Nicoper, I'm quite impressed with your run, especially considering the frequency and use of consumables to get through difficult fights. I tend to hoard these and end up selling them all at the end of the game, which is probably a waste. I'm currently running a party that is similar to yours (necro/RB/RB/(RC multi)/Cernd/2H fighter) on core with reloads so I won't bother posting a journal here. My only challenges are to limit myself to not crafting any weapons until chapter 6 and make it through (almost) all fights without a death - so far just one on Samia's party that I didn't want to redo.

From what I recall though the balors needed 2x RRR + breach to bring down their defensees. Maybe this is an EE thing?

Does haste or IH make a difference on a mage? Seems like the APR would be 2 in both cases. Have you found golem slayer to be a good investment (165k GP)? I tend to buy rod of smiting but only upgrade the slayer for EDE if I can afford it due to other higher priority upgrades.

My only suggestion would be to avoid inflammatory comments - you were very passive aggressive in your last update post and elsewhere in the thread - as a potential means of avoiding comments like the one Krell posted.

Krell, not sure what constructive things you're looking to do here. You've made similar comments about your strategies in pretty much every journal in this forum, so if people are interested in your strategies they are available. You probably don't need to repeat yourself so much.

Thanks, and to me greatest fun is to try party on core with reloads (see my other journals, this will most likely be my last insane run and my last no or minimum reload play), so do bother posting journals if you want , many things (details or more fundamental things) to learn reading journals or reports from other players, and always fun (at least for me) to figure the huge variety of handling a party from one player to the other.
You try something I think I never did and will never be able to do: all fights without a death
Not crafting any weapons before chapter 6 (Asylum and Mr Kruin on the way) is also something out of my reach (without phosphorous chapter 3, I feel powerless )

Consumables (oils of resurgence, potions of defense/invulnerability, potions of giant strength,...) are really good ressources and may help a lot (depends also on party members)
Funny thing is that is something I discovered when V6 came out and tried Riskbreaker for the first time (asking for tips about nursing it), before that I was considering consumables to be either components for forging or to be sold.
Tip: use oils of resurgence with at least 2 or 3 running on a char, 1 is too little IMHO
Also should say that I don't use a lot of Healing potions, and ususally end game sell a lot of those (which counterbalance a bit loss of money)


Not an EE thing (I run EE currently)
Balors first have GOI and spell turning, so RRoR*2 or secret word*2 (or secret word + RRoR) are needed to bring down those 2, but since GOI does not repel breach, secret word (or RRoR) and breach removes stoneskin and shields (which are nasty). without the spell shield bug, after Balors trigger, I would use secret word (remove GOI), spell thrust (should remove spell shield without bug) and breach

Why secret word instead of RRoR? I prefer to memorize salamanders at level 7 for this fight and secret word is cast faster than RRoR (4 instead of 5 IIRC)
then when they trigger spell shield, I prefer to wait for pfmw to end


IH or haste is (IMO) more or less the same
Honestly, I do not always forge Golem slayer, it costs a lot as you said. It is just a good thing to have so that a mage can help against golems after spells are depleted.
A Necro (not mage, Necro can have good resist and high hp) with it does good damages on golems, even with only 2 APR.
Forging it depends also a lot of other forging you intend on party (for example when I have Valygar, I don't forge golem slayer)
I understand your view, items forging is up to the managing of party


I agree, sorry to have been aggressive, will try to avoid it from now on, my aim is just to share experience and comments (even critics), I should not let anger (even legitimate) take precedence here.

@nicoper



You might want to read more carefully. "no one of worth". And that's In My Opinion. You're free to look at this another way. Naturally, Necro PC can wear the Scarlet Stone. In fact no one than a Necro PC can forge it. It is however almost obsolete if a Necro uses it, and far more useful in the hands of an Assassin-Fighter with UAI.

Skeleton Lords (in the Shade Lord fight) will spawn only if you challenge him on lower levels of experience. If you do it at higher levels (not sure how exactly high) then you'll be battling Grandlords instead. Valid for many random and not-so-random enemy spawns afterwards.

