Well - my 2 cents is that a sorcerer is far superior arcane caster throughout almost all fights through chapters 1-6 when compared to a necro. Even Edwin is miles ahead compared to a necro in the early parts.

To me it makes sense that Necro gets superpowers late game, at least to balance it out.



Yup. Would like to see the necro stuffs usable by other specialist mages as well with the exception of the sorcerer who is extremely potent from early game onwards. Same for the mage stronghold quests, even though they might be a bit of a struggle with Illusionist.

I've been thinking about it for some time and I have a question to you guys. Since sorcerer is so great, what do you think about removing RVE from spells he can get? According to plot RVE is a spell created during Necro stronghold quest, this spell did not exist before that and it doesn't exist if this quest never happened, so to me it makes no sense that Sorcerers can get it, even though in a bit weaker version.

Well, RvE is certainly an asset for mid-game Sorcerers. Not so much though on higher difficulty levels, as one tends to rely more on other means of protecting the characters instead of regen. And it's quite unreliable.

But making RvE a necro only would swing the power scale quite far in Necro's favor, instead of making Necro less powerful it would gain (a lot) in relative power compared to other arcane spellcasters. And a late-game Necro is ahead of a sorcerer without even accounting for the Necro specific stuffs, so just spellcasting ability. Even though I'm personally more fond of the way sorcerer's cast spells (they have more efficient use of the spell slots), while Necro wins at least for me for the much better variance of available spells.

Lore wise they could perhaps be separate spells, where the lesser version is available to sorcerer's and specialist mages? This would make specialist mages more competitive

Or that's my humble opinion of the matter.

Hmm... isn't (lesser) RVE usable to lower casting speed by -5? That's probably the only broken thing, as both Cernd and arcane casters with -5 become unstoppable killing machines. The gap between -4 and -5 is HUGE.

Also which other options from RVE are so powerful, that they can shake the balance?

Not sure how others use it but I often use the (non-dispellable) RvE:Regen especially in cases where the crew gets rebuffed pre-fight. And sometimes mid-fight, but Sorcere's version is so unreliable I don't really like to do that.

Personally I think the -5 is fine. If protagonist isn't a Necro/Sorcerer, there's a high cost to it as in you can only reach it with Vecna, so no additional spell slots. Or with additional spell slots & robe of greater invocation & Neera with blessings.

Actually a non-pc sorcerer can even reach -6 in casting time with Vecna, AoP, Foreknowledge, RvE + blessings.

IMHO, as a solo arcane caster is supposed to be the most effective damage disher in the game. While I think at the moment this spot belongs to Cernd (fully maxed out version is so effective it's completely nuts). But I've never seen anybody else developing Cernd by maxing him out completely.

Is the tower of deception mod the same as the vanilla game or compatible with Improved Anvil to make it harder?

I think it's supposed to be a tad harder. In my game it was very straightforward though we did it kind of late, so we just might have been completely OP for it already.

The rewards are way too much, we just took the exp and left out the items.

Yeah just tried it, was pretty straight forward, and at the end you get a sword that gives you permanent alacrity, seems a bit ridiculous haha

Eternal melody used to do that too. And grandfather of the assassins permanent improved haste.

Hey!

I have Keldorn and Hexxat in the same party and apparently that's a "no-no". Keldorn keeps getting pissed off and leaves.

Is there a variable I can change to make sure they can co-exist?

I have tweaks anthology but the NPC happy patch didn't fix it.

Thanks again

Hi!

You could try to set OHH_keldorntalks to some high value, at least 7. In Keldorn's script I see that this variable is responsible for triggering some dialogues, when Hexxat is in party.

Btw are you making another run with Hexxat in your team?

Thanks! This seems to work, at least for the time being.

Yes. I created another party and now I'm in the middle of it all. Playing through the most fun fights & quests and "speeding" through the uninteresting ones. Speding about 5-10 hours on this per week.

I thought about posting a journal but I think I've already posted almost all of my (favorite) tactics in the previous ones.

