Tactics Mod - Incredible Difficulty

[Kefka1983]

I am using the Tactics mod that makes encounters/battles more difficult and require more though, but I didn't know it would make them so hard that there is little chance of survival.

The intro battle against Ilasera is so hard now that my paladin dies in a few hits, I have no chance. Is this really a bad mod to use due to unbalanced difficulty or am I missing something? Thank you.

[Edar Macilrille]

Many people here complain about the Tactics Mod, and it is difficult indeed (you have much worse ahead than the intro battle if you solo all through, if you get a party, the other battles will probably be about as difficult as intro battle is alone...).

I would say that the intro battle if you start ToB as first with no SoA is very hard to beat. Otherwise I think Abisigal and Sendai are percieved as worst- and The Eclipse Ritual as Insane, though my own two most challenging has been Pontifex and Abisigal. In SoA the Improved Illyich is really bad as you actually have no weapons that can harm those allies he has (at least that is my experience, I never beat that without cheese), as is Improved Faldorn (had to have my allies hand me my Katanas before my Kensai/Thief/Mage could beat her- multiple Strongholds makes it impossible to just have Cernd fight it for you) and Kaangax... let us not go there at all...

I like Tactics, but I have yet to actually beat *all* of it with no Cheese, with Illyich you need weapons you do not posses (Shadowkeeper FTW).

Some say that Weimer has used cheese in the Mod as well, I cannot comment on that as I do not know the Game Engine or AD & D rules well enough to comment on that, but that is the quibble many people have with it.


Speaking of which, I just had a Pit Fiend in the SOA Amunator Dungeon do 750 hits to Anomen in one action (dunno how, it did 13 the attack before), 750 hits at once is a bit over the top methinks as Anomen is Lvl 14...


-------------------POSSIBLE SPOILER-------------------------

With The Eclipse Ritual my quibble is the same as with many other encounters in the game- only worse, the AI can react before you. Normally that is not really a problem, as you have the possibility to prepare, IE you *know* that the room you are about to enter is full of nefarious villains, so you can take your potions, cast protective spells, hang a few offensive ones, etc. Thus it evens out, but in The Eclipse Ritual that is simply not possible as you never know when it happens, and before you can react the AI has half yout party stunned by attacks while the Game Engine still refuses to acknowledge any keyboard and mouse input you try to give. Your input has second priority and is by necessity slower than the AI.

I think this is at the root of many complaints about the difficulty of Tactics, especially The Eclipse.

[Revi]

Many of the enemies in Tactics cast infinite spells, and have more hit-points, lower AC and such than they would have according to pen & paper AD&D. That's what people refer to when they say the enemies in Tactics use 'cheese,' I think.

If you're looking for a mod that improved enemy AI and makes boss-fights a little harder, there are other mods around which employ no such 'cheats.' Look for them on [url="http://www.gibberlings3.net/"]Gibberlings Three[/url], [url="http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/"]Spellhold Studios[/url] or [url="http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/"]Pocket Plane Group[/url], for example.

That said, I believe Westley Weimer has developed Tactics, and his many other excellent mods, purely out of love for the game. All the fights can be beaten without extreme use of cheese (to be honest, the way he's improved the AI of bosses, there isn't much room left for cheese).

Two things I can think of which might especially help if you have trouble beating a Weimer-improved encounter:

1: Use all the resources at your disposal. The fights are balanced for you to use pretty much every wand, scroll and potion at your disposal.

2: Bring people who can buff up your group, and strip away protections from your enemies.

[Thrifalas]

I am using the Tactics mod that makes encounters/battles more difficult and require more though, but I didn't know it would make them so hard that there is little chance of survival.

The intro battle against Ilasera is so hard now that my paladin dies in a few hits, I have no chance. Is this really a bad mod to use due to unbalanced difficulty or am I missing something? Thank you.

Illasera is, afaik, unnafected by the Tactics mod. Do you mean Ascension? Those are two fairly different mods, although both increases the difficulty level immensely.

The Ascension Illasera is a worthy member of the Five, as opposed to her stupid vanilla version. I can't recall trying, but beating her with a solo directly-created ToB character sounds almost impossible to me. With a self-created party or a party imported from SoA it's a fairly easy battle as her allies are pushovers, but yeah, I think you need a party on this one. Or a powered SoA-character.