Secret Word doesn't work against the Balor in the Swirfneblin Village (chapter 5). I think these six ones you face in the Demon Plane are identical to him. Moreover, you didn't actually check to see your Secret Words have any effect, unless you showered them with Magic Missiles and Acid Arrows, and I see no such thing in your report. Redo the fight, find out if you can cast low-level spells on the Balors effectively after Secret Word and/or Lower Resistances. I believe you have to use higher-level spells to remove their GoI and Spell Turning, namely Pierce Magic, RRR and Pierce Shield. However, I cannot check those Balors myself, and am not 100% sure that they are identical to the 5-th chapter Balor, that's why I didn't make it final statement, but wrote "probably" and "test it". Because otherwise someone else from the players may be actually fooled and think that Secret Word does work against the Balors, and I'm definitely not convinced it does.

I would also advise you to avoid calling someone's statements of the mod false before actually checking them yourself. Sikret did the same thing long ago, don't turn into him.

I don't see why killing neutral NPCs for xp is cheat. It is there and is allowed by the game. If you don't want, then don't do it, just don't complain afterwards about your low party levels and don't call others cheaters because they plan the xp-gain of their party more carefully than you do. Think of BG2 no-reload as a war. You may win 30 battles, but even the loss of 1 means that you lose the war. In war, most important thing is planning ahead. Second comes certain tactics against powerful enemies. For example, if you don't plan for the EDE from this point on by collecting all PFME scrolls you can find, and you don't raise at least one mage to level 36 (better both), you won't be able to beat the Prince in a no-reload strategy (i.e. you will have to rely on things like Wish-Rest or RVE-Rest). Moreover, it's not wise to do a no-reload with a 6-person party namely because of the xp and gold issues. But still, if you keep just PC and a warrior alive most of the time, you can get PC to very high levels very fast.

Grandlords are puny at that stage of the game, especially for a player who has multiple runs of the mod. For a beginner, they are fearsome. That's the difference. For a Necro PC with RVE and a powerful party they are puny indeed.

I never wrote that your party is bad. Having 2 RB + a Necro PC is by itself OP. Don't twist my words. I wrote several times that your planning ahead is bad and some strategies are questionable, which actually will fail you in the long run. Only one party member looks obsolete, but at that point of the game you have so much invested in him that even the Barbarian cannot be dropped for the good of the party - not anymore.

It's not the Golem Slayer on a mage that's not good enough (although polymporhed is far better). It's the fact that you waste Improved Haste on a mage. That character will have 2 APR even if you only use Oil of Speed, or give him Boots of Speed, or cast plain Haste. Why IH?

Finally, if someone misunderstood, we're talking about the successful completion of the challenge here, not showing off skills or anything. I respect most of your tactics, they show real thinking on your feet and often even some planning in advance. However, your overall planning of this challenge is quite poor. The grand picture of the challenge itself, so to speak, eludes you.

@ critto - thing is, that you have your own term of the word "cheesy tactics" and "exploits". In a paper RPG game, for example, when exiting Underdark, a party can easily get in the crossfire between elves and drow and slaughter everyone. That won't be chase for xp, right? It would be pure defense. Same thing with Shadow Thieves. What help did PC actually get from those? Almost nonexistent. So isn't killing them all in chapter 6 a suitable vengeance. I mean, they are thieves. Everyone kills numerous Cowled Wizards, but no one kills the Shadow Thieves. Why, are they better? That's explanation from a RPG perspective why it's completely possible, because you guys here are so fond of explaining how a DM won't allow you to do this or that in a paper RPG game. Well, guess what. This is a computer RPG, so it has NOTHING to do with paper. Not to mention that originally Dungeon Masters are human and have their own ability to twist the rules their own paper RPG games they way they like to, allowing or disallowing stuff players do at their whim. In IA enemies apply tons of cheese against you. One mild example is for instance how enemies won't cast fire-damaging spells on a character protected from fire. OK, I buffed ProFire 1 mile away from them, they cannot actually know it until they try it out with the first Fireball, right?
Thing is, many not-so-imaginative IA players tend to say things like this or that are impossible without even trying them, and later when someone shows that it's actually possible, the first reaction of the IA players I've seen so far is "no, that's cheese, that's cheating". Learn to live with it. It's allowed or not allowed by the game engine - there is the actual boundary of cheating. All other opinions are non-objective since they're made by humans - the IA players. Even if the majority decides that something is "cheese" or "cheating", that's still not an argument.

@ bulian - Well, since I am actually the only one here who has a successful no-reload run, I personally think that my opinion should be one of the most relevant. I am not "bending anyone's playstyle" as someone commended, I simply give ideas how certain things (gold an xp issues) can be fixed without using infinite xp/gold exploits naturally, and also ideas of certain tactics. If you don't like them, then don't use them, just don't be surprised when this particular no-reload attempt turns into the multiple reload IA-game - which it already did. And this is just the beginning...