I'm with the most OP characters in the game.

Berserker(13)/Mage
Much better than Nalia. Lacks a few spell slots but as +1APR almost through the whole game, much improved Thac0, berserking & can wish properly. So brings a lot of versatility with far superior combat ability + great results for most important spell in the game.

Keldorn
The Inquisitor version. The new armour is OP. Almost as deadly as a Kensai (when CS'ing away) but infinitely more versatile thanks to magic damage resistance, carsomyr + dw 2 long swords. Plus that insta-dispel to deal with Ancient Dragon etc.

Hexxat
With 6.5 cloak. The utmost superior character for golem milking & tanking. Should be uber, even without a Shaman in the party.

Neera
Early access to difficulty breaking spells. 5x IH in chapter 3. Swords in chapter 3. MS8 in spellhold. Wish in underdakr etc. Yes please.

Cernd
The most deadly caster in the game, we think. Shall have permanent -5 casting time when needed. And something like 15-18 spells per level. Much better lich killer than a Necro. Insane tanking ability & damage dealing through spells. Plus oodles of regen's & insanely useful HLA's (with insta-casting in late game).

Jaheira
Muah. Early game completely OP, late game completely OP.

That party composition really looks powerful! Though I think that Hexxat would be great even with the weaker version of her cloak (we nerfed it for a reason!). I am curious, why do you think that Keldorn's armor is so powerful? At the moment he doesn't have access to divine spells, so I am surprised you think so highly of him.

Also which fights do you find uninteresting and why?

Keldorn should do up-to 46pts of damage per hit with JD in main hand when dual wielding with new armour on. The only characters that beat that are Kensai and probably Riskbreaker/Swashie, because of the on-hit effects.

So Keldorn reaches Kensai like damage and when CS'ing Thac0 doesn't matter. Plus inquisitors dispelling is really useful through the game. And ofc. Inquisitor has nice immunities on top + access to Carsomyr & blessed bracers, so 9 APR without water's edge or gauntlets of extraordinary specialization. And the instant 50+% MR is superbly useful, especially when coupled with 40% magic damage resistance.

Hexxat is probably fine even with the weaker version of the cloak. But I really like it the way it is. Plus we don't even have any of the uber-stuffs around as in Necro's gear, MotA or Vagrant gear. That's the only thing we have.

The fights that are terrible to me are for example the lich fights in shadow temple and many of the mundane ones like the ambush at mekrath's lair. It's not really interesting to micromanage what is the order of my crew walking into a room especially when the enemies do not trigger when you'vre prebuffed. And if you don't, you'll have a terrible time. Or just waiting out a lich to run out of PFMW's (or I might not just have a proper tactic for these fights...) But I just mostly skip them because my regular tactic for beating i.e. liches in the early game isn't very interesting.

Well, I thought that since slashing is the worst damage type in IA, it won't be too powerful, but now I see that we really need to be cautious with these bonuses. I am scared of the ways of exploiting new Thief abilities, that players will find

Are the most powerful summon's stats somewhere?

- Swanmay
- Greater Swanmay
- Swanmay Queen
- Elite Trolls
- Greater Yuan-Ti's
- Greater Elemantals
- Smilodon
- Anaconda
- Clan Hunter

Thinking a little about tweaking a party to "maximum summons" - party.

There aren't, to my knowledge. You can look it up in the game resources using Near Infinity if you want, but there are some nuances (Clan Hunter creature file changes based on caster level, for example). If you need something in particular I can look it up for you, but if you want a detailed breakdown, I'd dive into NI.

In general, I'd say Clan Hunter and Swanmays (the stronger versions especially) are at the top of the food chain, followed by Smilidon / Anacondas, then Yuan-Ti and Troll, and finally the elementals (those aren't improved at all by IA, to my knowledge, at least not on the same level as the custom summons).

Also, not sure what you mean by max summons but I think all of these are subject to max summon limit (5 at the same time), but I might be mistaken.

