The Campfire

snoopyofour · Post by **snoopyofour** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:40 am

Consider this thread more of a writing excercise than anything else. This isn't for debates or arguing of any kind, it's for describing your favorite fights and how you beat them. Don't hesitate to be a bit of a gonzo journalist. Spruce it up, make it interesting and just have fun writing it. And most importantly, if you think there's a discrepancy in someone's account, or that they're lying...just let it go. This thread is meant to be nothing other than entertaining. I would start the ball rolling but right now I have to reformat a list of testing sites so I'll leave it to someone else. Cheers.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:15 pm

This is about the time when I played my first solo Bard. Of course it was a disaster in many areas, but I've learned to use Magic with him, what was a really big improvement since my old BG hack and slash oriented games.

So, I thought: "Oh I've been through Irenicus Chateau! Twas easy... ok. Let us finish the party at the bar... Pooky deserves a beating".

Sweet mistake. Of course I wasnt prepared but I had a good spell memorized - skull trap - and so I went. I was armed with the +1 staff, a shortbow, I had offensive spin (kit), what could possibly go wrong?

In my first attempt, with Core difficulty, happened this way:

I cast a bunch of defensive spells, talk to the dwarf, choose the fight line. The dwarf gets close, the barbarian get close, they disrupt my stoneskin (afaik I had it by then) and the thief backstab me into a million pieces.

I was, of course, very disappointed. Then I thought "I'll try different tactics and cheese, of course". Went to the shopkeepers, bought Web, Grease and a scroll of cloudkill (or a similar destructive area spell). Mistake: Saved the game without trying the tactic first.

I casted two webs, one stinking cloud, grease and then a cloudkill, while raining arrows into the dwarf. Dwarf dead. Then into the barbarian, using also Magic Missile. Barbarian dead. The thief was dead too. Then pooky and the mage get free, and he cast confusion. Seconds later I was lying on the floor.

"damn" I thought. "with no money to spare". I thougth about making the circus earlier, but it was my honour. So I got back there, same tactic, just that this time I have fired a few spells and killed the mage and his familiar before... being slashed by the dwarf!

Reloaded, for the last time I must add, and gave up the cloud kill for a while. Buffed up, casted web, once, and a fireball from the wand of fireball I found in Irenicus chateau, and used a wand of monster summoning. I was able to hurt the mages, hold the barbarian and only the Dwarf followed me downstairs, where he was easy prey to my bow. With my arrows almost ending, I went to a shopkeeper in the outside (a fletcher) and bought more arrows, got back, called the Barbarian, who was harder since he was faster, but after a two strong atacks on his part (when I was cornered) I slew him with the quarterstaff.

Went back upstairs, fearing the thief. Then I remembered I could sell the armour from the dwarf and buy another stoneskin scroll

The thief tried to backstab me after drinking a potion, magic missile (he was at the door, the make stood back there). He went invisible, appeared, magic missile. Invisible, appeared, magic missile "I dont want to fight anymore, <insert dwarf name here>". So, only two to go.

So, I cast the other web, stinking cloud and the cloudkill area spell. I picked up the bow, and started firing at the mage between castings. He fell, Pooky survived, and my character saved from his spells (confusion AFAIK) and after a few rounds with the staff I was able to put him on the ground.

So, fellows, this is how I killed that party solo, first time

snoopyofour · Post by **snoopyofour** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:50 pm

@Luis, nice. That party is no joke. The first time I fought them, I was around level 10 or so. I was a human thief with Minsc, Keldorn, Yoshi, and Arie. I walked into the room and the dwarf gives me some lip. Now at this point I had just killed Torgal so I was thinking "I'll be damned if I'm going to get pushed around by a dwarf!". It was a while ago so I couldn't really tell you the details of what happened but I recall that the moment I decided to reload was when Arie was dead, Yoshi was running around in horror because he just got backstabbed to 4 hp from almost full, and my pc is being beaten like a monkey by a confused Minsc and Keldorn who are in turn being beaten by the dwarf and the barbarian. "And I say to myself what a wonderful world".

Most recently I fought improved Abizigal for the first time. This fight is fun. Even if you don't like mods, download Ascension just for this one. So doing this fight I have a multi-player party of 5: pc, human berserker, half-orc barbarian weilding that cool throwing axe that knocks people back (he's effectively my archer), half-orc kensai using dragons breath, a cleric of Lothander, and wild mage. All of us are pretty highlevel cause we've been through Watcher's Keep and spent a LOOOONG time in slave chamber of sendai's fortress (I stayed in there for the length of two southpark episodes), so spells and hla's aren't really an issue.