@Krell: Get lost

I also forgot to add two things:

First, it would be nice for the Pierce Shield scrolls quick-slot castable (at present, they aren't). All other scrolls are, so these should be no exception IMO.

Second, forging the Golem Slayer so early in the game is not a very wise investment for a no-reload game. There are other, much more important items which you may want to get prior to that. Dragon Lord halberd and the Golem Slayer are probably the last items which should be forged in a no-reload game (prior to EDE), and only if you have money for both - otheriwse the Golem Slayer is way too underpowered for its money value (approximately 170 000 gp lost).

@admin: Since krell does not have the decency to remain out of this thread after request to do so, is it possible to ban him from it? (or at least remove his future posts from it?)

@nicoper - Well, unlike you, I didn't slander or insult you in any way, nor did I give any misleading info, so I don't see a reason why I should be banned from the discussion here. Still, since you started this topic and this run, I respect your wish and will not write even a single message in this topic from now on.

Edit: My promise stands as long as I don't see any insults coming my way.

Edit: Sorry for that, but hopefully it can be later transferred or deleted from the discussion. A response to critto anyways:



It is the IA game limitations that force me (and many other players) to pick a LG protagonist. Otherwise, many players would go for either a Neutral or Evil alignment, in which case even rooting out an entire city won't make it such a big deal in the eyes of a honest paper DM (if thing like an absolutely objective human GM exists at all, and it doesn't). The shadow thieves have enormous treasure. A neutral or evil PC would be very tempted to kill them either in chapter 3 or 6, but will also not be stopped by the idea of killing the vampires as well, and this also would be a legal papergame action. As for powergaming, that's what mainly IA is all about. BTW, attacking for example the Shadow Thieves in the original game WAS punished by the game engine, by spawning Arkanis Gath with the Killsword. There was your limitation, well until Sikret decided to remove it.

Edit: Just for the fun of the discussion, no sane human Dungeon Master would allow a Lawful Good Necromancer in his game.



As I said, this was a mild example. Don't even wanna start digging into more excessive IA cheese&cheat stuff like the Lower Elemental Resistance issues for example, or immune-to-everything enemies before the actual fight starts, and many more. If you look at that particular example above, it's basically cheese vs cheese - monsters cheesily act the same way as a player who has experience with the mod would also do. I get it, cannot be done in a fair manner, but when your own IA mod monsters use cheese (a lot), then don't expect me to not do the same in return, especially if we're talking about a no-reload challenge here. Everyone with the so-called fair tactics - you have the ultimate cheat spell "load game" to cast as many times as you like. Enjoy!



This is a game. A PC game. NOT the real life or anything so yeah, it's a completely normal conclusion. The end indeed justifies the means. However, arguing about who's a fair player and who's cheater is, once again, subjective if left to the opinion of human players. We may limit this to "things I'd do" and "things I won't do". I think this is much more reasonable.

Our explanation for cheese is completely valid and has a meaning of a player doing something that is without logic or reason (except for pure profit in terms of power gaming) and is not prevented by the game due to bugs, or engine and scripting limitations. If it were a paper game, a sane DM would've reacted to a lawful good, reputation 20 player who suddenly commits genocide against city's population. The game has no means to do that. Therefore it is an exploit and is seen such as that by any sane player. This what Sikret meant when he appealed to respect game's limitations a play honestly and honourably. You abuse those limitations and call this fair. It is not. The same with Shadow Thieves. If you join Bodhi, you're evil and murder them all. It is justified. When they are your allies and provide you with a ship to Brynnlaw, murdering them without repercussions is a senseless act that is not handled by the game (because the devs didn't have the time to account for all possibilities) or mod (because Sikret had even less time to do so).


