The Ultimate Basher Crew (with a random journal on some of the fights in the game). Options

[pekkae]

First of all, again I would like to highlight that this mod is amazing. It's the best time that I've had playing my favourite game of all time. It's amazingly balanced, works very well offers such a great fun developing an amazing and super powerful party. I've spent more hours on this than I care to count.

I posted a few notes when I started regarding my original party & composition and the tremendous troubles I had finishing, well, pretty much anything in the game. I started with dual classed Fighter/Thief, Cleric/Mage, Fighter/Druid with Barbarian and a Necro (PC). I had to make numerous alterations as this crew just wasn't going to make it.

Based on that incomplete run & my experience with the mod I took another swing at IA, this time being much wiser so my crew turned out to be: Necromancer (PC), Minsc, Valygar, Cernd, Jan Jansen and a custom made Riskbearer. I finished SoA with this crew but were in tremendous troubles by WK level 4 (especially the "orc"-encounter & Githyaki supreme leader). While it looks like a very powerful group, it sort of runs out of juice with some of the encounters, because it lacks pure melee-power.

So I made a few changes, re-imagined my approach to party composition (& took a few freedom's) but this is what I ended up with.

Protagonist: Vagrant (Inquisitor is the preferred & more powerful choice or at least for my playing style)
Sorcerer (I used Imoen)
Berserker(9)/Mage (We use Jan Jansen tweaked)
Kensal
Swashbuckler(5)/Cleric (We use Aerie for this, tweaked)
Berserker(9)/Druid (We use Jaheira, tweaked a bit)

^ This party is uber powerful. It has 4 outstanding kick-assers for melee with the possibility to add a 5th one in Swashbuckler/Cleric. We can get amazing amount of attacks per round, amazing Thac0's, we are extremely competent in spell casting having almost 4 full spell casters (2 arcane / 2 divine). If you want to have a thief in your party, this is probably "as strong as you can get". (Well, you could always make a Swashbuckler(3) -> Fighter but I like my cre as it is & I want to try a cleric).

My über-crew doesn't have a single IA kit. (or wouldn't if I play with the most powerful combination)

A note. I have an item pack installed giving me a few powerful items. I also bent the rules so in my game the S/C (turned to vampire) can use the cloak of the daywalker & she also got a powerful upgrade on her "symbol of deity" she got at level 25 (I think). She also can use thief specific gear, even if it's marked for "single class thief's only". By end of spellhold, we don't have single such item though and her usefulness just grows from there on.

Her "deity's holy symbol" gives her +2AC & Saves, +20HP, -2 Casting time & +10% physical resistance (but no +1 strength, no magic resistance, no extra spells) It's a powerful item, comparable perhaps to the "master of disciplines". While the casting time might seem like overkill, it doesn't come with "aura clensing" so she is limited to only 1 spell / rd . What it does do is make her low level spells even semi useful in combat because now they can be cast and sometimes even finish. I think this tweak works very well and isn't OP and makes Cleric more usable.

Jan (or Berserker / Mage) got an incarnated elven chain giving him -1 casting time, AC1 & 20% fire resistance. He also got a ring with an additional spell from levels 1-9. The ring is sort of optional, as I haven't run into a case where I would run out of spells with him. So, even though it's very potent I might just turn that item slot over to a ring of protection +2 later on.

For balance, we omitted a number of very powerful items from the game that would have been super useful incl. Jan's enhanced armour (it's very, very effective for a F/M), Githzeral Blade, (Enchanced) Armour of Stamina, Royal Elemental Staff, Noble Staff of Earth, Noble Staff of Air, Golem Slayer (it would be ridiculously effective with a berserker/druid), Sword of the Rashemi (we use Minsc for Kensai) & Might of the Avariel (Aerie is the T/C), Lord of the Underworld, Cloak of Arcane Immortality & Scarlet Ioun Stone, The Truth +5 and a few others.

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 21 2021, 01:53 PM

[pekkae]

Ancient Dragon

(played this through a number of times with approximately the following. I can't finish the fight on insane, as my game crashes every time but this worked on hard)

We prebuff a little before entering dragon's lair (skins of course everyone who has them). PfF's (Protection from Fire) & AoF's mostly (Armour of Faith).

Note. If you don't have an unsilenceable char who can breach, the fight will be completely different.

B/M - PfF
S/C - PfF, Foreknowledge, Shield of Archons (or holy power & righteous magic)
F/D - PfF, AoF, Shield of Archons
Vagrant - PfF, AoF
Sorcerer -
Kensai - Pff & Potion of Defence (or barkskin but we forgot).

And off we go. We divide into three "lanes". South lane is Vagrant & S/C. Midlane is for F/D & Kensai. North lane is for B/M & Sorceror.

We meet Ancient Dragon. It points out how magnificent it is. We don't focus on the message as we have our eyes on the price. If it would have been nice to us, we could have just taken the warrior's skull but ... no.

Rd 0. Sorceror's CC launches (Foreknowledge, Spell Turning + PfMW) & she goes for IA. B/M's CC launches (Foreknowledge, Spell Turning + IH) and he goes for IA. Kensai hardiness & and attacks Dragon. F/D summons a smilodon on the southern corridor (it will be needed in a while) and attacks the dragon. S/C moves further south on the lane, then does her "party trick" & casts "champions strength" on Vagrant. Vagrant summons s "swanmay queen" on the southern lane outside of Dragon's view.

Dragon greater silences S/C which is fine, since she can't cast spells anyway. Vagrant, Kensai & F/D go for Dragon and Kensai & Vagrant are wing buffeted away from dragon. Sorceror 2xRRoR Dragon. Salamander Prince & Nishruu go after S/C.

Rd 1. S/C moves to Swanmay Queen away from Dragon's sight. F/D defensive harmony, then attack the dragon. Vagrant Hardiness and attack dragon. Sorceror RRoR & Breach Dragon, then IH (x3): Kensai, F/D & S/C then RvE. Swanmay Queen goes for Salamander Prince. Smilodon goes for Salamander Prince. B/M starts MS9.

Force of Vitality appears. We get regeneration. (if we don't, try again).Then summon planetar near S/C.

Dragon casts greater silence on B/M. B/M instantly stops the current spell (MS9) and activates spell trigger with PfME, TT + PfMW before being silenced. Then attacks Dragon.

Rd 2-5 (or so). S/C & summons first take out Salamander Prince then focus on Nishruu (Salamander Prince can be taken down by the Swanmay Queen alone). Planetar goes to heal S/C & Swanmay Queen. Everyone else is after dragon. Noble Efreeti is there attacking us as well, but it's presence is pretty irrelevant. Sorceror breaches (total of 8 or so, while at some point refreshing IA). F/D renews skins every now and then. Vagrant / Kensai renews hardiness. We coordinate "critical strike" from Kensai with Breach for maximum effect.

Round 5(?). Dragon is dead. Nishruu remains. everyone goes to pound Nishruu. Nishruu dies soon after.

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 22 2021, 04:39 AM