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]

Demogorgon (after Yaga-Shura, PC at 9 M Exp.) on "Core Rules")

We prebuff to the max in the corridor + summon a deva, an elemental prince, Joolon & a noble troll. Bless & chant for everyone. My illegal PC (fighter/necromancer) plays just like a regular necromancer on the fight for most of the time. Her fighting prowesses are almost useless (because we can't TT at any point).

Inquisitor is pretty useless in this fight. The dispel doesn't work on the most important enemy in Rozvankee, so essentially the mighty dispeller plays just like an underdeveloped regular fighter but oh boy is the Dwarven Defender great in this fight!

F(9)/Necromancer - SI:Abjuration, Mental agility, GOI, Stoneskin (+ CC Foreknowledge, ST + PfMW)
Dwarven Defender - Defensive Harmony, potion of Barbarian Essence
Inquisitor - Defensive Harmony, potion of Barbarian Essence
K(13)/T - Defensive Harmony, Protection from level drain, Tenser's Transformation (from Royal Elemental Staff), Gian Strength, Potion of Barbarian Essence
F(9)/D - Defensive Harmony, Acid Shield, PfME, Giant Strength
Sorceror: SI:Abjuration, Mental agility, Stoneskin, PfMW (+ CC Foreknowledge, ST + GOI), potion of dexterity

**

Snapshot of the party when the fight starts (before foreknowledge & improved haste & hardinesses)

F/N: AC -13, APR 3,5, Thaco -5 / -3, 200 HP,
Weapons: Githzeral Blade, Crom Fayer (off-hand)
Other equipment: Memory of the Apparent, Cloak of arcane immortality, Lord of the underworld, Rings +2, Circlet of Netheril, Legacy of the masters

DD: AC -21, APR 3,5, Thaco -17 / -14, 266 HP, +45% phys resistance (with BE, without hardiness)
Weapons: Axe of the Unyyielding +5, Runehammer +4 (off-hand)
Other equipment: Great Wymr armour, Dread Bond (+1 strength / gauntlets), Helm of Balduran, Clas of Bron's cloak, Ring of Gaxx, +2 Ring, +2 Cloak, Gordle of Lordly might
+ in the storage we have Water's Edge (if we need more APR's + shield of Harmony (if we need immunity to hold)

Inquisitor: AC -18, APR 5, Thaco -16 / -11, 232 HP, +40% phys resistance (with BE, without hardiness)
Weapons: Judgement Day, Belm (off-hand)
Other equipment: Enchanced pride of legion, gauntlets of blessed might, imp. dragon helm, talisman of greater protection, rings +2, cloak +2, belt of cloud giant strength

K(13)/Thief: AC -24, APR 10, Thaco -22, 445 HP, +70% phys resistance (with BE, without hardiness)
Weapons: Holy Avenger +5, Staff of Ram +6 (mostly)
Other equipment: Jansen Advneture Wear improved, Paws of the furious cat, Necro Ioun Stone, Grandmaster of flowers, Ring +2, anti-venom ring, Cloak of the daywalker, imp. boots of the ranger lord, sash of the black raven

Berserker9/Druid: AC -24 (effective AC -28 without any buffs), APR 3, Thaco -9, 196 HP.
Weapons: Pitcwife +5, Spectral Brand +4
Other equipment: Huskar Lord's armour, gauntlets of ext. specialisation., Circlet of woods, aegis of torment, Supreme Shelter, 2xRing of prot. +2, Cloak +2, girdle of bluntness

Neera AC -11 , APR 1, Thaco 5, 109 HP
Weapons: Royal elemental staff +5, Cleric's Staff
Other equipment: Greater robe of invocation, Bracers AC3, Indigo Ioun stone, Black Wolf Talisman, Ring +4, Ring of Acuity, Cloak +2, Belt of Inertial Barrier


'*'

Off we go.

Rd1. F/N's & Sorceror's Chain Contigencies trigger. They both start IA's. DD (near Rozvankee) goes for demogorgon. Inquisitor goes to Nulonga. K/T moves between archpriest & st. Kargoth. F/D immediately gets pounded with MM's & gets a remove magic from Belchersk so she moves a bit away from inquisitor. F/D takes the remove magic alone and then starts moving to Nulonga. K/T moves to Nulonga. Summons for for Kazuyl.

F/N's IA is finished. Ahh.