First time I walk in I'm expecting the fight to at least start the same way it used to (I take an invisible character around with skeletons to kill the minor enemies while the rest of my party hangs back)....so basically within 3 seconds of entering the room my face looks like this

Those of you who have played this know exactly why. The short and skinny of it is that everybody came straight for my unsuspecting party and we died in a very pathetic and demeaning fashion.
Next round:
I use a project image so I can get all my buffs up without *really* using them. My cleric has got all his fighting spells up and is weilding Crom F. and Defender of East Haven. He's got six attacks per round, all doing full damage, and his thaco is in the negative teens (I don't even waste my time with energy blades at this point, well rarely at least

). Right now he kicks more butt than you can put a sticker on. We walk in guns blazing, everyone is hasted and buffed and ready to spray dragon chunks all over the walls. First we go for the wyverns. Now let me say I love the +4 axe, the knockback was invaluable for getting me out of that corner. We move out into the open and between the frost salamanders, wyverns, and Abizigal, the purple dragon can't get close to enough. So she's just sulking in the southern portion of the cavern. We take down the wyverns with ease, Rill was the only even slightly challenging one. Then my mage and cleric equip energy blades (ok so I lied), we move my fighters in and they all use a whirlwind attack immediately after my breach spell gets through to her. Very nearly instant death. All this time we've been simply running from Abizigal and doing as little damage to him as possible, now we turn the guns on him and his human form is done in seconds, then he changes. I move in with my berserker and barbarian and we starting unloading on him, trying to eat through those stoneskins. All I can think about at this point is that sweet sword he's got and I barely catch the message: "Firkraag: Imprisonment: (PC)" :speech: I run away as quickly as I can. The improved haste actually makes me faster than the spell chasing me, I put some distance between it and then cast Enrage. The spell casts, I see my manly arm flex, hope is restored. Then the spell hits me and I find out the hard way that enrage doesn't matter if you cast it after imprisonment was cast.

Anyway, the next try went the same way except I survived the imprisonment and killed him.

boo's daddy · Post by **boo's daddy** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:28 am

Ah, memories.

While we're on Abazigal, the first time I fought (unmodded) it totally chunked me several times. An invisible dragon? No fair!

I don't remember the details, except one. But it was one of those combats where you just can't figure out how to land damage on it. It seemed that no matter what I tried, we got devoured and never got close.

I think after the third or fourth reload I finally did it. I had lasted long enough to do a fair bit of damage, but all buffs, project images, vhailor's helm sims, etc were spent and I was at the stage of running away to drink the last healing potions, etc. 3 out of 6 characters dead, all the others nearly dead, but then Jan plugged him with a crossbow and he went down.

snoopyofour · Post by **snoopyofour** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:12 am

Ha ha!! Jan!? God, I think the only thing I have that's even close to that was when Immy killed Sarevok BG1 in the final battle with a shortbow. The first time I fought Draconis I got lucky. While he was in human form, Sarevok hit him with a smite and knocked him into a space between a pillar and a wall. We closed in on him and started beating him so that when he shifted, he was trapped. From there it was a simple process of casting true sight and taking him down with energy blades.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:25 am

Draconis won me over a bug only - He couldnt be killed (reached 1 HP and would never go down, except perhaps with atribute drain, which I couldnt do) and I had to install a patch and take him down. He was easy even with Ascencion, I had only to reload twice (the strategy got really clear into my mind after one of the draconnettes started to level drain me).

However I had improved Sendai in the first run through the game with some component on an obscure mod, and she was really a nightmare, I spent hours and hours figuring out how to even deal damage to her. In the end, however, she came down with a lucky dispell from carsormyr (holy Keldorn strikes again!). She has always been my worst nightmare, even worst than Demogorgon (not the improved version though, which brings you THE challenge).

boo's daddy · Post by **boo's daddy** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:39 am

Heh.

My mind is so fogged that I got the wrong Dragon too... that was supposed to be about Draconis

The one and only time I've killed Kangaxx was a good one.

I planned to use the Protection from Magic scroll to duff him up, then nip round the Twisted Rune before it wore off.

So, we all (Kensai>Thief, Aerie, Nalia, Jaheira, someone else) cowered at the door while Keldorn strode manfully to the sarcophagus. Off came the lid and we did battle.