Tactics/Ascension makes battle so hard that they are nearly impossible before you have figured out them. The first time I tried Eclipse or Ascension final battle I had to facepalm and go "come OOOON, you can't be serious," but in the end they just proved to be very, very epic battles.

Besides, the vanilla game really is too easy after a while.

I like Tactics, but I have yet to actually beat *all* of it with no Cheese, with Illyich you need weapons you do not posses (Shadowkeeper FTW).

You get a +2 weapon in the fight itself, you just need to know who to kill in what order and equip the weapon in-fight. It's a neat trick that I think that more battle could've used as an interesting quirk.

[Edar Macilrille]

A neat trick indeed, and I seem to recall feeling very smug first time I did it. But getting to him and killing him, then killing the two? Three others that requires magical weapons to hit them is still exceedingly hard.

I like Tactics, but... it is sometimes too hard to overcome, something between that and Vanilla in hardness would be nice.


Any thoughts on my AI-Raises-Dif theory?

[Thrifalas]

With The Eclipse Ritual my quibble is the same as with many other encounters in the game- only worse, the AI can react before you. Normally that is not really a problem, as you have the possibility to prepare, IE you *know* that the room you are about to enter is full of nefarious villains, so you can take your potions, cast protective spells, hang a few offensive ones, etc. Thus it evens out, but in The Eclipse Ritual that is simply not possible as you never know when it happens, and before you can react the AI has half yout party stunned by attacks while the Game Engine still refuses to acknowledge any keyboard and mouse input you try to give. Your input has second priority and is by necessity slower than the AI.

I think this is at the root of many complaints about the difficulty of Tactics, especially The Eclipse.

There are variables for when you arrive in their hold. You do not randomly stumble upon them with no preperations at all. Sola tells you about them and urges you to be prepared and even if you don't know what's coming the first time, you will the second. Because there will be a second.

Going into the Eclipse party unprepared is really devestating. It's not meant to. The reason why you are being teleported is to avoid cheesing with traps and summons before the fight starts. It's true - this battle is kind of reverse. They are the ones who gets to be prepared.

In fact, they have a lot of advantages.

1) They're prepared. Buffed and with summons ready to go.
2) They have a full-party Time Stop spell being cast each round or so, depending in what difficulty you play on.
3) Their spells are completely scripted meaning they will never run out.

However, this fight is not all that bad. It's true that they look scary and the first couple of times they will rip you to shreds without you doing much damage to them. But once you start to realize how they work you can totally kick their assess.

That's right. In order to win this battle you actually have to figure out how *they* work. That is the fun thing with tactics/ascension-battles such a Kuroisan. You need to figure out what they do, how they do it, and then counter it.

The best part with the Eclipse is however that no matter how scary they look, they can be easily beaten. Just put a huge focus on your own buff and dispell their buffs and you will have a much easier time. For example, a well-placed dispell magic from an Inquisitor will strip the warriors of their buffs and with two chains filled with ADHW (6x) their front row will die instantly. This takes about one round to perform and with two simple characters you can down half their group before their swords even can touch you.

But I drift, to the subject all I can say is that well, they do not get to prepare a lot more than you do. They are fully buffed, so can you be (if you know the instance will trigger after Sola's dream when he and main char are close together at night). Worth noticing is that Eclipse isn't tactics, it's the Solaufein mod, and it can be triggered by writing

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("SolaSpy1")

[Cippa Lippa]

Many of the enemies in Tactics cast infinite spells, and have more hit-points, lower AC and such than they would have according to pen & paper AD&D. That's what people refer to when they say the enemies in Tactics use 'cheese,' I think.

Hi all

I have recently reinstalled BGII after years of "fasting" and I have reinstalled tactics (my usual favourite - I don't know if I am gonna try IA as that really sounds like cheese). I have to disagree that the tactics opponents need to be beaten by cheese... but, as always, it comes down to what is cheese for you - some people consider using potions and scrolls cheese...

