Thanks mate ! I can't wait to try this fight again with a Vagrant protagonist, the immunity to disease/poison would be so great in there, tankingwise.
To be honest I never ever had any real trouble with Twisted Rune. Maybe I always do it late assuming it's extremely hard, but good positioning helps so much in there, and you don't have perma spawns or perma debuffs from everywhere.
'cause indeed, I find vargouilles to be the main issue here. As kind of "random" spawns, it shouldn't take critical hits from 3+ fighters to take one down. Even without them, the fight would still be a true challenge, yet I can only love the fact you guys (critto ?) went so hard on the lore, it's amazing, to put these fearsome guys alltogether - Rozvankhee being the "mother" of vargouilles if I remember correctly.
This being said, I love the "timebomb" feeling the perma spawn brings to the fight, but maybe I'd remove Vargouilles regen ? or simply make them so that 1 fighter with 1 round of critical hit can take one down. 1 critical hit is precious (well, it was for me) in this fight, so if they still spawn the way they do, they'd take a lot of resources anyway. In a nutshell I agree with you on vargouilles, either change their ac so they don't make fighters use critical hits or lower (cancel) their regen so they can be done in several times. They could also be more numerous in each spawn to go for the "swarm" feeling, but much easier to kill overall (they'd still make the field very messy).

Here are some thoughts I had during my countless tries :

- Exarch "smite" effect makes the fight totaly relying on luck (well, the start of it, anyway), since being pushed into a wall locks you 4 times over 5 to a corner where vargouilles surround you. Since killing 2 of them would take more than a round, you pretty much know you're fucked if this happens. Well, I assumed so, reloading anytime it would happen as every second counts in this fight. If vargouilles were easier kills, then it could be ok. Or maybe remove the "smite" thing from exarch and make him a stronger fighter (as in more APR, why not more HP and so on). On the other hand, the smite thing really gives a nice feeling to the arena-like fighting pit.
The "cornered" thing wouldn't happen with a riskbreaker I guess. I should play them more !

- I'd remove the Marilith top of the stairs, for the same reason as above. Pinballed up to the exit portal, a fighter is locked behind it with a PFMWed Marilith > reload. I mean, the fight is hard enough as it is not to just try to get around that.

- Nuroga, Belcheresk and Kargoth, I didn't get to see much of them as they're burst right away 90% of the time. And if they're not > reload.

- Rozvanhkee... heh, she's fine as she is I guess. Her Vargouilles are the problem, not her, and I find her very well crafted in her own way anyway.

- Demogorgon's disease ticks shouldn't "tick" when they don't do damage if you're protected from poison imo. Prevents spell casting, but for no damage. How many reloads did I have on Korgie tanking who just got his hardiness cast canceled because of such a tick.
It's a matter of disease vs. poison I guess - maybe an item protecting from disease could be introduced ? (would be extremely nichy - or a potion, or a spell ?).



I'm not a big fan of the "Tactics" (or was it "Ascension ?) mod, seems like kindergarten compared to IA, but played it a bit back in the days, and they managed to have a nice feeling for Balthazar fight, giving him a lot of new abilities. He'd still be no match for an IA party, but as I remember, they emphasized a lot his mobility. So he could move like that halfling archer in Planar Sphere, or like the Sendaï's archer version.
Just some thoughts I had today, but it could be fun to have Balthazar abuse of the smite effect I complained so much about, making him virtually unreachable as he'll always kick you away. Given how strong a monk character can get in IA, I don't see how Balthazar as such wouldn't be able to deal tremendous amounts of damage. As in 10APR, hitting like a golem and resistant like one, the kind of "endure me if you dare" fight, just like Supreme Leader
Or he could like... divide himself at the start of the fight, so party has to face 2 versions of him that have to be dead for Balthazar himself to be killed, but every 10 rounds or so, they'd respawn. Kind of Il-khan ancestor, but respawning on a regular basis.

Very impressive run! Just one piece of info for you - Demogorgon fight has slightly fewer vargouilles and bombers (IIRC) if fought in SoA. Generally the party is lower level so can’t dispel as well as a TOB party but on the other hand you have Keldorn so...

Good luck with EDE!

Hm, I should have done it right before Irenicus then. If the spawn difference is substential, I could have had a much, much easier time there.



Thanks !Just did it ! Didn't like it, won't do it again probably, but finally it's over.


Gonna make a review of the different Bioware characters I used regarding the party composition (especially Mazzy/Keldorn), Korgan excepted since I made him a barbarian, and he was a plain - but useful - barbarian.

This post has been edited by Badgerlad: Apr 27 2021, 08:15 PM

Our biggest problem is the fact, that only Critto (and Bulian but only part-time) is skillful with modding and Druid stronghold is the main priority right now, so I can't promise anything, but let me share my thoughts on some of your ideas Badgerlad.

For this fight the original lore helped us greatly, as we needed to read about all those followers and just implement them. Critto did really fantastic job with the enemies' behavior which allowed for it to me so memorable. I really like the idea of Vargouilles being more numerous, but less durable and I'll gladly test the fight again if critto decides to apply such a change.


It's the fight against Demon Prince and his poewrful ancient followers, you can't expect the fight to go smoothly :> Good positioning is just another thing you have to take into acccount while dealing with him, I wouldn't change anything here.

Yup, disease works differently than poison. Are there any spells that heal it completely? (Haven't played in years, and I don't remember now...) If not, then maybe you're right, that something should be introduced to deal with this.


He already has some interesting skills, but they haven't been changed to fit IA really. Improving them should be the first step and then... we have whole lore about monks, their abilities and orders

Regarding Mazzy:
I think that's a bug and it should be fixed.


Another bug, as far as I remember, her sword should protect from ALL effects that could slow/bind her

I have a more general approach in mind and already talked with Critto about it. My idea is to make "single weapon" and "sword and shield" skills more interesting and since Mazzy uses shield, she should benefit from it. This approach however needs a lot of modifications (if I remember correctly all item or creature files have to be patched for that), so it will have low priority for sure.

Regarding Keldorn and paladins:

His armor will be a bit better in v7, but it won't make him tougher, so everything you wrote here about the balance aspect of this kit should still be true.

To me Cavalier is the most stereotypical Paladin, so he should have a shiny armor, a sword and a shield to protect. If we rebalance "sword and shield" then he should benefit from this by default. But maybe an interesting "holy shield" item could be introduced?

Regarding Cernd:

Let me just say this, as a small teaser for the upcoming v7:

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Apr 28 2021, 05:09 PM

@SparrowJacek : no point answering it all, seems like you got my points, I feel like I got yours. Especially on Exarch : Dragon Lord makes sense then !

Rebalancing sword & board and single weapon seems like a great idea ! I wish I could code a bit an help you guys out on that.
I'd love to go and check out some lore things that you guys intend to work on at some point. I'll do that with Balthazar already, can't say I saw much of his abilities this run !

And obviously, can't wait for that v7 release ! ! !

Cure Disease should do it, no?


I'll add it to the list.

I remember that too. I'll make a note to re-check it.


I don't remember the exact details of that discussion, but I think there's a limit to what could be sanely done to weapon proficiencies. I know that there are mods that include some pretty significant overhauls in order to achieve new mechanics, but they are usually very tricky in nature, and therefore would be hard to implement within the mod of IA's magnitude.

Wouldn't a buff on some shields add an alternative for now with more... simplicity ?
I don't feel like a little % of damage resistance on top tiers shields would be out of place.
Won't help with the single weapon proficiency of course.

Sure, it's easy enough to slap some extra stuff on a shield. Balance would still be a consideration to a certain degree.