F/N 3xRRoR + Breach Nulonga, IH on Inquisitor & F/D, active Critical strike from Inquisitor & kai from K/T and once Breach hits we attack Nulonga (the F/D just a little bit away doesn't even make to Nulonga at this stage yet)

F/N then casts 3xRRoR + Breach Belcheresk, 3xRRoR + Breach Kargoth. Then Breach Nulonga (since she get PfMW up), 4xLR on Belcheresk & Greater malision so it hits Nulonga, Belcheresk + Kargoth with Breach on Nulonga.

DD Activates Hardiness.

Neera's IA is finished. & she immediately comet's Vargouilles, to throw them north of the area & activates ST with 3x LR on Kargoth.

F/N & Neera coordinate 33 Acid Arrows (all level 2 spell slots from both + 2xMS + 1xSS) + 23 Chromatic Orbs on Belcehersk. F/N casts 3 Breaches in somewhere in between on Nulonga to drop the PfMW's it is casting every now and then and a greater malision to Vargouilles.

Belcheresk "near death" so F/N tries PW:S (not sure if it works) and inquisitor whacks it to get the killing blow and then moves back to whack Nulonga.

Nulonga falls soon after to K/T.

F/N & Neera cordinate 18 Flame Arrows to Kargoth with the occasional Breach from F/N. K/T attack Kargoth.

Rd2 (or so).

Inquisitor activates hardiness. F/D activates Berserking & attacks Kargoth. F/N Breach Kargoth.

Neera follows with 2x secret word on Demogorgon & 2 x LR on Vargouille, F/N launchs ST:3LR on vargouille and a SS:3xPolymorph Other turning a vargouille into a chicken then 2 x flame arrow on Vargouille to finish it. F/N follows by casting the rest of RRoR's on demogorgon & 5xPO on the 2nd vargouille.

All of our summons are dead. F/N has now used all of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and almost all of the 4th and 7th level spells. Neera has used all of 1st, 2nd, 3rd level spells and some 4th & 5th level spells).

We change our memorised spells and take resist fear's, ray of enfeeblement's, protection from fire's, remove magic's and a few more LR's and on level 7 we take swords, st's, protection from elements and a few PW:S's and leave 4 (or so) RRoR's)

Kargoth Dies and we didn't get drained too badly. DD + Inquisitor + K/T & F/D all attack Kazuyl with very careful positioning. (DD taking the aggro of Demogorgon, Rozvanee & Kazuyl. With 85% phys. resistance + regeneration + gaxx + axe of unyielding DD is safe & we can always use shield of harmony to drop our ac to -24 and gain immunity to hold effects).

F/N casts RvE. We get regeneration. We take it. F/N starts MS8 near vargouilles, then anther MS:8 and then moves to cast PfE on Inquisitor & K/T.

Neera casts Wish. We lose 10.000GP. Another Wish, we get MR for everyone in the area, Another Wish: REST (Yay!),

Neera: IA
F/N: IA

Rd3

Kazuyl is pounded by our fighters. DD is tanking everything.

FN's IA is finished. Immediate Breach on Kazuyl, 4xLR & Greater Malision on Kazyul then 3xLR on remaining Vargouille. Then 4xPO on Kazyul (it doesn't work)l, 4xRay of Enfeeblement on Kazyul(it doesn't work either), then 3xPO on remaining vargouille and turn it into a chicken and finish with Flame Arrows.

Neera's IA is finished. She mostly summons trolls & swords from this point onwards with remove magic's when abyssal escorts appear.

Kazyul falls before the first bombers hit us.

Status: We are almost in full health, K/T has ability scores drained. DD is tanking Demogorgon. K/T is tanking Rozvanee. K/T's -24AC with 70% pays resistance isn't enough so she is taking some damage, so we have to heal her once in a while.

DD lures demogorgon to the end of the stairs @ west corridor and drinks a few potions of regeneration, K/T lures rozvanee to south part of the prison and quaffs a few potions of regeneration (or we could just drink a BE, but we are saving those still).

Rd4-90

DD tanks demogorgon. K/T tanks Rozzvankee.

Bombers appear every 5 rounds(?) or so. They do fire damage so keep up fire resistances. Vargouilles appear every 5 rounds (or so). Kill those as fast as possible or in a pinch, we drop a comet on Vargouylles to buy 1 round for fighters. Abyssal Escorts & Noble mariliths appear, every now and then (5 rounds?) but with F/D natural immunity, DD's Gaxx, Inquisitor's talisman of greater protection and K/T's anti venom ring we are safe equipment wise and don't even need to use scrolls / potions. Naturally whack them as soon as possible.

To survive we use potions of fire resistance, PfF's, Resist fire & cold's & resist elements + protection from energy - spells. Keep regeneration on from F/D or RvE. Neera summons, F/N dispel's & breaches the endless waves ofvargouilles and mariliths while occasionally making chickens. DD is swimming in Barbarian Essence, altogether I think we use 6-7 potions on this fight.