Improved Ilyich is very difficult if your party is not well rounded but I recently beated it with a group of 1R/C, 4 F (2Berserkers) and 1 thief... so having mages is not necessary - as with all components of tactics it always comes down to having the right strategy - it is exceedingly frustrating at the beginning but when you manage to find the right way to do it it gives you tremendous satisfaction... I am now having problems with the improved fire giants - it took me a while to understand that their script was conflicting with the script of sanchudooku thereby killing its wielder instantly...

and Improved Irenicus was insane...

[Rancour]

1: Use all the resources at your disposal. The fights are balanced for you to use pretty much every wand, scroll and potion at your disposal.

Yeah,that's a good suggestion, but the problem is that most of the times you get torned to pieces so quickly, that you are not able not only to use "wand, scroll and potion" but to run away to save your own ass neither.
I'm playing the game with this mod now and it was impossible to beat many enemies (Kuirosan,Faldorn,Twisted rune, dragons are quite tough) in the second chapter, especially on the 'insane' difficulty setting.However,now that I got out of the underdark this time it was me who easily chopped those encounters I had had to skip in the second chapter. The key to the problem with the tactics mod is 'wait till you are really strong and then it is them who gets to run' .

[Khumak]

*Warning, some spoilers included*

I've found all the battles in tactics quite doable. The caveat being when you do them... The boss fights I do by the end of chapter 3 are Illych, Maevar, Torgal, and Bohdi. I save all the rest for chapter 6. Unfortunately some of the fights are basically impossible without foreknowledge.

Improved Irenicus is extremely cheesy and annoying for it's placement in the opening dungeon. If you make a custom party it's doable with zero cheese. All you need is enchanted weapon and magic missile. If you're playing with the default party and your PC is not a mage it can be very frustrating. The real threat is the cleric. Interrupting him is an absolute must.

Bohdi is extremely hard if you do her in chapter 3 instead of chapter 6. Doable but very hard especially considering you have to go through her to advance the story if you're playing a good party. Some of the other stuff like the druid grove are also best left for chapter 6.

Torgal can be really nasty if you send a fighter type in to go toe to toe with him but he's quite doable with a level 10 or 11 party. However badass you think your main tank is at that point, Torgal is badder... I use his see invis against him by pulling him solo with a thief and fighting all his thugs after he's dead. Buff up, lay a few traps, send the thief in to pull him, dispell him, slow him, nail him with ranged weapons and spells while you pull him through the traps, then finish him off with melee.

Maevar is easy especially if you pick pocket everything before you go down for the fight.

I'd say the improved mage mod is by far the most annoying overall. I wish it had an option that only goes all out on the boss fights. As is, I find it too bothersome to constantly have to dispell all of the contingencies that all the trash mages bring up so I kill most mages with my fighter types using plain old non magical weapons and no spells. Sometimes they still get a spell off but usually not. With non magic weapons you just have to spend about a round burning through stone skin and then they're dead. It would be even more irritating for most of the game if the mages used Absolute immunity instead of PFMW because then you'd HAVE to dispel everything unless everyone was packing +5 weapons.

The Sahaugin city can be rather frustrating as well if you don't have either some high level mages or some high level thieves. This is especially true if you skipped most of the chapter 3 stuff and went to go save Imoen asap.

[appo13]

I got most of this after me and I must say: It was Gr888 FUN! (SPOILERS)

All inproves are just awsome, I play with tactics nearly all components. I had to uninstall Torgal (it was a bug, every time I did *load* some additional groups appeared, so I found myself fighting 30 Yan-Ti mages and 20 elder umber hulks^^) and Faldorn. With no druid char in my group this was wuite impossible... But all other mods worked fine, some bugs occure but most can be cleared without problems. Illych himself drops a club+3 so that you can hit the deams BTW.

[Gregorovitch]

When I decided to have another run through SoA/ToB after many years I went for several mods - including this Tactics thing - and since there isn't really that much help around for some of the really difficult battles, I thought I'd drop some hints and a few spoilers for any other crazy dudes falling for this rediculously difficult mod. (I'm joking - now I've beaten "Improved Irenicus" I'm SOOO glad I did).

I'm not an expert player, just reasonably experienced, so this is mostly for people like me, not for people who want to do everything as early as possible, do it all solo or whatever, just for the hell of it.

General Hints:

1. The big battles (the ones that have been seriously upped in difficulty) all have notes about them in text files that come with the mod zip: read them if you haven't, that's what they are there for. You are expected to.