Cheers

Hi,

Ok, thanks (yet again)!

I think I'm good with this. Just on e question.

By "max summons" I just meant a crew that has access to the most powerful summons in the game. And that has the ability to properly buff those summons & keep them alive.

So probably ...

Vagrant - for Swanmays
Jaheira - For Clan Spirit & Smilodon & buffing (Giant Strength, protection from elements/cold/fire)
Shaman - Smilodon & Greater Elementals + ultimate survivability for those
Sorcerer - Buffing (Improved Haste, Proitection from fire etc. and possibly Giant Strength as well?)

The only question I have is is it worth while to buff those summons with Strength/Strength of one/Giant Strength? How much are the strength scores of those?

I don't have NI and last time I tried I didn't get it to work.

Are you playing on Windows? If so, then probably the easiest and most pleasant way to check those creatures would be a... "Mod" or rather a plugin to BG2 called radar overlay, here's the link to it https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/84149...verlay-released
It reveals many hidden elements of the game though, so I'd advice against using it on enemies, and just familiarize yourself with the stats and resistances of your summons. Some aspects of them are not clear, for example IIRC Anacondas are immune to IH, though they only have 1APR so it doesn't matter.

Critto, many IA summons don't count into that in-game summon limit, which is a bit too powerful to me, as you can have a whole army of swanmays, if you wish for rest twice.

Btw it's a thing nobody wants and nobody thinks that is needed, but recently I had some nice (well, I consider them to be nice at least ) ideas for Beastmaster rebalance. He'd get some unique ways of buffing animal summons, synergize with them well and probably even more. But that's content for some later release.

I'm on Mac/MacOs. Though bg2 stuff would be immensily more easy if I were on a windows platform.

Beastmaster rebalancing sounds really nice. Now it's sort of pointless .

I don't really get how the summons limits work. In my game at the moment we can get 6 summons. If I reload with a Vagrant protagonist, we could get 8 or so. I guess it depends on the summons?

You can have at most 5 or 6 creatures that have their gender set to "summoned" or something like that. Other creatures just ignore that limit, however there's a bug in the game, which makes you unable to summon anything( not even Wish djinis) if you reach that summon limit. That's the general behavior, I don't think that reloading changes anything here.

By reloading Pekkae probably meant refreshing a character's spell book via magical rest, or so I understood. Does the lifetime of swanmays actually allows this? Or is it the feature of magical rest via wish that it does not advance the time (I can't seem to remember)?

Fundamentally, Jacek is correct about the current behaviour of summons, it's an engine level thing since the vanilla times.

Currently they last for 2 turns, which allows for summonning all 15 of them (assuming 2x Wish rest)


I've never used that, as I consider it to be a bit too powerful and random (maybe some 1 time use from an item or a skill, that has 100% chance for that, but can be used only 1 time?). But I am pretty sure it works instantly, otherwise it'd be extremely powerful against enemies, like removing their II + SI:Div, or SI:Abj.

No I actually just reloaded an old save game and had a look from there.

Magical Rest does't advance time, it just gives you immediate benefits of "rest", so all spells, abilities are regained as well as items are replenished.

Can also confirm that summons work as described here. If I'm not mistaken, Clan Spirit is also counted as a "non-summon" as are the Swanmays.

I figured out the APR's of the summons, does Smilodon only have 1,5APR? I think the leading summons APR-wise are Noble Spider, Clan Spirit followed by Greater Djinn & Swanmays. The rest have between 1-1,5APR. I think.

Could someone confirm the STR stats of Noble Spider & Swanmays? I'm trying to figure out currently how to buff them (it's quite hard to conclude based on attacks).

And did Swanmay have some sort of special attacking prowess? Lowers resistances? When/how does that happen? Do all of the Swanmays have it?

(Thanks again).

Yes, Clan Spirit, Swanmays, Noble Spider, Djinni and Smilodon don't count to summon limit right now, not sure if that's all creatures, or not.

