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]

Well I was never really frustrated, I just thought the insane regeneration rates I encountered could have been a bug or mod conflict.

As for Improved Pit Friend, I don't think it is too cheesy, PF is as strong as it normally should be under 2nd edition AD&D rules (which, I think you worship too!) plus they are as big threat as to my party. They keep sapwning remove magics which also dispel my party (and their pro from evil too!) and their tendency to blast 20d6 fireballs occasionaly hurt a lot too, though they are good fodders as enemy mages can not get rid of them easily. Don't worry, I am not abusing it, so far I used PF against halfling fighter in the PS and against a group of Greater Mummies in Asylum.

Byrnlaw was easy enough. Galwena and her pet wizard was not too tough. Mage was not immune to normal missiles so my improved hasted party made short work of him. Galwena was as if she was not improved, she did not have any HLAs, is it normal? Cowled wizard was nasty, he casted Absolute Immunity which made him immune to everything so I had to grit my teeth and deal with Coin Golems he summoned. In the end we bested him.

I had to avoid Stoneaxe dwarf for the moment though, I did not have the required spells (and NRD helps only sometimes), he will be there when I am back, right?

I am now in Asylum, and it is great! Kobold avatar and Amber Golems were nasty, Jaheira saved the day, thanks to her Harper Pin she was immune to resiudal effects of Amber golems, and Viccy had enough time to cast pro from lightninging on Minsc and my Inquisitor too. Rest was pure hack and slash, but fun!

Ancient Tome, I beat all fights in one single attempt and the treasure was great, I needed that ruby ray of reversal. Golems were no trouble, but I gasped when I saw Ghost Spiders and its crones. YET, this time, I managed to beat them all, my wild mage released three ABDHWs which cleared the lesser spiders, and my improved hasted fighters were able to deal with the freaking Ghost Spider!

UB also adds Bodhi to my game, each time I rest, Bodhi comes and attacks with her vampires, ofcourse, at this point they are not very threatening but fun regardless!

It is good to know that UB and Improved Asylum mods are compatible with your mod's modifications to asylum, Sikret!

The library was tough. Too tough than you intended, I think, there was a coin golem, cat o'nine lives and TWO liches! I think these two are added by Improved Asylum, but they use your scripts so they are extremely deadly! So I had to close the door and deal with the golem and cat. Neither was too tough, I am proud to say that we made reaal short work of them. My fighters have 19 STR, Jaheira has 18/00 thanks to Ogre Gauntlets, and when I improve haste them they do pretty impressive damage in melee! Only, Coin Golem needs crushing or piercing dmg. I had Ryns staff+4, Club+3 and Spear+3 so no problem. I could also cast another +3 weapon from a scroll of enchanted weapon if needed though. I must say Improved Haste is a VERY useful spell all around, I have all my sixth lvl slots filled with them, save one which has a PfMW for emergency.

I will have to deal with the two liches somehow as there is a most valuable Finger of Death scroll in there, the bane of all mages around. I already have a strategy, I have dealt with one lone lich a few minutes ago, so two can't be too tough, I hope.

I had to stop playing as my mum wanted to play some old NES games on my PC, heh heh heh, it is good though, I was playing BG2 non-stop for hours and my eyes kinda hurt. I can't find time to play IWD games any more Sikret, all I want is BG2! It is all your fault you know!

Consider me one of your faithful fans!

This post has been edited by Silverstar: Jul 20 2007, 03:50 PM