I've just gone through TOB for the fourth time and here are my reflections on some of the HLAs, some of which are definitely more equal than others:

Good abilities Summon (Dark) Planetar. These guys simply rock. They strike fast and hard with a vorpal sword and have a ton of powerful offensive spells. Even better, they come with three Heals, a Resurrection and Restoration as well. Better still, the summons lasts for a long time. Spike Trap. This does a terrific amount of damage to everything. Can be used to make hard battles easy. Demogorgon falls to four of them. Greater Elemental Summoning. The elemental princes are rock hard (well apart from Chan, the Prince of Air). My last time through the game, Abagizal killed himself on Zaaman Rul's fire shield, which was nice. The only problem is that the summons only lasts ten rounds. Enhanced Bard Song. With this ability, your bard doesn't need to do anything else. Gives superb immunities. Use Any Item. Particularly good for Bard characters as they can gain proficiencies in almost any weapon and can wield Carsomyr with some measure of skill. Most of the fighter abilities. Greater Whirlwind Attack and Smite are particularly good. Shame you can only take Smite once.
Not-so-good abilities
Tracking. Has anybody ever taken this? It should be a standard Ranger ability, anyway. Time Trap. Allows a thief to get a free backstab. Seeing as the thief generally only has one attack, it's not that good. Certainly not worth wasting a spike trap for. Alchemy / Scribe Scrolls. What's the point? Fire Elemental Transformation. Almost everything in TOB is immune to fire. Energy Blades. Has anybody ever used this in favour of another 10th level / quest spell? Globe of Blades. Just as likely to damage your comrades as your enemies. Everything makes its save anyway.
Does anybody know whether fighter abilities stack? For example, can you have Critical Strike and Greater Whirlwind active at the same time?

Which abilities do other people find most useful? I'd be particularly to interested to read people's opinions on the quest spells.

Well, I've finished TOB thrice so far, and in my experience, I've found that almost all the 10th level and quest level spells rock.

Some notable spells however...

Dragon's Breath - This spell is the ULTIMATE damage spell. Firstly, it damages for almost 100-200 hps if the enemies fail their save. Problem is, most enemies make their save, but a Greater Malison should deal with that. Also, the spells has a casting time of 3 !! Robe of Vecna+Amulet of Power = Dragon's Breath instantly !! The spell also bypasses Magic Resistance AND it knocks your enemies back, so even if they have resitance to fire, your warriors can jump in and take them out...frankly, this spell just rules.

On the other hand, Comet just sucks, mostly because it allows Magic Resistance.

And I must say I disagree with you as far as Energy Blades is concerned. Having all your spellcasters cast Energy Blades (even clerics get this) means they can dish out about 100- 150 damage on AVERAGE, max being around 325!! And since its ranged, your weaklings can easily take out a lot of enemies. Also, I found that I had a very difficult time with the Ravager, because my warriors kept getting distracted by the Bone Blades and the Ravager kept killing me. A summoned Pit Fiend, and my three fighters kept the Blades at bay, while Edwin, Imoen and Viconia cast Energy Blades and took down the Ravager...

The other spells are mostly okay, nothing that great about them.

Regarding the quest level spells, you've already dealt with most of them, and I must say I agree with you on all the major points.

Mass Raise Dead just sucks. There's no other word for it. Firstly my characters rarely, if ever died, because almost all of Jaheira's spell slots for 6th lvl were Heal. Plus with all the potions of superior healing, you shouldnt be dying in the first place.

The elemental transformations arent that great either coz the damage isnt that great. Of course, if you like the fire resistance and healing of about 20-30 hp on regaining human form, go for it, but I never liked it...much better to have Jaheira kick in a Greater Whirlwind and go take the enemies out.

For your question regarding fighter HLAs, yes they can be stacked, technically speaking, but in the game, if you dont cheat, you cant do it. Because the game limits you to one spell per round, and for some reason, the game classifies HLAs as spells...so you cant cast more than one per round, and most of them dont last more than a round, so... you CAN definitely stack Hardiness and GW tho...