At some point the DD tanking Demogorgon is surrounded by Demogorgon + 15 Mariliths or so. Thanks to regen + 95% - 100% resistance to physical damage, he survives though.

Once we can hit Rozvankee, we RRoR & secret word then breach (I'm not sure if this works). Lure Rozvankee near the mirrors while blocking demogorgon in the stairs (Neera with PfMW. SI:Abjuration + GOI) so DD can participate in whacking Rozvankee. WE protect from fire when pounding Rozvankee, otherwise it's fireballs would be lethal.

Rozvankee dies.

Demogorgon falls soon after.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 8 2021, 09:06 AM

[pekkae]

A few notes and considerations on this fight.

On killing Vargouilles:

If you have a way of getting beyond a regular fighter ThacO (of -17 or so) this fight will be much easier, as Vargouilles are very hard to hit and they regenerate so fast you'll need concentrated effort from 2-3 proficient fighters to kill even 1 (and you have to kill 30 or so). I haven't figured out any other ways of getting uber ThacO than

1) having a Kensai (this is probably the best option),
2) Kensai/Thief who can use Royal Elemental Staff
3) Supercharging one of your fighters with Champions Strength (Cleric level 5 I think) and then Giant Strength (mage level 6) to get to 25 STR. If you have a cleric.

You can turn Vargouilles into chicken's with 3xLR, GM (+Doom) & 3xPolymorph other (that works 50% of the time). I tried confusions, contagions, emotions, chaos's, ray of enfeeblements but they don't really seem to stick. Electric damage works a little bit as well as magic damage, from MM's, ADhW's and Vampiric Touches but the damage heals so fast it probably isn't worth it.

Hold monster might work tough. The problem with it is that it's a 5th level spell and you'll need oodles of Breache's in the beginning and then LR's.

On mages:

Two competent arcane spellcasters are, well, very near a "must have" to deal with Nulango, Belcheresk & Kargoth. Minimize spellcasting times as having -5 & -3 instead of -4 and -2 makes an enormous difference in this fight.

You'll need probably at least 2 magical rest's though, even with two full arcane spellcasters, e.g. a necromancer & a sorcerer on board.

On equipment & wares used

- I ended up using 6-7 potions of Barbarian Essence. (The Inquisitor drank one as well, even though with Thac0 of -17 & JD I'm not sure if that was needed as he was mostly protected by JD almost 100% of the time. )
- a few scroll of protection from level drain (for demogorgon)
- a few scroll of protection from poison (for you arcane spellcasters for poison damage on them is terrible)
- 20 (or something like that) scrolls of Lower Resistances (or LR for short)
- a few scrolls of greater malision
- all of the polymorph other - scrolls you can find (I think I used 4 or so)
- a few potions of cloud giant strength (for F/D & K/T in the later stages)
- 10 potions of fire resistance
- 1 scroll of wish

Some equipment that's very, very useful:

- Runehammer on DD, so he's protected from level drain all the time (he was tanking Demogorgon)
- Boots of the North (very well spent 5 mithril tokens), for the 50% cold resistance for whoever is tanking Rozvankee.
- Rimed Club, for +50€ cold resistance (used in off-hand for a while)
- Ring of Gaxx, Talisman of greater protection & anti-venom ring; very, very useful as everything does poison damage
- Shield of Harmony, for tanking Demogorgon for the immunity to hold effects
- Cat Figurine, for ^ & instant heal if required to
- Methilda's Harp (you get it in the Illithid Compound @ Underdark, for it dispels "hold-like effects" so in a pinch you can use that to dispel "hold" in a pinch)
- Defender of Easthave for extra +10 phys. resistance


The Rewards

The blessing's of helm were a really nice. Especially Neera's.

Our dual classes blessing were a "meh", since getting exp for K/T is useless at this point. The warrior's blessing were really nice.

I would balance those out a bit, maybe something like:

1) +5% resistance to physical damage
2) 10% resistance to electricity, fire, acid & magic damage
3) +2 to Thac0, +2 to Hit
4) +15 HP's

or something like that. Even tough those would be powerful, they nowhere near getting another +0,5 APR (imho).


Overall

This fight is super nice. It forces the player use a variety of available powers & mechanisms on a huge scale. You'll need almost everything in your arsenal to win this from protection, to items, to coordinated attacks from mages & fighters.

Thanks

(Now I'll switch party composition to optimal and do this again !

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 8 2021, 09:02 AM