In your precious no-reload, plan ahead strategies you plan for each and every resistance, immunity and such. Yeah, the enemies in the game might do something that a player cannot and you may even call this cheese but it is meant to prevent the most possible cheesy behavior of a real human player, which is possessing a brain. Why do you play each fight buffing your characters to death and never testing out a useless fireball on an enemy to make sure he's not immune to it? I mean, the protagonist can't possibly know how those bandits are protected. This is why AI acts that way. To have at least a standing chance against a player who ultimately will win. Personally, I'd love to implement a behavior where an enemy acts intelligently, tries something out and never tries again, but this is impossible to script, which is an engine limitation once again. I've already explained the point about enemies putting on all their buffs in one second and it is made so, and why it will never be made another way. DavidW hadn't made it that way in SCS, he merely presented the player with an option to prevent the instant buffing of enemies for those players who want an easier experience. And David's mod is superior to IA in terms of pure engineering (i.e., how mod is implemented), in my personal opinion.


Your approach is comes dangerously close to being Machiavellian. The end justifies the means.

PS: Nico, sorry to hijack your thread. I won't comment further on anything that is not related to your journal. If you wish, I can delete all the off-topic from him.

You're welcome (and can comment further on whatever you want in this thread as others are welcomed to do). Let all the posts remain as they are since Krell commited not to post anymore here.

thks

Edit: should Krell post again, please delete his posts (let him make his points somewhere else)

Accepted.

Krell, if you desire to argue on the issue some more feel free to create a separate thread. Or better yet, make a promised no-reload thread for a full-game party which you've intended to do and we'll discuss your tactics

A good idea, I will.

Wow, such a passionate thread! Sorry to stir the pot so much.

I think Kruin at start of CH 6 would probably the hardest part, but IIRC there is an entrance to the sewers in the temple district one can reach without doing that fight (thus getting the coveted warhammer +3). Piercing +3 weapons are in short supply - only from the thieves guild and via wizard spell, but I dont think thats too big of a deal since there aren't too many coin golems early.



Agree completely with everything you said!

Have a good weekend all!

What do you mean by warhammer +3? There's only Ashideena which is a +2 weapon. The only Warhammer +3 you get is the one you forge from WH +2 found at Torgal's hideout.

The one that is an ingredient for Crom Faeyr located in Alhoon's lair.

Hammer of thunderbolts. Is that a static item? I think I never found it elsewhere.

Perhaps, we should add it to the randomizer as well

LOL! Its pretty well guarded for being a measly +3 weapon. As a reminder you can't forge CF in CH 3 since you need the Str 21 belt which is in the Underdark (its static but I won't tell you where since you might move it too!) Just please keep some +4 weapons available in early Ch 6.

I know where the belt is, but I won't move it. It's a good reward for one of the toughest battles in the Underdark the player has to fight

I haven't made any changes to those. In fact, I even made more +4 weapons available if you read the progress report thread (which IIRC you did)


Well, it's not just a measly +3 weapon, it is also an ingredient for one of the most powerful (and in the same time cheapest) weapons in the game. I've always thought btw that items such as Crom should cost more. For example, player needs to invest a lot in order to forge Poseidon halberd or something similarly powerful. Being able to forge the +5 weapon with an immense strength bonus for 15k and nothing much else seems kind of strange.

That's not because crom is cheap but because ia made the price levels for forging out of whack. I always thought it an oversight that the vanilla items are still cheap to forge compared to the 100-250k gear, but having nearly everything cost > 50k is hardly fair to the player either... so maybe it's fine that the vanilla stuff is still cheap.

Or actually, it is easier to drop all ia prices tenfold and let creatures drop less gold and expensive gems.

It is actually more difficult at this point. The game is rebalanced heavily towards higher prices and more gold overall. Changing that is a humongous amount of work, coming close to revamping the whole mod. The easy way is to increase the price for the items and introduce monetary rewards that compensate for the costs.

This is off topic to the original thread, certainly, but I really like the idea of static gold rewards. I agree it would require a massive redesign. Its too bad there isn't an easy way to set the selling price of all items to 0. Then you could just have all gold come either from looted gold or from quest rewards. In IA 6.0, what is the intended amount of gold for a player to have? Its fairly easy to calculate what the gold requirements for a party of 6 should be. I'd estimate it's possible to gather 3-4 million. If you divide that number by 500, thats roughly how many items must be collected, sorted, and sold (6000-8000) - quite a bit of clicking.

I agree that CF is quite powerful as is its big brother Thor. Thor is also quite cheap for its power compared to The Truth, Hesperus, Grandfather of Assassins, Treefolk Arm, and many more. Not saying that is a problem just an observation, though I think that nearly all parties are designed to use Thor (and also phosphorous). If you think CF is too good I'd rather you just nerf it slightly, maybe set the str to 23 and enchantment to +4 or something. Wave halberd is also quite good and cheap, but I am able to and typically convert it to PW pretty much immediately.