2. In general I think you need to do every quest you can before launching into the main battles to get your levels up. For example I did pretty much everything there was to do before rescuing Imoen, and I left the D'Arnise castle and Mae'Vaal (if that's the right spelling, can't remember) until as late a possible beforehand.

3, I would do Watcher's Keep before tackling Irenicus, again because you will need those extra spells that come with the levels. I you do Pontifex's ritual quest and kill the beast at the bottom (the damo-whatever-it's-called) you get maybe 500,000 XP.

4. I have never before used the auto-pause feature in BG or NWN games, but since they advise using it in the afore-mentioned Irenicus text file, I tried it out as recommended (end of round, spell cast, enemy dead): it makes an ENOURMOUS difference. Basically you avoid loosing time between spell casts knowing the exact moment you can cast another spell, know exactly when an enemy is taken down so you can reassign to new target quickly, avoid unpleasant interceptions, and most importantly you track exactly what spells these horrible enemies are casting second by second so you can take intelligent counter measures.


Battle SPOILERS:


Kangaxx

A lot has been written about this SoB, and I have little more to say on it:

1. There are two main problems, he imprisons your party members quickly, and secondly he has some sort of breath spell that throws your fighters back so they can't get hits in. He is very fast.

2. To deal with imprisonment have a mage cast magic protection twice, once for abduration and once for necromancy, before he goes demi-lych, and then cast something at him (breach or whatever). he will get fixated with this mage uselessly casting imprisonment at him/her every two seconds or so.

3. I could find no other method to take him down other than use the two Protection from Magic scrolls available at the Adventurer's Mart. Two fighter's will then dispatch him easily enough if the protected mage hits him with anti-magical defense spells.



Pontifex/Ritual

A lot of people have had trouble with this, and it is difficult but not impossible if you know how.

1. Throw a named save just before talking to Pontifex so can reload it and review the advice he gives later. He does tell you exactly what you need to know to succeed.

2. The three main problems are a) you can't rest, b) the skulls will drain your levels badly if you don't know how to deal with them, and c) the Priestess/Countess whatever will do her damnedest to commit suicide at the end thus failing your quest. You can stop her if you know how.

Specific spoilers:

1. As Pontifex tells you, there are 7 skulls each protected by identical defense teams. So take the hint: Throw a save so you can replay taking down the first team (and then the skull) until you find a way that works efficiently for your party. Then just rinse and repeat.

2. The skulls are a pain (they take only 1 HP damage per hit and will drain you two levels a shot and throw you away for the privilege, you can't afford that) - until you suss their weakness which is.......


trusty old Magic Missiles. Two sneaky shots and they're toast once their defense team is down.

3. To deal with the priestess to Pontifex's specification (i.e. stop the ritual AND keep her alive) you will first have to stop her talking: I used stun for this. It doesn't work every time, but about 50%. Once stunned, Units One, Two and Three come to life. They are tough but beatable. If you Dire Charm one of them it makes it easier. Once they are down you have to stop the priestess committing suicide. As I recall she has not one but two goes at this. The answer is to Dire Charm her, twice. I had a Staff of Command somewhere in my pack that was useful for this. Dire Charm her as soon as she comes out of stun, but then the suicide script kicks in, so do it again before she's finished, and she will walk off with you like a lamb. Pontifex awards you about 90,000 XP for this plus some really, really nice armour.

[Gregorovitch]

Follow on (char limit)

Improved Irenicus:

This is a very, very difficult battle. But it can be done, and if you do IMO you will be able to beat anything the most evil game designer or modder can throw at you in a RPG. And you will be dancing in the streets for days after.

Preparation:

1. Make sure you have a set of normal weapons in your pack and get them ready. You can't win this without them (on account of unlimited Protection from Magical Weapons spells). If you don't bail out now and find/buy some.

2. Set a named save so you can go rest and reset your spell sets before you get ready. Then buff up (everything you can think of) to the max and summon your five favourite pets. I have found skeleton warriors (from Animate Dead) are particularly useful as they seem to survive a long time, probably because they have a lot of magic resistance. They cause Jon Bon a lot of distraction. Because Jon Bon comes to you, they stay put for the battle ahead.