Time Trap. Allows a thief to get a free backstab. Seeing as the thief generally only has one attack, it's not that good. Certainly not worth wasting a spike trap for. Not true at all. Timestop gives you 3 free rounds. Unhasted, that's three free, unanswered backstabs. Casting improved Haste before hand makes this quite useful. You may have to be invisible to pull this off, but useful nonetheless. It's a godsend for Jan, who can't cast 9th level spells (unpatched or unmodded, anyway). This is a HUGE benefit for a fighter/thief for obvious reasons.

If you think Time Stop Trap is a waste, you're not doing it properly.

I think the time trap only gives you 10 seconds, but still it's nice. Especially with a fighter/thief. Combine this with Whirlwind (no need for greater since you won't miss anyway) and it's far more deadly than Spike Trap.

I think Improved Alacrity and Wish are great HLA spells, but I don't really regard them as HLA's.

Use Any Item is great, especially for kensai/thieves or wizardslayer/thieves.

HLA's that suck:
Tracking for obvious reasons.
Alchemy/scribe scrolls.
Deathblow stuff. If anything dies by this, it probably wouldn't have lasted very long anyway.

And I'm probably forgetting HLA's.

I wish you could do Assassination and Greater Wirlwind together. :evil:

I have an issue with Greater whirlwind in that if you are a dual wielder, you get no benefit, and I'm not sure which weapon hits or strikes those 10 times. If I'm going to use this, I'll use it with a 2 handed weapon.

I like energy blades when fighting a large number of little guys.

I LOVE spike trap -- use it all the time. it rocks.

Mass raise dead is a waste in that with either a rod of resurrection, a good priest, and/or a lot of money, it's a wasted slot.

@ Lord Keldin

If dual wielding, it is the main hand weapon (your paperdoll's right hand weapon) that gets the WW or GWW effect. Your off hand weapon only attacks once that round, just like any other round.

"It's a godsend for Jan, who can't cast 9th level spells (unpatched or unmodded, anyway)."

How's that?! :confused:

Jan isn't supposed to be able to cast 9th level spells in the normal game. Multi's should only go up to level 6, IIRC, as the game originally shipped.This gives him the ability to cast one of the best spells in the game without wasting one of the few Time Stop scrolls in the game or cheeseballing it with Project Image, etc.

Even if you are properly patched and Jan can go all the way up to 9th level in casting, he gets his HLA's long before that. Right now I'm in Watchers Keep with Jan (still in SoA), and he already has Use Any Item, Spike Trap, and Time Stop Trap, and only casts 7th level spells.

If your main hand gets the full bonus, and your other hand still has one attack wouldn't this mean that you have 11 attacks? But iirc there are just 10 if you look in your character page. Does this mean you get 10 attacks with main and no with the off hand, or 9 with main and one with off hand? Or something different? :confused:

Btw i don't think that greater whirlwind is so good for dual wielders. Imho critical strike+improved haste is better. a character that deals 20 dam/strike and 4 attacks/round would deal 200 with GWW (if he hits every time) and 320 with critical strike/improved haste.

"Jan isn't supposed to be able to cast 9th level spells in the normal game. Multi's should only go up to level 6, IIRC, as the game originally shipped."

I assume you mean SoA without ToB, and thus the three million experience point cap, as opposed to the eight million experience point cap? Considering this is the ToB forum, I guess I don't understand why anyone would have said anything that so obviously did not apply...? :confused:

@ Buck

Speaking to me like that is really uncalled for. I'll respond to that in a PM.

About Jan's casting level, last time I checked, multi-class characters, regardless of level, can't cast higher than level 6 spells. Reason being that only dedicated (ie single class) mages have the dedication it takes to harness the power of such powerful spells. Someone correct me if this is incorrect, however.

I realize that there is a patch that fixes this, I'm using it right now.

Death Rabbit, I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. All I have installed is the official patch and my own mods, none of which touch that spell casting file.