But topic is interesting nonetheless

Please, don't touch Crom!

This is actually easy. There isn't much problem in patch the whole set of in-game items, giving each one a zero price at the specific offset according to the file format. Literally done in three or four code lines in the weidu setup script.


This part is hard, however. This requires a manual approach, looking at each creature and giving it a specific amount of gold. Well, it could be automated to a certain point. Manually create a map of quests and enemies involved, devise a formula for giving a generated amount of gold to each enemy according to its status, quest difficulty, etc. Then create a code that patches the creatures, assigning them the gold (meanwhile handling the issues such as figuring out which item slot is available for the gold to be put at, and so on). It's not impossible, but it's a huge work. And then there is the issue of making a couple of runs with various protagonists to make sure it is balanced.

I don't have a specific number, although I actually calculated one at a certain point back when we were working on IAv6. As for the clicking, well, this was discussed already, looting stuff is part of the game. People who are hardcore, for lack of a better word, IA veterans are tired of it, but for many others finding loot, identifying it, etc. is part of the experience. The best I could recommend is using "Quick loot" option of EE I just yesterday read the patch 1.3 release notes and found out they added a button that on the main game screen displays all loot, stacked and sorted for a player to pick up. You may want to look into that.


Thor is actually quite balanced due to the rarity of ingredients. IIRC, you realistically get that much amber golems only by WK lvl4 which is late SoA / early ToB for most players. Hesperus is kinda useless at the point where you forge it. If we ever get to IAv8 (where the paladins are the target class), it'll be re-worked, I already have a point for it in the todo list. Same for GoF, even for swashbuckler who is now a pretty playable character, it's a useless weapon. Treefolk might get a review in IAv7 along with the druid stronghold.

That is an interesting idea, actually.


For now, I won't, but bulian's idea intrigues me

Well, it is mostly ia enemies that drop oodles of gold or gems. Those are all you need to tweak . As for looting, that is perfectly fine as it is now.

For weapons I mostly dislike that everything good is for single class warriors or mages and there is so much choice for single class warrior or mage... so single class other is cut off from using a nice weapon for long time until you can craft that one class specific item from ia, and then the weapon is often not as flashy as the single warrior ones are.

Anyway. I'll stop going off topic now

Just digging through ancient ideas about loot, mainly about enemies that spawn other creature (elemental golems,....)
How difficult would it be to make a loot on creature, an elemental for example, according to the rule "the faster the kill the bigger the loot"
For example an elemental; if killed without having time to spawn any golem would bring 10 Kgp, after one spawn 8Kgp,...and no reward for lesser golems

It's not difficult, just time consuming.

Updted journal, put a tag july 7th update

Mid ToB (finished WK, Yaga to come)
One more reload...

Good reading

Very nice! I can't wait to read about Yaga and Sendai. Sendai may not be too bad either if you can effectively tank the golems but I bet they will hit hard. I think Abazigal will be quite easy with your mage heavy party. How many barb essences do you think you'll have for EDE?

So in EE it soudns like any of the new kits that imprisoned might get multiple class bonuses - vagrant (elemental resist), protector (AC), and auramaster (spell/lvl or casting speed) come to mind.

Two questions on weapons:
What do you think about DoTC? I'm sort of mixed on it myself.
Staff of Ram - good but I think the knock back is super annoying (OK that's not a question.)
Also interesting how we have different weapon strategies - you went flail/BS and WH/LS. In my core run I'm going flail/LS and WH/BS - intent is for end game to have Angurvadel (str 22)/girdle of lordly might/FoA+5 and Thor/Foebane with the R/C wielding Phosphorous+shield (and 2H wielder with str belt 23).

You implied that the Brennen fight is a little easy. I agree - he needs some more help!

I will have to look into this!



Good to know this is simple to do. I think you're over thinking implementation here. I would just come up with a target number for gold, go down the list of improved encounters and assign gold such that total gold comes out to the target, and then give the bosses (e.g. Torgal/Shade Lord/Supreme Leader/Odamoron/etc.) for those fights that amount of gold. The amount gained now outside of that by monsters - including coin golems - is pretty paltry, probably less than 50k over the whole game. So I wouldn't even worry about that. So manual editing of maybe 50-100 files - could maybe be done in a couple hours. If I end up with some free time I may try to figure out how to do this, particularly if the weidu script is easy. Currently though I have no clue how to do anything mod related and it's unlikely I'll have too much free time in the near future.



