for them to have it...
faldorn is evil...evil...evil...
minsc guarded cernd and every time he hit faldorn with a bolt of biting, he took major damage...i guess the druid grove doesn't like cheating cheesers...
so i took a step back, and reconsidered my options...
he was just high enough level to get g werewolf paws, thank you ease of use mod, and summon g bear weres...
so i loaded up cernd with righteous magic, had vico cast champion strength on him, (his thaco is worse than imoen's... ) improve hasted him, and more iron skins...
jaheira stood by with gnasher club and the g werewolf paws...just outside circle, so she can pass important equiment to cernd once he's in the circle..
duel commenced...cernd summoned werebears, and changed to werewolf form..forget about the blinding, or the creeping doom, or any stuff faldorn throws at you...your first job is to summon g werebears, and turn into a werewolf...
several times cernd was hurt badly, even with the obscene regeneration of g werewolf..rod of resurrection cast on him instantly healed him...it took a while, but i wore faldorn down...in fact when she cast firestorm, it actually helped me, since vico kept using the rod on either bearweres, if they looked hurt, or on cernd...
after a while, cernd prevailed...so i am off to athkatla, to let him get his baby, and kick him out of party...his dialog is even more annoying than i remembered...
This post has been edited by Userunfriendly on May 7 2004, 10:35 PM