My multis can cast any level spell.

I believe what my furry friend means is that the experience cap of SOA prevented any multiclass characters from casting lvl 7 or higher spells.

About Jan's casting level, last time I checked, multi-class characters, regardless of level, can't cast higher than level 6 spells. Reason being that only dedicated (ie single class) mages have the dedication it takes to harness the power of such powerful spells. Someone correct me if this is incorrect, however. I have no clue where you got this from. Maybe you are thinking of bards? Another possibility is maybe you were somehow thinking of spell level limits and intelligence. Theortically Jan could only cast lvl 7 spells in 2nd edition because of his 16 intelligence, but that rule was left out.

And, Jan DOES use lvl 9 spells in Baldur's Gate. I use him all the time and I enjoy casting quest spells with him. :)

Not-so-good abilities

Time Trap. Allows a thief to get a free backstab. Seeing as the thief generally only has one attack, it's not that good. Certainly not worth wasting a spike trap for.
Energy Blades. Has anybody ever used this in favour of another 10th level / quest spell?Time Trap is of extreme usefullness. I think someone said it lasts 3 full rounds. I usually can have Haer'Dalis assassinate (not in the backstab way) a powerful enemy at the beginning of any fight with aid of a time trap. A cool trick with him is if you have Celestial Fury is as soon as you stun 1 target run to another and try to stun him. If you're lucky you can get 2 or 3 enemies stunned before the time stop wears off. Regardless, it is devastating.

Energy Blades is one of the best skills in the game. They have an attack rate of 10 attacks/round (insane) and utterly eviscerates mages (but they kill everything). Usually you attack so fast that the enemy can't even reach you because they get stunned by the hits. Furthermore, this can be used by clerics who have practically no offense to speak of. One casting of energy blades (20 shots) is enough to kill virtually any enemy. As soon as Vicionia gets this spell she is 10 times more useful in combat.

@DR

"Speaking to me like that is really uncalled for. I'll respond to that in a PM."

Sorry you took what I said the way you did, but the fact is you read way more into that post than I ever intended. I had already asked for an answer once, then when I got one, it still didn't answer my question, so I went out of my way to be clearer about what I was asking. It certainly wasn't meant to be offensive or insulting. I was going out of my way to be clear in case I was missing something, not because I was trying to be condescending. Sorry you misunderstood. :(

Yep energy blades is the best HLA in the game. If you cast maybe two charcters with it, any combimnatin of mage, sorcerer, druid, or cleric will work, and dragons become on a difficulty level with hobgoblins.

Seriously. Go learn it in SOA even (you should first get in around the underdark) and go turn Adalon into fillet dragon steak. Not that I endorse killing such a creature of light :D

I found the Dragon Fire and Meteor useful as well. I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Meteor because it can stun everyone in a room.

I'm sorry, but I can't remember too much of the fighter HLA's

Okay - I guess I was wrong about multi-class spellcasters not being able to access the higher level spells without a patch/mod. My bad. Not sure why, but I've been under that impression for quite a while. Maybe I was confusing the XP cap, or the 6-person-party experience gap in SoA. Oh well.

See kids? Even I can be wrong once in a while. ;)

However, I do stand by my stance (stand by my stance...who talks like that!?) that Time Trap is a godsend for Jan, because he receives his HLA's LONG before he is able to cast 9th level spells. THAT much I know for sure. ;)

@ Buck

No biggy/hard feelings. :thumb:

InquisitorX:
I usually can have Haer'Dalis assassinate (not in the backstab way) a powerful enemy at the beginning of any fight with aid of a time trap. I never took Assassination for Haer'dalis as an HLA because the description states "uses current backstab modifier" which for Haer'dalis is x 1 (i.e. no multiplier at all). What multiplier does Haer'dalis get?

I think he's referring to "assassinate" in reference to "sneaky killing" rather than the actual high level ability.

As some1 stated earlier that you cannot use more than 1 HLA per round as they count as a spell. Well what if you char was a fighter/mage. Improved alacrity and then HLA to you hearts content. Does this work has anyone tried.

