Throne of Bhaal: Newbie Thoughts

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Ever try to cast a mislead spell ?
I love to clear those Mind flayers and Giths in the Watcher's keep

 

@ Harbourboy

Those mountains are pretty interesting, still, since a group of giants is probably the only thing that can offer some challenge. As a tip: memorize at least one (Impr.) Invisibility with 10' radius. You will need it when entering to their little cave.

 

What a relief to finally encounter some enemies who aren’t resistant to everything. These Fire Giants are normal monsters (who do a lot of damage) so at last Nalia can actually cast some of the spells that have been gathering dust in her spell book (like good old Magic Missile and Chromatic Orb).

But, as stated before, there isn’t much that can stand up to Arya with her lethal snares and Kensai powered Assassinate damage.

The hardest thing in the mountains (other than the puzzle of how to get up the stairs) was actually those Burning Men if we forgot to cast some sort of anti-fear spell before encountering them.

Wirhe – not sure what we need Invisibility for. The only thing we ever used to use it for was Arya’s backstab but we don’t need that now that she has Assassinate and the Star Dagger.

One thing that is pretty cool now, is that all five members of the party have some sort of speed item equipped so no more waiting around for the slow people (Minsc) to catch up.

And Viconia has just received some sort of holy symbol which increases her strength. I’m pretty happy that it actually stacks with her other strength enhancing item, although she hardly ever needs to go into melee battle any more these days.

 

HB, just a thought, but have you tried out Righteous Magic? Its a fifth level cleric spell, which confers 1 bonus STR point per 3 lvls of the caster, 1 bonus hit point for each level of the caster, and ensures maximum damage on each hit!

Also, if you have any Mislead scrolls lying around, or feel like buying them, give them to your PC, and have her use them with UAI...each attack will then count as a backstab!

 

It's better to give the scrolls to PC, but use it only on silmulacrum (Vhailor's helm) - this way you'll not lose them

 

eww, that stinks
So you can clear all those giants with leisure in a few turns.
And you lose nothing, not a single HP or scroll. Hope you can restrain the urge, HB

 

Heh...that's what comes from soloing too much...when you start playing with a party, you cant get over how much overkill there is.

Why have 6 characters when you can make do, comfortably, with just one??

 

Hmm, I'm not sure I understood much of those last four posts. What is the point of Mislead, when I can just use Assassinate? And where would I find a load of Mislead scrolls anyway? Hope I can restrain the urge to do what?

Anyway, we're done with Yogi Bear's house and we've taken the hearts back to his mum and she's gone postal on us but wasn't too hard to defeat.

Most underused character at the moment is Nalia, whose spellbook is chock full of anti-mage artillery that has not been required much lately. Sarevok now has an upgraded Ravager halberd to use, which is a +6 weapon. I didn't even know you could go past +5.

Now it is time to head to the siege camp as Yogi is supposedly "vulnerable" now....

 

Those guys just like overkill, as Faraaz mentioned.

Kulyok was mentioning a silly loop in the game where your simulacrum (from the spell or Vhailor's helm) gets to use any items in your quickslots, but does not "really" consume those items (the simulacrum spell duplicates the scrolls too). So you get into a safe spot, create a simulacrum that has mislead in its quickslot, and then send your simulacrum on an assassination binge. When he's finished, you haven't used up the scroll of mislead on your character, and you can repeat the process. A lifeless and silly way to play a game.

Anyway, Mislead gets a slight nod over Assassinate because it makes you pretty much invulnerable and you don't have to waste a turn activating your backstab via Assassinate. But in terms of damage done, there is no practical reason to do it. Listen not to their vanities.

 

When you cast mislead, you become invisible as long as the image remains. Even if you attack - backstab them, you are still invisible. So you have a few turns for non-stop backstabbing, with improved haste, belm in off-hand you can do 9 atks per round = 9 backstabs = 500-1000 dmg. Eww, some kind of sport, methink

There's a lot of mislead scroll in the game to pick up and buy, I don't think you need that helm

 

@ Faraaz: I normally play in a party, but that trick is so nice I couldn't resist advertising it once more.

As Harbourboy doesn't have a Vhailor's helm (+1 AC, by the way) it was all for naught, alas.

@ Eric Xanthus : You are never safe, if a silmulacrum plays for you, because it is "blind" - if you, a party member, or a familiar's not next to it, iyou cannot control it. You should know. BTW, was "lifeless and silly" an insult ?

 

Well, we've just had a pretty cool fight which is the seemingly endless battle against Yogi's soldiers. Those Fire Giants keep showing up all over the place meaning we had to be really careful about where we stood and had to make sure we didn't use up all our spells and special abilities too early in the. For me, this sort of fight is more enjoyable than some of the big boss fights because in some of the others you just dive right in because you know it's not going to last long (so long as you use the right spell) and you can just rest straight afterwards, even if you were almost dead. In this one, you couldn't afford to get to almost dead because there was no time to rest. Great fun - reminded me of some of the great battles from Icewind Dale II like the Palisade attack, the Bridge fight, or the battle with the Slayer Knights.

 

I took them out last night & it lasted all of 5 seconds. Meet him, beat him, chase him, then when we find him again Imoen and Kelsey each did a chain contingency with 3 Abu Dhazims on nearest enemy. I hadn't tried this before but chain contingency seems to be instantaneous so can't be interupted, and the abu dhazims fly equally fast.

Since starting ToB, Kelsey has been driven mad by Imoen, has changed his name to "The Matron mother won't let you get away with it" - or something like that, and keeps quoting random bit-part characters, one about Umar and another from a Drunk wanting someone to show him some magic)

 

@Carcaroth
Have you already tried selecting Kelsey and/or on-mouse-over Kelsey pressing 'K'? That generally does the trick.

 

So we've now fought Yogi who was pretty lame now that he isn't invincible any more. We've had another Bhaal related encounter in the Pocket Plane and now we're back on the trail of the remaining Bhaal kids. So, here we are in yet another new town with a name I can't spell. This town is supposedly run by Balthazar, the demon from 'Charmed'. The coolest thing that has happened in this town so far is we got the piece required for Cespenar to make a cool cloak for Minsc.

 

If you finish the entire Watchers Keep most of the rest of the game becomes pretty easy. I say you should download the improved bosses! Makes everything so much more fun.

 

HB, this was the exact point where my game has totally locked up. If anyone has any ideas i'd love to hear them. I've already reinstalled and have no mods in... official patch in... but still locks up in pocket plane! ugh... *pout*

 

Harbourboy, how did you behave in Oasis ? You have been there, have you ? Did you slaughter everyone or just passed it through ?

 

How one can pass thorugh when everyone is attacking you? Aut concilio, aut ense!

 

All of them carrying +3 chain mail and +3 weapon, I got about 200k out of that map - yeah, I'm just a freaking looter