Carsomyr worked through the first incarnation nicely. Once I remembered to cast the Protection from Magic

rolleyes

, Kangaxx was going down fast. I had just sat back smugly, waiting to collect the XP, when it happened: Kangaxx panicked. Suddenly, the floating skull had scooted round Keldorn and was heading for my party at top speed!

Instant flashback: panicked enemies sometimes recover their composure and revert to attacking or, in this case, plonking your party into an eternity of imprisonment. I had visions of him coming to his senses in our midst and wasting the lot of us.

So we all legged it around the sarcophagus. I now had the ridiculous situation of the party of the party of five going "run away! run away" anti-clockwise round the room, "pursued" by a madly darting floating skull, with Keldorn bringing up the rear shouting "Stand still and be righteously pounded, undead filth!"

Two things saved me: Kangaxx's random, high speed flight didn't quite managed to catch up with us at a time to coincide with his reverting back to hostile, and Keldorn's potion of speed.

After a few rounds of cat and mouse, SPLAT. That was that, and we headed off to the Twisted Rune for afters.

And so to bed.

snoopyofour · Post by **snoopyofour** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:53 am

My first victory over kangaax involved every buff in the game, lots and lots of lower resistance, an army of summoned critters, reaheheheally big guys with big swords, and many reloads. Now its down to a science.
@Luis, is Improved Sendai part of ascension? I killed her a few days ago and haven't played since but she doesn't seem any harder. But I've heard a method thats supposed to be an easy kill for Improved Sendai.

Improved Irenicus gave me fits. I only recently fought him because its taken me a long time to find a team that was worth taking through the game. I finally made one which consisted of a elven barbarian (pc), cleric of Lothander, elven cleric/mage. I love this team and I was so pissed when the Ascension battle glitched. We'd gone through watchers keep so we were pretty high level by the final fight but its was still tough. Basically, after a few tries of standing still and trying to kill Jon and his minions as they come I realized this was an excellent recipe for brutal unforgiving death and adjusted. The next time, I summoned a lot of skeletons next to the stairs with the Wraith of Wrath. The battle starts and my team takes off for that stair case. Vhailor's helm was infinetly useful here because the Wraith of Wrath has an incredible AC. My barbarian and my fully buffed cleric were both having a hard time hitting him. Eventually my barbarian and his sim cast Critical Strike and together were able to turn the guy into sushi. To the sword of Grief comes in, I hate this thing so much. Level drain on hit and invulnerability to everything but magic damage (note: not elemental damage). But I set up a chain contingency with 2 ADHW's and that nuked him fast. Then the beholder made his way in, by now my cleric/mage is very very dead and my cleric can't raise him because the damn beholder keeps disrupting spells and when I finally get it off, the dragon wingbuffets (cheapest thing ever) and kills him again. So now I realize that I've got to take down the dragon. I run out with my barbarian, open my inventory, search through my bag of holding and find something extremely disturbing. Azuredge is useable only by good characters. AAAAERRRRGHTALJDFOA (this noise really did come out of my throat). I took the evil path for Sarevok and now I am incapable of using the only projectile weapon I have. I try fighting the dragon head on but his wingbuffets make it impossible. The only advantage I have is that now I can ressurect my cleric/mage. I do so, but my barbarian is still getting his butt handed to him by the dragon who has currently trapped him in the lower stairwell, Jon is also casting at him but pro magic damage is currently protecting him from the brunt of it. Out of ideas, I summon a fallen deva and send him to attack the dragon, the dragon turns around and starts dealing massive damage but thankfully he distracts him long enough for my barbarian to sneak in and finish him with two GWW attacks. Now for Jon Bon, he has an infinite number of pro. magic. weapons and I forgot to bring along my regular katana so basically my barbarian starts running around just beating the crap out of him with his fist. finally, he goes down and my barbarian is able to wait out the last pro.magic. weapons and finish him off with a blow from CF. Then next part of the battle starts, Jon disables my party members and goes slayer. :laugh: No problem, a highlevel barbarian is more than a match for the slayer. He's dead in a couple of rounds. Then the THIRD!!! part of the match starts.

At this point I'm done caring about things like cheap strategies and cheesiness, at a certain level of outrageousness my moral compass gets shattered. I cast pro. magic and just run around smacking him until at long last he dies. Whew! I HATE this fight.