For major cheese why not try this in conjunction with a time stop and see the heads roll.

Can someone try this(I currently don't have ToB on the go) and give me an answer.

I think he's referring to "assassinate" in reference to "sneaky killing" rather than the actual high levelDeath Rabbit is right on the money with this one! :thumb:

Has anyone checked my suggestion yet??

you can use improved alarcrity with any other level 10 spells......

cast improved alarcrity and then time stop and then dragons breath if you wish......
it works

but you cannot do whirwind and then assasination simply because the whirlwind will wear off before you can utilize an assasination .

I haven't tried, but I don't think alacrity applies on special abilities.

What's the difference between the Light/Dark Planetars, and the Regular/Fallen Divas? I know if you're good you only choose the good ones, if evil you only choose the fallen/dark ones, and if neutral you get either. But does it matter? I assume the spell selection is slightly different, but I can't imagine one would be more powerful than the other in combat.

They are identical, except for one thing. Dark Planetars have Unholy Word, while regular Planetars have Holy Word. In addition, the dark summons look a lot cooler.

tracking is a useless skill, no doubt about it, though its nice if you are playing through the game for the first time and dont know the location of enemies.

Scribe scrolls is not useless, first of all it is a nice source of experience (if you take the time), second of all, it gives you some scrolls to be used in thight situations, especially if you solo. I admitt that its not a good ability either, but its not useless either.

Menion Leih

"Deathblow stuff. If anything dies by this, it probably wouldn't have lasted very long anyway"

Heh, don't forget UserUnfriendly's Cheese Guide, greater deathblow PLUS an area effect weapon equals dead baddies (i.e mindflayers, the drakes in the Improved Abazigal fight etc). Nice to have Druid fire seeds then.

Greater Deathblow affects Mindflayers? That's somewhat unbelievable. It's a great strategy for the Underdark and Crom Faeyr hunting if it's true.

@jeremiah

Well, if you're willing to use that kind of cheese, I guess it's an OK skill. But I still don't think it is a very useful skill. Most enemies that die by greater deathblow won't give me any problem by the time I get it.
Mindflayers are pretty though (although they pose no real threat by this time), but you barely ever meet them in ToB, so unless you want are getting your HLA's before the Underdark, there isn't much use.
Second, I don't think the drakes at Improved Abazigal are your main concern. But since they're pretty annoying, it can be useful.

@Rastor
Not really THAT great a strategy since it means getting more than 3,000,000 xp before the Underdark. And if you have that, the mindflayers should be easy anyway.

I've always thought it's really stupid that a thief can scribe scrolls but a mage can't! Where is the logic in that??!!

[ November 05, 2003, 17:18: Message edited by: Lord Keldin Depaara ]

Sounds illogical, I know, that mages cannot scribe scrolls but this is probably for reasons of game balance. Otherwise, you could rest, copy all the spells that you've learnt onto scrolls and rest again, effectively doubling your spells (or generating infinite gold). In pen and paper D&D, mages and clerics of a certain level can make scrolls, but it requires rare and precious materials and a lot of time to do so (the expense and time being at the DM's discretion). You couldn't have such a scheme in BG2, so no scrolls for mages.

Well Deva is the worst. Unless im mistaken in this game it has no abilities more than the Planetar, but the planetar also has a better spell selection. Could be wrong though. Perhaps the deva has more cleric spells or something. I prefer planetar however.

i have picked energy blades, and they are like improved melf's minute meteors - really rip through enemies

best HLA = use any item - the possibilites are endless...

worst HLA = tracking - eh.... about as good as infravision

Favourites:

Use any Item
Assassination
Greater Whirlwind
Critical Strike

Worst:

Tracking
Create Scroll
Deathblow

From a role playing perspective, tracking rocks in that once I've determined a particular enemy in an area, I no longer feel cheesy about prepping for that enemy. But for game mechanics, it's kind of stupid once you've already played through.