3. Throw a quick save and your ready to go.........., well

4. Do not expect to win this battle in one or two or three attempts. Take your time and work out each stage in order. This took me a week real time. Engage the auto-pause thing. Do not get downhearted. Read the irenicus text file!!!!!

Specific spoilers:

Stage 1

1. The enemies are scripted to come at you in a certain way. Notice this and plan accordingly. The dragon is mobile and dangerous from the word go. The Orb of fear will however stay put in the south. The Sword of Greed and the Wraith of Wrath will come in after some seconds from the SW. Jon Bon will not really get active until you've taken down two or three of his nasties.

2. IMO you should take out the dragon first on account of his breath and wing buffets scattering you all over the field if you don't. If you don't get him quick reload, IMHO. I got him with an immediate time stop/improved alactrity/as many magical defense destroyers as possible while my fighters headed his way. You want him to go down real quick.

3. Your 5 pets should have made short work of the shadows by the time friend Dragon is down, so move them towards the SW to intercept the Sword and the Wraith to occupy them.

4. You now need to prepare to deal with them. The Sword is immune to all physical weapons and will chop your party to pieces if you ignore it, so your mages need to deal with it quickly. I did this by having both my mages (Imoen and Kelsey) cast Simulcarum (or whatever it's called) giving me four barrels of Magic Missile - that hurts it quickly. The Wraith on the other hand is immune to all magic, but is probably occupied with your pets, so route your fighters round the top (out of the Orb's anf Jon Bon's way) and hit it with everything (use your big magical weapons here), critical hits, whirlwinds etc. it goes down quick if you have three or four hard hitters on the case. You must not let this Wraith attack individual party members or it's strength draining will kill you off piecemeal.

5. Now the Orb, not in itself difficult, but Jon Bon will be near it and start to get active about now. In my successful run I stayed up north and took some time to refresh my Skeleton Warior contigent to 5, and had them occupy Jon Bon while my mages got some warding whips and breaches in on the Orb. Then in with the heavy mob. It doesn't last long after that with four hard hitters clobbering it.

6. Now for Jon Bon himself (some say you can go for him first, but i tried that without any sort of success). He goes through two stages here. Until you start to hurt him (or threaten to) he will just cast horrible spells at you at high speed. You must get some spell strikes, warding whips, breaches etc in on him somehow. You may not succeed. Never mind, try again (and again, and again!). Meanwhile switch over to normal (non-magical) weapons and get ready to rush him as soon as you see those magic words "Spell protections removed" in the text window. Now you can hurt him.

7. Once he feels threatened he'll go into teleporting mode. To deal with this you need to keep everyone hasted, so your fighters will follow him around (automatically, see text doc) quickly and get hits in. Don't interfere with this script, let them do what they do unless Jon Bon interferes with them in which case you need to refresh their attack commands. Keep your mages firing breaches etc at him. He will go down very quickly once enough protection removals have hit home.

But it's not over, oh no.......


Stage 2.

1. it is critical that you monitor when Jon Bon 1 is about to bite the dust so you can prepare your PC for the one-on-one against Slayer Jon Bon. You absolutely MUST be hasted so refresh this with either spell or potion just before he does. Also make sure you have your potion and/or scroll case in your inventory. What you specifically need does of course depend totally on your character's class etc. Also note that although your party are immobilised during this, your pets are not, so you can refresh them to give him more trouble.

2. So long as you do this, the Slayer is by comparison a walk in the park. He takes all your kit off you, but all you have to do is run up north to your kit pile, re-equip and deal with him (that's why being hasted at the time is so important). Then just run away from him to get some healing potions down you, then hack/fire spells away for bit, repeat. He's not that hard. Mage would be different of course.

That was easy wasn't it......... oh no what's this????!!!!

Stage 3: Shattered Irenicus

This part is very, very difficult since your party are probably knackered/out of spells etc, and Jon Bon is particularly well protected and very aggressive (lot's of very nasty spells). He will try to systematically try to kill you off your party here. I got the sob on I think my fourth attempt at this stage, so I'm not so sure of the facts as with the first stage, but as I recall these are the important points:

1. The main problem is two fold: He has very strong defenses up and he starts casting time stop repeatedly followed by fast series of truly horrible spells including a lot that specifically stop your mages from getting any breaches etc in on him. Secondly he mostly has Protection from Magical Weapons up so your big guns won't hurt him at all. However as the text file hints, he switches between PfMW and Mantle, so at some points he is vulnerable to your heavy weapons.

