Insane regeneration and how to deal with it?, I love this mod! Options

[Silverstar]

Hello there. At last, my holiday has started and I have finished my BG1 TuTu game, so that I can enjoy the awesome IA mod! I know I am kinda late but I was so busy with my school and exams and all...

Anyway. I also have other difficulty enhancing mods so my game is one of the hardest around, I think. Old mods offer no real difficulty to me though as I know how to deal with their challenges. Indeed, I started doing old mods quests, like Thief stronghold and Trademeet, they were tough, but I was ready for them and finished them without too much trouble.

I love this mod. I really appreciate the awesome challenge factor IA introduces to my game. I have played previous version before, it was hard but very doable.

My party, finished BG1 TuTu with ToTSC so was slightly of higher lvl in the start.

Protagonist-Wild mage:So fun and powerful!
MP created Inquisitor-Very useful!
Jaheira-good, dependable lass.
Viccy-She is useful with MR and clerical spells.
Minsc-He is strong and versatile.
Yoshi-Thief at the moment, sets traps. Immy will replace him though.


This time it was very difficult. More difficult. Copper Coronet:Beastmaster was doable but needed luck and a few tries. Then I assaulted Slaver's HQs and got slaughtered...fast.

Those assasins kept spawning, and they were virtually immune to most spells, chaos, hold, command etc. did not work at all. So I chose brute force, protected all my party with pro from fire and spawned fireball after fireball...this took care of them. Cleric was not too tough, but Captain Heagan...Oh my God! He was very fast, (perma improved hasted?) and he had a very unpleasant regeneration rate. He was badly injured and a few rounds later he was uninjured. My hasted fighters could not kill him, and he wasted everybody singlehandedly. This really troubled me, I reloaded and I left the HQ for the moment.

Another regeneration problem. Druid Grove, I know Belm is no easy treasure anymore but I did not expect it to be 'that' though. Perhaps I lost my touch for challenge? In the previous version there was one improved spider and it was not very tough. But this...Ghost Spider...it has insane regeneration as well, and it has many allies. All are extremely fast, tough, deadly and difficult too kill!

With the help of all protection spells in the book (Free Action and Pro from MW helps a lot), and continous spawning of Sunfires and hasted melee action, I killed its allies but Ghost spider just does not die! It regenerates too fast, and kills with ease. What to do, what to do, slow may work but I don't have time to cast it, I only have one mage, my protagonist, who is a wild mage, and he is busy drawing attention from other spiders and blasting sunfires. (which by passes MR but does not help much.)

Sunfire really helped against Founder of Trademeet though, he was down with the help of steady crushing weapons and sunfire spells.

Pirates in the Docks. The mage was toned down significantly compared to previous version (he does not cast Dragon Breaths anymore) but his contingency with THREE Finger of Deaths on my mage PC was smart. Vİccy's Death Ward protects from it, but the Pirate Captain is too tough. He is rather...unnatural. Does he have buffs or is he just that good? I will go there soon again.

I returned to Slaver's HQ, and I focused on Captain Haegan. Blasted three fireballs via Spell Sequencers (courtesy of NRD, I am not that high lvl yet) and he was badly injured...This was my chance and I managed to kill it via a big assault. Rest was just little trouble. I did not know I could not rest or come back but I prevailed against annoying mages inside...Though Yoshi did not make it, ahh well I was able to raise him afterwards.

What do you do to deal with the insane regeneration of some enemies? Also, why are those assasins are immune to mental effects? And I noticed they did not give XP upon kill. Was this deliberate or a bug? Considering they keep spawning and I kill lots of them, I was a little pissed off that I got no XP at all. (some IWD2 memories come to surface..ahh.)

Any strategies against Ghost Spider? It is tooo tough! My party is lvl 12-13 so I guess I must lvl up a lot.

Also tackled Troll Mound and Sewers Party. Now I like a challenge, but I guess I must lvl up a little more before it can be a fair battle. They are tooo tough!

Actually, after dispelling the buffs of Sewer's party, Greater Malison+Emotion+Chaos trick does put a few of them out of the battle, but Gaius (he was the mage, right?) keeps spawning ABDHWs and I am not relaly prepared for that. It nukes all my party, killing my protagonist with one hit sometimes. Also, Yoshi's traps do absolutely nothing against them! Sikret is really the bane of the cheesy gameplay!

Heh, I managed to beat the Improved Rakshasa of Sewers though. Fun!

Which quests do you reccomend as for now? I flinch from going for Windspear Hills. Really. I think I will do Temple quests right now, Beholders are tricky but they are only buffed by my previous mods. And not having Shield of Balduran is a nice change.

Again I must congratulate Sikret for such a wonderful mod. I enjoy all the hardships and extremely difficult challenges offered by this mod, it truly encourages me to play BG2 non-stop! And another bonus, so far, my game ws running without ANY slow-downs, with top performance! Wow. This is really cool, as even my previous installations caused annoying slowdowns thanks to many mods installed. But now it is even faster than my BG1 TuTu game! I am delighted, ofcourse!