By that logic kindly reduce the price of Dragon Lord halberd

Unfortunately, yes. It is also true for any other kind of bonus (resistances for Barb, AC bonuses for Swash and so on). I've introduced patches that prevent these bonuses upon joining of certain NPCs (Valygar, Rasaad and so on). But I have no realistic way to fix this for all kits. It would add a lot of clutter code to baldur.bcs script and might lead to further slowdowns. The best solution is to wait for a patch from Beamdog and be your own policeman until then.


Your approach is simple and straight-forward, yes. The amount of manual labor, however, is torturous. I've had to create 24 different copies of creatures for the new Avenger ability in 6.2 and it took me more than a week to accomplish, because it soaks up a lot of free time (and I don't have a lot of it). Do not underestimate how dull and monotonous it is Another downside of this approach is that it is static and therefore predictable. My solution is more flexible: it introduces a random component that improves replayability factor and it also, with proper implementation, will take into an account all the possible future changes. Otherwise you have to keep the gold balance in mind each time you add something new to the mod. This is a point of failure due to a human factor and is bound to fail in the future. It is impossible to keep all such situations in one's mind constantly, that is why complex, constantly evolving systems are peppered with ineffective solutions and workarounds. IA is already a complex mod and, due to limitations of the scripting language and file formats, already has a lot of unnecessary complexity (lots of copy-pasted logic in AI, because it isn't possible to re-use code effectively and so on). I wouldn't hurry to introduce even more.


Why? It is designed to be a high-end and expensive ingredient.

Thks for Nice words
Yaga and sendaï Will Be Tough, oasis too, abazigail is dead before fight
Expect at least 19 barb for EDE so all fighters 100% resist
Dotc is not what it once was, but usefull, best bastard sword by far is foebane+5
Ram is great damage dealer I like it a lot often take 2 2h wielders to have one with dragon lord other with ram for EDE

Edit: Beren fight could be improved a bit I agree, a greater elemental instead of plain elemental and one more EFG could fit

This is a great idea. I don't think it's that time consuming either, though it would be annoying because IA uses a bunch of "Elemental Golems", like probably 8 or so, that you'd have to paste the script code into each of their scripts. And of course the reason there 8 of them is because some don't give loot (the one that spawns from Wish Rest, I'd bet), some have other distinct scripting, etc. That's the only tough part. But for unique monsters like the dragons, I think this would be an easy addition that you could paste right in and would be a nice addition to the mod.

I am generally against forcing players to play faster for the sake of better loot. It's generally stressful when such a pace is kept through-out the whole game. One or two encounters are ok. And, with enemies like dragons it is not as straight-forward as it might seem. A necromancer-led party can obliterate a dragon in seconds, whereas any other protagonist is up for a long confrontation. Where's the balance in speed of killing?

This is bad design.

I agree with this statement. Some of the most fun fights are when you are stretched to the limit and win just before collapsing completely. This can be accomplished by trying fights earlier than "intended," whatever that means. Samia in Ch 3 comes to mind.

I think some of the other comments are because several enemies actually reward a player for completing fights slower, which is probably not ideal either. I'll also state that this can make a fight more difficult as well so there is some merit in continued rewards. For example to "drain" an elemental golem requires surviving its blows for many additional rounds in addition to managing the coin/gem golems. In Ch 5 this can be tough (e.g. Illithid lair); by early TOB this is trivial.

My proposed solution in a thread which is buried somewhere was to increase the gold/XP of the main summoners and eliminate rewards from spawned creatures. So for elemental golems, increasing base XP from 60k to 60+22+24 = 106k XP and giving it 1k gold and 1 of each gem, where I think 22 and 24k XP are what a coin and gem golem are worth.



Its got super rare ingredients. Not possible to forge until after Ancient Dragon, I believe. Was more of a tongue-in-cheek comment than anything.



If there is ever a point where this is considered being implementing, by me or by others, I'd be happy to talk details in more earnest. I have a penchant for dull and monotonous activities, like looting 50x chain mail

I think in general gold rewards in the game right now are very predictable. Yes there is some variability based on whether monster X drops a lvl 7 spell scroll or a garnet, but that probably averages out over the course of the game. Maybe I'm missing something?

