Shame

[Dorian]

Twice (so far) I've been obliged to lower the difficulty from core rules to easy in order to move on.

Y'tossi, Nalmissra, The Huntress , Ameralis Zauviir, a Hive Mother and Xei Win Toh (watcher's keep level 5) and Draconis (chapter 9)

Enormously difficult battles in my opinion - especially the 1st one. I tried every possible strategy, every spell/buff/potion in my position.

I feel embarrassed and I don't even know why I am doing this post.. so here's a question fellow adventurers: which battle has been the most difficult for you?

[red255]

so....whats your party? the watchers keep fight. you are what level? if you have an epic thief just fill the area with epic spike traps and delayed blast fire ball and skull trap, have one character hit the lock leave a planetar to distract while he cheeses it behind a door.

let their spells run out and wear off. summon another planetar to check.

and then just kill them. wands of spell striking (breach) probably help to just keep spamming breach with your mage and true seeing should be active, think the planetar has it, but gem of true seeing, book of many spells, priest or mage spells. summon some animate deads, bait out the death spells, summon some mordenkain swords and just hike in there and end it.

standard buffing, Protection from energy, improved haste, chaotic commands, resist fear, potions.'


I mean sure its a tough fight, but did you not fight the imprisoned one?

I have alot more trouble with the fight on the third floor where you face a large group of demons after leaving an antimagic zone so all your buffs fell off.

generally solved by the solve all of time stop.

I fundamentally hate time stop. if you understand anything about arcane energies or physics, it just doesn't work. took several versions of DnD to get rid of it. its extremely powerful sure, but it should break the casters atoms to its base particles.

twice.

[AlexMBrennan]

Almost all fights can be cheesed so I don't think I ever had to lower the difficulty below core. Hardest fight? Either mage stronghold (the demons you have to kill to get back are extremely difficult for low level character straight out of Irencius' dungeon), or the Ravager (he is very tough and unlike Demogorgon/Amelyssan you can't use spike traps to instantly kill him)

I have alot more trouble with the fight on the third floor where you face a large group of demons after leaving an antimagic zone so all your buffs fell off.

Just use your pocket plane ability before the guy talks to you, reapply buffs, teleport back and you are done.

[Ommamar]

A lot of the fights are hard at certain levels then easy once you get higher level abilities. When a fight is hard a lot of the times a tactical retreat preferably into a trapped area is a very good strategy. If you can split mob parties up so you are dealing with few enemies or with a certain mechanic things become much easier. The smaller the party the easier this is to do of course. I can't really pin point the hardest fight. Usually if I am struggling with a fight I will just come back to it at a later level, there is enough side stuff that you don't have to struggle through.

[Abrakadabra]

Depends. You can be completly underleveled on top of not knowing how to deal with certain situations. The combination will make some fights appear brutal. Most ppl that write about their first couple runs miss out on vast amounts of xp by missing 75 thousand kazillion quests they could have done.

A planetar with 2 improved haste high level dmg dealers and a mage breaching away will put so much fear into the final seal watchers keep guardians that they will start curling up and sobbing. They will just start crying and sobbing in such a bad way that you gotta pause cause youre horrified by how ruthlessly you slaughter them.

An underleveled party with weak or ineffective party composition and/or bad gear and especially weak skills and spells will get dominated.

I find the final ascension fight pretty challenging when I dont use skullcarpetbombing or traps. Yagashuras army is fun too with ascension but not really hard. Apart from that a high level party with the best gear will just destroy the game. At least there is some opposition with scs though.

[Zotliatlicor]

Playing Legacy Of Bhaal. Every fight is a nightmare. Makes me rethink a lot of strategies. Stuff that work on Core -to Insane simply dont work at all. And some stuff that were never used in a Core game suddenly get appealing.

And there is new Cheese, with a new flavour....

[red255]

yes well, thats your criteria, he's playing on Core and able to lower it to easy.

I got to the bottom of watchers keep somewhere around 5-5.5 million XP.

had my thief set 6 traps (3 traps 3 epic spike traps)

dropped 5 animate deads. had korgan hit the switch and boots of haste jog up to the area in the NW with the 4 pillars. the skeletons died, Dropped a planetar on them, it died. huntress and two others wandered to the NW corner and said high, they got killed. Sent a Deva out to see whats up and then just the hive mother was left. who mazed the Deva. but I just walked over and beat the snot out of the hive mother and it wasn't difficult.

I'm aware 5.5 Million is ALOT of XP, its basically the last thing I'm doing in SoA. yes letting a high powered mage with contingencies and sequencers fire off its stuff is annoying. you gotta bait that stuff out with summons. Devas and planetars have great resistance and can take a beating (and are immune to death spell just instantly killing them. Mordenkains sword work.

its a group divide and conquer.

[Dorian]

Thank you all for your answers and ideas.

It seems that I may have been underleveled (23-24 in the end) or I had already missed significant features. For example I don't own spike traps or protection from magic.

Most of the fights were challenging enough and made me use a variety of strategies taking advantage of almost anything available. For example after killing Draconis, the encounter with his father was almost too easy (I had to check if I had set the difficulty back to core )

Anyway, as the title says, shame on me but to be honest the goal here is to have fun so... Now I am in the final fight.