Thanks for the answers, ooh I hope I did not cause you much headache. As a newbie to this mod, please do forgive my naiveness and enthusiasim! I just love this mod too much!

This post has been edited by Silverstar: Jul 17 2007, 02:32 PM

[Silverstar]

@Shaitan

Thanks, I will.

@Shadan

Yes, hard but not impossible. Luckily, she had SI:Diviniation, not the ever dreadful Abjuration, so my Inqusitor was able to dispel her buffs fast. I sent my heavily protected Wild mage to tackle him with Rynn's Staff+4, My Inquisitor aimed the Dispel magic so that it only hit Marilith and my Wild mage, luckily I had SI:Abjuration. Then Jan and I lowered her MR, and casted a Greater Malison, she then got stucked in her own WEB! Then my Improved Hasted fighters, with 5 attacks/round, made short work of her. Astral shard was invulnerable but I somehow blasted it with a fireball. Oh well I will not question the miracle.

Sikret, I absolutely loved what you did with Planar Sphere! Very challenging and scary, but very doable with right tactics!

Those improved halflings are rather scary, but Viccy gated in a Pit Fiend (improved) which really slowed them down. We dealt with the archer and psionic guy fast, while mage, suprisingly, fell down to a GM+Emotion combo. PF single handedly destroyed the fighter guy, improved PFs are rather scary, but I hope you won't mind me playing with improved PFs, it is the way they are originaly created in PnP, with 6 attacks/round, slow, save vs poison or die, 20d6 fireballs, remove magic, imp. invisibility, and gating another when near death. Luckily Viccy had casted Pro from Evil 10'radius on us.

Lavok...How should I put this, my wld mage had to protect everyone with every spell he got, Protection from Magic, Electricity, etc. and had to bait his remove magic spells himself. Summons distracted him, while my guys used ranged weapons AND normal missiles. Heh, funny that such a powerful, lich-like mage is not immune to it! Gem golem there was not too annoying, Jaheira, with an AC of -13 and Iron Skins, is quite capable of tanking them forever.

Lavok had regeneration too, but I am grateful it was not insane. This is a good sign. No enemy in the Planar Sphere had that annoying insane regeneration rate which I hate sooo much!

Tolgerias...This guy was tough, but I tricked him to waste his spells on me , suprise, I had two SI memorised, and with al protection spells in my book neither ABDHW nor Comet could touch me, though three FoDs were scary, Viccy has put a Deathward on me. Big hint:Always put Death Ward on your mage guys in every major fight, it helps as they have sucky save vs death magic! And he was not immune to normal missiles neither. He fell down easily after a while. Nameless mage chick there was more of a nuisance, she summoned ogres and carrion crawlers...Wow! Scaaary!

I also beat down the defender of the robe, from your TheFour mod. Quite accidentaly and suprisingly easy. Gem/coin golems are not very scary any more when you can tank them and know how to hurt them. I guess I am improving. But I did not dare to don the robe, it sounded powerful but too scary. It is my protagonist afterall! I sure do miss Robe of Vecna, though.

The improved demon fight outside, came quite challenging, but doable in the first try with some micro-management. Switching wounded tanks and healing them was the key. Viccy stayed in the back, casting Heal and Greater Restoration when needed. (very useful!) She also easily dominated an army of ghasts which Mahurezis raised with her mighty Turn Undead. (luckily she did not turn my Imquisitor though!) I now have a nice item part named after some one I know too! Cool!

I think I am getting the hang of your mod. And Planar Sphere has never been so much fun before! My wild mage just hit lvl 14, and I bought a lot of nice items around (I killed so many gem golems I made a real fortune!), also constructed a ring of protection+2 and cloak of protection+2. I wish to go to Asylum now, is my lvl good enough? I also have Improved Asylum mod, which will really make things hard, I think. Just the way I like!

Your mod is still the greatest I have ever played! I love it soo much!

This post has been edited by Silverstar: Jul 19 2007, 08:43 AM

[Sikret]

Sikret, I absolutely loved what you did with Planar Sphere! Very challenging and scary, but very doable with right tactics!

I'm glad you liked it.

improved PFs are rather scary, but I hope you won't mind me playing with improved PFs, it is the way they are originaly created in PnP, with 6 attacks/round, slow, save vs poison or die, 20d6 fireballs, remove magic, imp. invisibility, and gating another when near death.

I recommend that you uninstall all such cheesy things/mods from your game if you want to experience the true challenge in all battles.

I also beat down the defender of the robe, from your TheFour mod. Quite accidentaly and suprisingly easy. Gem/coin golems are not very scary any more when you can tank them and know how to hurt them. I guess I am improving. But I did not dare to don the robe, it sounded powerful but too scary.

As I have said before, don't use any of the 4 items from my "The Four" mod. They have problems which need to be fixed in a future version. Just enjoy the battles but don't use the items.

(luckily she did not turn my Imquisitor though!)

Enemy evil clerics will do this for you in v4.3

Your mod is still the greatest I have ever played! I love it soo much!

Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm glad that your initial frustration is fading and you are enjoying the game.

Cheers