Btw Pekkae, you might just join your summons using Ctrl+q command. It will work for stats, not sure about any other parameters, I vaguely remember that some stuff was counted wrongly, but it's been like 7 years, since I tested that.

If you need any more info, I'll provide it later today.

Cool, thanks! Smilodon has 3 APR.... Haha, how mistakes was I. (actually that's because it's hasted by default),

The only question I have is regarding the Swanmays special attacks. I think they had something but it's not in the stats.

Also, Smilodon seems to be immune to improved haste?

(Thanks!)

I checked only Swanmay Queens and if an enemy hits her, he must save vs breath at -3, or have AC and save vs breath increased by 1 for 60s. This is cumulative. Ofc such enemy also gets suffers some damage. Swanmay Queens are also protected from all (well most) stuff, that changes their resistances (protection from fire/cold/elec/elements/magic energy etc) and are immune to most "shield" like spells (fire shield, elec shield of Amber Golems etc).

Edit: Smilodon is hasted by default (normal Haste) and is immune to IH and Slow

Shield immunities are more of a necessity to prevent the infamous resonating shield bug that keeps popping up despite being fixed over and over again all these years

Thanks for replies! And the ctrl+q trick.

Now I can plan a little bit about how to optimize!

Regarding summons, I did some unofficial theory crafting on summons a couple of years ago, Pekkae, and my conclusion was that 2x vagrant 2x avenger 1x necromancer 1x sorcerer was probably the best balance of OP summons and ability to buff them.

To start: 2x swanmay queen, 4x big swanmay, 4x swanmay, 2x clanhunter, 2x smilodon, 1x noble spider, 1x djinni, 1x skeleton lord, (17x monsters + 6x party). Summon clan hunters first so they can buff others (regen/barkskin), djinni has haste. Necromance/sorcerer can buff summons as they can in with IH or others. Buffed swanmay queens and clan hunters are incredibly powerful. Total of 5x rounds for the vagrants and 2x rounds for the avengers.

Cast IA, buff IH and protection buffs on summons, wish: rest

Repeat summoning but include 4x MS:VI/MS:VII. cast wish: improved haste on everyone in area, RVE: regen, cast MS:VI/VII.

This gives a total of 4x swanmay queen, 8x big swanmay, 8x swanmay, 4x clan hunter, 4x smilodon, 2x spider/djinni/lord, 5x MS:VII, 6x party members. Total time is around 11 rounds.

I comprehensively agree on this. There's a few "but" 's though.

"But" #1

Shaman changes things a little bit. While it doesn't have the utmost powerful summons, on a number of occasions it will be the ultimate "stay-alive" character because of mending + entropy shield (Swords + shaman is deadly!) Even Soothing fog is superbly useful.

"But" #2

I'm not really looking to circumvent with Wish:Rest. We should be fine without it.

So I think it comes down to Necro, Jaheira, Vagrant (Valygar), Shaman and then we have 2 slots open. I think we will end up with Keldorn the undead hunter for clerical buffs + comprehensively OP armour + judgement day and then we have one slot left. If we want to maximise summons & their buffs ir might be that we take a custom B/M (or Nalia), for Neera/Sorceror has many more spells but loses out too much in flexibility. Or if we can manage with Jaheira's / Necro's buffs (Jaheira has Giant Strength, Protection from fire/cold/elements, regen etc.) and Necro obviously with IH's, elemental protections. If Necro + Jaheira is enough, we will then take Hexxat for maximum easyness with tanking.

So ...

Swanmay Queen (GS, regen)
Greater Swanmay (GS, regen)
Greater Swanmay (GS, regen)
Swanmay
Swanmay
Skeleton Lord
Greater Djinn
Noble Spider (GS, regen)
Clan Hunter (GS, regen)
Jaheira's Smilodon (GS, regen)
Shaman's Smilodon (GS, regen)
Sunnis
Greater Yuan-Ti x 5
+ our most OP "normal" combat prowess as in
Keldorn
Hexxat
Valygar the Vagrant
Jaheira
Shaman (Spirit while under Spirit Shift)

-> This should be quite deadly.