Cheerz

[sick duck]

Sarevok at the end of BG1. I don't see how that fight can be won without cheese. He is a level 14 fighter for ♥♥♥♥ sake!

[Ceana of the Crags]

I played BGI when it first came out. It was challenging, but doable. Now, I cannot make it through the Naskel mines, if I make it there at all. I feel that this company that bought up the rights has tweaked it to hell. I'm just starting out in BG II again. Hope it's not ruined, too.

[Shodan's husband]

Originally posted by Dorian:

Thank you all for your answers and ideas.

It seems that I may have been underleveled (23-24 in the end) or I had already missed significant features. For example I don't own spike traps or protection from magic.

Most of the fights were challenging enough and made me use a variety of strategies taking advantage of almost anything available. For example after killing Draconis, the encounter with his father was almost too easy (I had to check if I had set the difficulty back to core )

Anyway, as the title says, shame on me but to be honest the goal here is to have fun so... Now I am in the final fight.

Cheerz

No shame necessary. Huge chunk of the fun is that there are tons of things you can explore to get stronger. Spell and skill combos, gear, different classes, melee heavy or caster heavy party. And yeah, you missed out on quite a bit xp. I know about most of the quests and have played it quite a few times already but I still consult sorcerer's place walkthrough sometimes.

Without a walkthrough and/or significant experience with the game, youll inevitably miss many quests. BG2 aint like many other rpgs. Its not necessarily very balanced. Some classes or class combos truely become gods of war while others are singificantly weaker or at least require vastly different playstyles.

A decently leveled and geared fighter mage can tank even the strongest enemies in the game, while other classes wouldnt be able to fill that role. If you play again some time just make sure you do most of the quests to get to decent levels. If you then have good gear and a good party composition youll have a much easier time. I too thought the watchers keep final seal guardians were tough and a few runs I needed several tries and had to reatreat back into a corner. Felt like an epic battle.

Later runs, when I did almost all available quests and had the best gear available I just destroyed those guardians in the first try. You dont have to be ashamed cause you actualyl played it in a more challenging way. With lower levels and prolly also not the greatest available gear some fights can seem like theyre unwinnable or at least totallly unfair.

Knowledge of the game is everything. In my first run I went to the beholder lair below the templar district without the shield of balduran and thought:

'omg, how do i beat so many of those godless floating monster heads'.

Checked online and found all you need is that shield to have a very easy time.

[red255]

I've never used a shield of balduran to defeat beholders. I just use animate dead.

[Zotliatlicor]

Beholders Mainly cast Inflict Wounds (Necromancy) and Paralyze/Hold (Enchantment)

If you manage to protect yourself from thoose two schools of Magic, you can beat them down by using Excessive Force.

Sending a Skeleton in and get their attention so they focus their attack on the dead is even easier than sending forth one companion with a shield. Once the Beholders focus on your Skeletons, a hasted group chops them up really fast.

The 5th lvl Minor Spell Turning, and the bigger ones, sends magic spells back at caster, so a mage with that one up can lure them out one by one, and the beholder will likely Paralyze itself. Then it is dead in seconds too, as the whole group can gangbang them with 100 % Auto-Hits with all weapons.

[sick duck]

Originally posted by red255:

I've never used a shield of balduran to defeat beholders. I just use animate dead.

I use animate dead for nearly everything. Can't recommend it enough.

[red255]

Originally posted by Zotliatlicor:

Beholders Mainly cast Inflict Wounds (Necromancy) and Paralyze/Hold (Enchantment)

If you manage to protect yourself from thoose two schools of Magic, you can beat them down by using Excessive Force.

Sending a Skeleton in and get their attention so they focus their attack on the dead is even easier than sending forth one companion with a shield. Once the Beholders focus on your Skeletons, a hasted group chops them up really fast.

The 5th lvl Minor Spell Turning, and the bigger ones, sends magic spells back at caster, so a mage with that one up can lure them out one by one, and the beholder will likely Paralyze itself. Then it is dead in seconds too, as the whole group can gangbang them with 100 % Auto-Hits with all weapons.

what protections I put up tended to get dispelled at low levels so Its not worth protecting yourself with spells if you aren't protected from the dispel not sure if the dispel is a regular spell or an effect of the beholder rays.

but Hexxat with a cloak of mirroring seemed pretty much completely immune to the beholders.

anyways I ran into beholders at a somewhat low level and have been terrorized since and as such deal with them remotely with animate dead. usually having a unit sneak around finding their locations and sending the dead in.

occasionally the beholders sneak around and hit my main team and my heart goes crazy, but my guys tend to win since I'm higher level and can manage. so I probably shouldnt be as terrified of beholders as I am, its just once long long ago I ran into beholders at a lower level and dealt with them with animate dead. and have never changed my tactics. the tactics of a fisherman.

[Ommamar]

I can relate to that red255 I remember in my second or third play through way back at release I tried fighting the first vampire that spawns in the random shadow thieves versus vampire guild war. This resulted in several people getting level drained which led me to the temple district as I didn't know about the scrolls you can buy and thought you had to visit a priest. So I ran onto the sewers quest and wandered down into the beholders at around level 8 so it was pretty disastrous even on the lowest level as I had no method or knowledge of how to nullify the paralyze.

Once I figured out the use skeleton trick it made it much easier to deal with them and things like Umberhulks.