2. The big problem is getting breaches in on him, and you probably don't have that many left by this time. I think you've got to be lucky with this, but you can help yourself in two ways......

3. Firstly IIRC he stays pretty much stationary in the middle to start with. This means you can retreat away from him a bit and approach with cation when the time is right., and

4. Pets are very useful here. I had three skeleton warriors still up on my successful run, and the first thing I did was order up two more. They take the brunt of his offensive spells while you approach the task at hand with caution.

5. It is suicide for your fighters to approach him at this stage before you've got some breaches, pierce magics, warding whips, spellstrikes etc in on him. The difficulty is he does all he can to prevent you from doing this, pets notwithstanding, and he has the time on account of repeated time stops.

6. I found in the bottom of my bag of holding four wands of striking (or something, they actually cast 6 breaches each) that I had accumulated from somewhere, and these were what eventually did for Jon Bon. The thing about these is they fire off immediately which makes it difficult for him to stop you.

7. I would wait for two things: First the magic words "Spell protections removed", and second watch for his blue and red shields to go down as they will badly hurt your weapon wielders.

8. Then it's in with the heavy mob with their ordinary weapons sets. With luck they will get a hit or two in (probably small hits at first), but Jon Bon will panic and go into teleporting mode again. Make sure everyone is hasted and just let the fighters chase him around: they will get hits on him. The mages must continue to pump every possible magical protection removal spell at their disposal into him (those wands were a godsend for me here).

9. After a while you will get the first real "hit" on him: In my case all of a sudden Minsc got him for 33HP with his standard two hander, my PC (a fighter/thief) got him for 18HP with a standard long sword, and Yasreana caught him for 40 something with a couple of standard short swords on a critical hit, all in quick succession. "Badly injured", it said of Jon Bon.

Scarcely believing what I was reading on the screen, I repaired, shaking, to the kitchen to make a cup of tea leaving things on pause. It was with more than a little trepidation that I hit the space bar some minutes later, but when I did good ol' Minsk was shouting "YES" or some such within two seconds through my speakers and I was watching chunks of Jon Bon flying in various directions. I concurred fully with Minskies comment, loudly. Several times.

Was it worth it? Oh my, yes.........

[friendlyarm]

Many people here complain about the Tactics Mod, and it is difficult indeed (you have much worse ahead than the intro battle if you solo all through, if you get a party, the other battles will probably be about as difficult as intro battle is alone...).

I would say that the intro battle if you start ToB as first with no SoA is very hard to beat. Otherwise I think Abisigal and Sendai are percieved as worst- and The Eclipse Ritual as Insane, though my own two most challenging has been Pontifex and Abisigal. In SoA the Improved Illyich is really bad as you actually have no weapons that can harm those allies he has (at least that is my experience, I never beat that without cheese), as is Improved Faldorn (had to have my allies hand me my Katanas before my Kensai/Thief/Mage could beat her- multiple Strongholds makes it impossible to just have Cernd fight it for you) and Kaangax... let us not go there at all...

I like Tactics, but I have yet to actually beat *all* of it with no Cheese, with Illyich you need weapons you do not posses (Shadowkeeper FTW).

Some say that Weimer has used cheese in the Mod as well, I cannot comment on that as I do not know the Game Engine or AD & D rules well enough to comment on that, but that is the quibble many people have with it.


Speaking of which, I just had a Pit Fiend in the SOA Amunator Dungeon do 750 hits to Anomen in one action (dunno how, it did 13 the attack before), 750 hits at once is a bit over the top methinks as Anomen is Lvl 14...


-------------------POSSIBLE SPOILER-------------------------

With The Eclipse Ritual my quibble is the same as with many other encounters in the game- only worse, the AI can react before you. Normally that is not really a problem, as you have the possibility to prepare, IE you *know* that the room you are about to enter is full of nefarious villains, so you can take your potions, cast protective spells, hang a few offensive ones, etc. Thus it evens out, but in The Eclipse Ritual that is simply not possible as you never know when it happens, and before you can react the AI has half yout party stunned by attacks while the Game Engine still refuses to acknowledge any keyboard and mouse input you try to give. Your input has second priority and is by necessity slower than the AI.