Then IH's from Wish. Aid + Chant from KelDorn, bless from Shaman/Vagrant or so. Regen's from Jaheira/Shaman/Clan Hunter. GS's under IA from Necro or from Jaheira.

This should be doable with Necro + Jaheira. It should leave us with almost a full round of whacking away with the crew.

If it's too inconvenient, we'll switch Hexxat with B/M (/Nalia).

Oh btw. Bulian, I read some of your jounals for inspiration. Good stuff there!

Is IA still only supported for EEv2.5? For the life of me I cannot figure out how to install an older version of the game, neither through GoG or Steam (I own the game on both platforms).

Yes, and it will be in the foreseeable future (I can only take a look at it properly after the fabled v7 version).

As for how to install, it's pretty easy. Right click on the title in your Steam library, hit Properties, then select a submenu called Betas, and in the selector "Beta Participation" choose BG2 EE 2.5. Make sure you uninstall all mods beforehand because Steam will download some stuff to readjust the game accordingly.

On GOG, in your game library find BG2:EE, and there will be a separate installer available for download in the Extras section.

I can make some screens for you, if you still can't find it.

Thanks, now I know! Although the GoG 2.5 version says it's for 32bit windows, hmm...

That's because 2.5 is the last version of the EE engine compatible with 32bit systems. They dropped the compatibility in 2.6. But the game will run fine on 64bit Windows. Unlike Apple with Macos, Microsoft has not dropped support for executables with 32bit architecture yet, to my knowledge.

short question. The noble efreet in the underdark,does he lower fire resistance or does his improved fire shield do that?
I cast stormshell with my shaman as well as protection from fire and cold, but the resistance only goes to 50%, which puzzled me slightly. I did not see any combat messages and therefore I was wondering whether the stormshell does it's thing correctly when cast on party members.

He should cast it himself, the spell applies -50 incrementally. What might have happened is the character got hit by lowered fire resistance than you cast Fire Res and Storm Shell. Then you'd be at positive 50 fire resistance.

Thank you, that is alright then. I did not spot any message in the combat log but I will pay more attention next time.

Does false dawn work properly against shades? I do not see an effect against them. I am now at a high enough level that they are meaningless

In v6.6_BETA, or standard v6.52? I think that it would be better to use v6.6_BETA thread to ask questions about it, as it's a separate entity right now.

sorry, you are right. in the cleric upgrade variant.I will put it there

can i still do the limak questline, even though I too kreaching ring along? (i guess it's just changing a script setting to indicate we've gotten the robe of the apperenti @ sphere?)

I am not sure I understood your question. Could you clarify?

Limak only appears after you have forged MotA robe with a 3-day delay. I'm sure you know that in the current version of Tweaks there is an option to allow forging of the robe with non-necromancer PCs.
So you would need to do some additional variable editing to get there beyond what you are describing.

Alternatively, you could just try to C:CreateCreature("XXXX") if you want to experience the encounter. I'd have to check the code to see if his 2x amber golem guardians spawn from his script or in the area script.

Yes, I know.

I wanted to face off with Limak as well, since I'm xp-maxing.

So I was just looking for the variable, which says that I have gotten the robe from the apperentices (so I got the robe of the apperenti), so I can forge Memory of the apprenti so I can face off with Kruin.

It's cheating a little bit, I know.

The variable is Iarobeforged, set it to 1 then go to the Docks to init the encounter (he won't come immediately, it takes a few days).

Kruin is not related to MotA.

Thank you!

Hey!

Is it possible to trigger the spider queen after one visit's WK level 2?

So we visit wk level 2, get scroll of memory boosting, whack pai'na and come back to WK to face the spider queen?

Yes. She's not blocking the progress to the second level.

Im in the middle of testing the all of the new stuff; I started buried ambitions but I'm at loss to where the hints might be? (very early game, just wacked faldron)

Any hints?