No, generally, it is as you say. I try to bring some more variability to the randomizer behavior, introducing more places and items, but there's a finite level of randomness due to certain design decisions and, in the end, player still can have a complete list of what can be found where.

Avenger...!!!

Given critto's concerns with more fast-paced monster killing, I think this is a great suggestion. Drawing out Elemental Golem fights can be fun and exciting, but can also be a drag (either way too easy, or very hard but I reload because I only drew 5 spawns instead of 6 and want to get the most gold and experience possible).

Updated firs post (tag july 11th update)

Sendai and EDE left, hard nuts to crack!

Run is finished (last update tag in first post)

SendaÏ and EDE did not cause another reload.
Put my 2 cents on "insane no-reload" end of post, will now resume designing original party for core vanilla BG2 IA, with a lot of reloads!

This attempt was fun nonetheless, retrying this does not appeal to me

Enjoy

Run is finished (last update tag in first post)

SendaÏ and EDE did not cause another reload.
Put my 2 cents on "insane no-reload" end of post, will now resume designing original party for core vanilla BG2 IA, with a lot of reloads!

This attempt was fun nonetheless, retrying this does not appeal to me

Enjoy

Interesting,IIRC the Supreme Golem gated elemental golem in the second round(or the third),my 6 warriors party used 2.6 round to kill him,but the elemental golem still gated,so it is very rare to see this.

Your final victory is overwhelming~Congratulations！An epic run!

Truth is I was very surprised myself, fight lasted some 3 rounds (3 critical strikes), it never happened to me before not to have at least one elemental gated with supreme (which is not the biggest threat here)



Thanks

Well played and congratulations! I guess with so many BE potions the physical damage of the golems gets a little underwhelming. Still it seems you killed the prince exceedingly fast if he was still spawning noble/lesser rakasha during the fight! Its been quite some time since I've tried to do that fight but I seem to remember killing all of the summons before the prince. Critto don't read this: ( Let's just be glad that the prince doesn't spawn a wave of demon knights anytime, eh? Particularly right after a universal purge Or purge + ghost spiders + web golem + demon knights, or ice golem + any of a number of other summons, lol)

What was the hardest fight?

Party composition if you were to do it again?

Thanks, BE AND protection from elements: PFE + items/spells to have one or more elemental resistance above 100% beginning of fight with supreme is also tremendously important (physical only is not enough for insane supreme) and regeneration (oils, RVE, ...)



Party had a great damage output, so not surprising that for earlier AI (triggering on lightly wounded or wounded IIRC) it went fast
Alos benefited for first rak spawn that while party out of Prince LOS, no triggering of rak (same for ultra golems with ambers btw), allowed me to destroy supreme and one ultra without interference.
I could not survive if Prince and his 3 helpers all in party LOS (once I had a run where no less than 8 ambers spawned, on insane no chance to survive this)



Oasis


If I was to try insane again with the same purpose (no or minimum reload), I would take the same party!

If some are interested to try from this base, I would just consider to switch Imoen (who still is the right stuff here) to 3 IMO good choices too:
- Cernd (alacrity, smilodon, fast casting, many spells, auramaster, items, unsilencable...)
- Valygar (issue might be cash and forging, but late game a most precious ally, spells of protector and racial combat make him on par or Superior to a RB late game against racial enemies)
- Vagrant (swanmays on top of other summons, greater and queen are awesome, a decent warrior, with quite good elemental resistance which are a real asset)

For other party members my personnal view is that R->C is mandatory on insane (stoneskin, buffs, GR, GR and GR) Necro as protag (with vagrant no way I could no reload some quests fights, but they can be skipped you may say), I would look for 2 destruction slots, better than RBs, I don't see for an insane run (Kensaï has no insta heal and worse AC), Barbarian for rage, HP and physical resist is quite handy and stays a pretty good fighter (my 2H wielder here or dualwielding easthaven/axe of unyielding late game sometimes)

New monk class to come in 6.2 could be a substitute to Barbarian (could because hp are still low), may be a F/M could be tried instead, I pondered to try a dual Kensaï20->mage as I did in a core run, a very interesting char, but nursing is long and early run, on insane, a Kensaï is under constant chunk-threat

Truth to tell, I have never been at ease with dual/multi classes, so may be some who are more at ease (that is to say know how to manage them efficiently) could give helpful advice on this

Critto when does 6.2 come?!?

Until the end of summer, I hope The new Monk, however, is already available in 6.1.