I think this is at the root of many complaints about the difficulty of Tactics, especially The Eclipse.

Hi,

What's the eclipse ritual? Could someone tell me about the tactics mod and this other thing? How much do these mods change the story/plot - or maybe even the areas? Although I've had the saga for a long time and played it through a number of times, I still find it challenging perhaps I'm just a slow learner when it comes to games. The replay value in Baldur's gate is huge, no other game I've played has it that high, not even Planescape Torment, which no doubt is excellent, the plot truly is a stroke of genius.
Oh, and what of the ascension mod? Are the battles ridiciously hard in that mod as they seem to be in the tactics one?

[Stworca]

Hi,

What's the eclipse ritual? Could someone tell me about the tactics mod and this other thing? How much do these mods change the story/plot - or maybe even the areas? Although I've had the saga for a long time and played it through a number of times, I still find it challenging perhaps I'm just a slow learner when it comes to games. The replay value in Baldur's gate is huge, no other game I've played has it that high, not even Planescape Torment, which no doubt is excellent, the plot truly is a stroke of genius.
Oh, and what of the ascension mod? Are the battles ridiciously hard in that mod as they seem to be in the tactics one?

Eclipse is a quite difficult fight added by Solaufein mod (weidu.org) the fight is fully optional, and mod users should be grateful for that, cause its challenging.

Ascension is another mod for BG2 that changes the walk-in-the-park ToB battles into something only Omaha beach would equal

There are many differend kinds of tactical mods, some only improve AI (SCSII) some add new stuff (Tactics) some change the world (Anvil)
I don't think any tactical mod changes the storyline, just the fights that those enchant. There are however mods that place you in totaly differend plots.

Regards

[friendlyarm]

Eclipse is a quite difficult fight added by Solaufein mod (weidu.org) the fight is fully optional, and mod users should be grateful for that, cause its challenging.

Ascension is another mod for BG2 that changes the walk-in-the-park ToB battles into something only Omaha beach would equal

There are many differend kinds of tactical mods, some only improve AI (SCSII) some add new stuff (Tactics) some change the world (Anvil)
I don't think any tactical mod changes the storyline, just the fights that those enchant. There are however mods that place you in totaly differend plots.

Regards

Why, thank you, they sound quite interesting, perhaps I'll even try the imroved AI

[Stworca]

If'll you find any encounter too difficult, take a look [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn-9/guide-to-tactical-mods-spoilers-116063.html"]here[/url]

Regards

[Sykar]

In my humble opinion Tactics mod is simply bad and no fun since most NPCs are made using ridiculous cheese and you absolutely need to know in advance what you are up against and be willing to reload a lot.
I strongly suggest to use SCS 2, Ascension and Longer Road for improving on difficulties and expanding the unvierse in an atmospherical way.
Not only do these mods stay true to the rules most of the time they maintain the atmosphere of the game which gets destroyed by Tactics on occasion for my person al taste.

Improved lliych comes to mind who lets one of his cronies summon a fallen Planetar. Right such powerful people would be working as lowly smiths for Irenicus.
Or those Shadow Thieves with their paralyzing gaze and being able to go down to the dungeon without a portal key. Which means they are some kind of demonspawn sorcerer/thief mix who can teleport at will or some similar crap.

[Monks]

i have to say, as a powergamer this is one of the most challenging things i have EVER tried in a game, took me a total of 40hours of tries to get amelysan down with my lvl 15 antipaladin dualed to 50 mage (using mods anyhows, but dont think 50 or 32 would make the differense in that case )
the fight and the understanding needed of everything going around in that encounter, made the feeling when you suddenly saw that there was no way to fail the kill even that much better however anything else than amelisan and irenicus i kinda think its a bit to easy. atleast if you use a power char (witch imo is anything with a good thaco dualed into a mage, or any multiclass having both warrior and mage in it)
without the ability to cast pfmw your kinda screwed though

[Stworca]

without the ability to cast pfmw your kinda screwed though

Still possible, but much tougher for sure

Why don't you write down your fight with melissan. Maybe we could learn something new

[Monks]

sure, and i well prefer to describe it in phases.

my summons at pull (serves as cannon fodder for balthazar )
2 x fallen planetar (only possible of spell is cast from Simulacrum is cast at the exact same time) 2 x golems from our dear book, 1 x Simulacrum.
selfbuffs consisting off.
blurr, MI, fireshield red/blue stoneskin, improved invis, spirit armor, magic imunity abjuration, conjuration and divination. spellshield, spell trap, protection from energy, protection from magical weapons (pfmw) and improved haste, on both me and Simulacrum.

my findings around the "bosses" that helped me design my tactic

illesara: dispell arrows, she is completly harmless ASLONG as you have pfmw up 1 hit without pfmw and you might aswell reload though.

yaga'sura. complete wanker doesnt do **** the entire fight very imobile and with protection spells up, really not a consern. however immense HP pool and dmg resistance

sendai, low hp but got a few good spells at hand, with the magic imunity spells avaible you should be imune to most of them.

saravok: good ammount of hp, will completly destroy you with death bringer assult if cought unprotected

abazigal: starts out with pfmw and gains one when badly injured, so mildly anoying.

balthazar: can be imune to timestop, stuns, knockbacks, and selfheals. really the biggest problem among the 6 bosses.


phase 1: since amelyssan will spawn directly after 1 of the 6 is dead, goal is to kill 1, but have atleast 2 others ready to folllow in quick succesion, i prefer to finish of 4 if possible
Simulacrum casts pfmw and goes directly to saravok to work on his hp
the summons works on balthazar and keeps him busy till he falls over (witch is around 40seconds into the fight)
main char, starts out with improved alacrity, gets pfmw up, debuffs sendai and abazigal, and uses FORCE (special ability making you imune to timestop from the accension encounter), mainchar goes to work on saravok until sendai casts timestop.
once saravok is near dead in the timestop, switch to sendai, she will heal herself once she is badly injured. cast timestop so it lands just before sendai's timestop runs out. put sendai to near death. go to work on balthazar. by now hes imunity is or is close to running out. finish him off.

phase 2. amelyssan spawns, survival/finish off most of the 5.
since balthazar will die in your timestop. it will end the moment he is dead.
once the battle starts up again. open with pfmw, find illesara. (her stealth should be over by now) and focus her down. once she is dead, quickly run and finish off saravok and sendai. by now i start casting improved wish. i have 3 memories on my main, and 2 on my Simulacrum, open with the ones from Simulacrum since he will despawn soon. pray that 1 of your 5 wish spells gives you the ability to "rest" since you have 5, its a quite decent chance.
meanwhile you work on either the summons that amelysan casts (prio 1) or abazigal (prio 2). once you get the correct wish. wait for your simalacrum to unsummon, if you put up all your defensive spells with a improved alactry that will be the timer for when your protective spells drop. completly rebuff yourself, and get a new Simulacrum up, i strongly suggest using improved alactry for this, once you kill abazigal my phase 3 starts.

phase 3. Control
as you might notice yaga'sura is still alive. we wont care. he will kill himself off eventually from, fireshields and the acidic backlash from the katana in the kensai mage encounter from SoA.
if amelyssan gets some add spawns off finish them quickly. otherwise just work on amelyssan, a few breach spells when needed, also use those wish spells again, and hope for a rest, while the 1st rest is essential, this one just makes it easier, hopefully you packed alot of scrolls for buffing? well if you miss this wish, then thats what they are for, once you run out of spells. slower to put up than a rested version though.
amelyssan will heal up once in a while and just refuse to die.
yaga'sura dies, and phase 4 begins.


phase 4, zerking.
at the start of phase 4, amelyssan will start screaming, "crap im loosing" and summon ALOT of creatures, i tried to kill the all, but there is simply to many.
instead i focus fire on amelyssan with pfmw up, and DRAGONS BREATH to scatter the summons with a knocback 2 times total. pretty much, kill her. before you run out of pfmw at this point in time, once pfmw is down, those summons will beat trough your defenses very very fast.

atleast this is how i managed the encounter
as you can see. i pretty much destroy 4 of the 6 in 2 timestop spells.
only challenging part is really phase 1-2