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Slums Sewers

Nad charges headfirst into the first group of hobgoblins since he still has his key buffs. He takes out the shamans first, then the captain, the elite, and finally the archers and warrior.



He takes the opposite approach to get the hand.



Nad backstabs the kobold shaman and kills the rest of the kobolds before they even have a chance to turn hostile .

After talking to Quallo and learning of the blade, he scouts the second group of hobgoblins (his haste has expired so he's not so keen to charge in recklessly). Their shaman is at the back of the group and has his back to a wall so he cannot be backstabbed; so Nad retreats, dons his plate, and approaches the group from the other side.



He gets the clues from the pipes, backstabs Quallo's pet, talks to Quallo to get the order, and obtains Lilarcor (though he cannot identify it yet since his potion of insight has expired). Nad cannot use two handed swords but he may keep hold of Lilarcor for its immunities to charm and confusion.

Approaching the slaver stockade, Nad ponders what buffs he needs for the fight ahead...

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Sidenote:
I know for a fact that the shadows do hurt you in the Circus Tent, even if you ignore them, unlike the werewolves.

Thanks for the support guys!

Slaver Stockade

Nad cannot haste because he is under the effects of a potion of freedom; and besides he is fast running out of oils of speed, there is a danger he is becoming addicted to them! Instead, he swigs a potion of invulnerability - the +5 saves will help and the AC0 allows him to keep his leather on and hide in the shadows before entering the stockade.

Nad goes after the priest first and one shots him with a backstab. The fighters immediately converge on him and they are all swigging giant strength potions - yikes! Thankfully Nad's -7AC is saving him from too many hits, but when they do land they are nasty - the melee fighters do around 20 damage a shot .

This fight is spoiled slightly by a bug - Captain Haegan comes within view to launch his speech, but after Nad tells him that "reasons don't matter to the dead", he just stands around and does nothing . I don't know which mod is causing this behaviour, I would suspect SCSII since that is the one that affects how enemies behave. It's a shame because Haegan is supposed to be the main danger of this group. Instead Nad can just concentrate on the melee fighters and take them out one by one.



Nad's giant strength and freedom potions actually expire in the middle of this melee. As the opponents continue to arrive he swigs another stone giant strength potion to keep his kill rate as quick as possible.

After taking out the 6 melee fighters Nad goes after the archers one by one. With Haegan still statue-esque, Nad briefly leaves his line of sight to hide.



He backstabs the captain and then finishes him off in melee, with Haegan not even attacking. It's like he's been feebleminded or something .

On Haegan's corpse Nad finds the Bracers of Archery. For a party these are a good find; but Nad will not be firing a bow too often, so they're not that useful to him. He also takes Haegan's enchanted studded leather (which he cannot identify yet) - that'll be an upgrade to his own base studded leather!

Nad opens the eastern door and attacks the trolls, opening with a backstab. After knocking them down he finishes them with arrows of fire that he took from the kobold commandos in the sewers.

He frees the girl and then also the other children in the holds. This earns him a level up to Thief 13. This is excellent news - Nad has now reached his peak backstabbing potential, with a x5 multiplier! Lethal . He also starts putting his skill points into Detect Illusions - the focus for this and the next 3 level ups is to get Detect Illusions to 100% so he can combat high level mages and thieves more effectively.

Nad unleashes his enhanced backstab on the yuan-ti. He dispatches the first quickly but the second is tricky. Even normal Yuan-Ti are nasty with SCSII - they have a very good THACO and hit hard. I suspect they may be coded as kensai with lots of proficiency points in longsword and single weapon style. Nad takes a lot of damage but eventually defeats the Yuan-Ti.

Finally it is time to face the slaver mages and the rest of the guards. For this fight Nad uses his remaining DUHM and also enrages.



Do you really want to get in Nad's way?

The enrage means that Nad is more-or-less immune to anything the mages can do (except direct damage). Nad can therefore go after the fighters first while the mages futilely unleash their spellbooks at him.



Nad gets Confusion, Emotion, Charm, Dire Charm, Glitterdust and more thrown at him, but his invulnerability enhanced saves and berserker rage keep him totally safe. He takes out the fighters first, then the archers, and then finally begins to work away on the mages' stoneskins.

Uh-oh. Turns out there is something the mages can do to him .



Ray of Enfeeblement?! STR 5?! Haha. It looks like Nad's invulnerability wore off and he fails to save against Enfeeblement. He cannot move but he is already within range of one of the wizards and finishes him off.

And then Nad's enrage wears off, and he cannot reach the second mage...so he has to equip a shortbow .



If there were more enemies left I think Nad could counter the Enfeeblement by drinking another giant strength potion. But it hardly seems worth it against one mage who has exhausted his spell book and is now throwing darts .

Er...whoops. Turns out the mage does have one trick left. From somewhere he finds another Confusion...and Nad fails his save!

Nad's Enfeeblement is now a blessing...he cannot move so there is no risk of him walking into the trap on the stairs . The danger now is if the mage has a bunch of magic missiles and chromatic orbs that he has been holding back (though it would take a lot of them to get through Nad's 89HP+ 1HP/round).

This is a funny sight...an Enfeebled and Confused Nad walking on an invisible treadmill .


As it happens the mage does not have any damage spells left (he does cast another Ray of Enfeeblement but Nad saves against it). Once the Enfeeblement and Confusion wear off, Nad easily dispatches him.

Nad loots the compound (the Cloak of Protection +1 is very welcome) and heads back to the Coronet. Hendak is standing just where Nad left him - no worries there . And finally Nad gets some luck from the Randomiser - Hendak's reward includes the Helm of Glory. That's excellent news - +1AC and Charisma is a big upgrade on the Helm of Infravision he took from Irenicus' Dungeon.

Nad sells his surplus loot to Joluv and has over 14k gold. As it is now night, the next step is for Nad to go see some of the shady merchants that trade after nightfall and see what they might have to offer.

Slums

Nad talks to the thief merchant near the Jansen home and inspects her goods - she has nothing he wants. He stops in at Gaelan Bayle's home to see Areldrian again, and purchases his small stock of speed, absorption and extra healing potions. He runs into Habib on his way round the slums and is ambushed by thugs on the roof of the Coronet.



Since they all start invisible Nad tries to detect illusions and move around, dodging their attacks. He needn't have bothered, only 1 of the 4 hit with their backstabs (Nad's AC of -7 generally keeps him safe from the attacks of non-warrior classes at this early stage of the game). The ruffian captain has several potions - as well as freedom, magic shielding and extra healing, he uses 3 invisibility pots but misses every time with his backstab . Nad soon dispatches the would-be muggers.

The black market thief next to the Temple of Ilmater also has nothing Nad wants, though Nad does buy the Temple's 2 extra healing potions and a potion of insight. He runs into Habib again (thanks for the 20 gold - your 2HP of damage will regenerate in precisely 12 seconds ). After drinking the insight potion Nad can identify Lilarcor, but still not the studded leather.

Nad briefly goes to the Graveyard to get the spirit child quest (he is not in any position to rob the tombs or explore the lower crypts yet). He returns to the Coronet and confronts Llynis. Llynis uses an invisibility potion and backstabs Nad - unfortuately for him, his backstabs aren't quite as deadly as Nad's.





Nad talks to Bernard on the way out and purchases a couple of Restoration scrolls from him (never know when you might need those). He also takes note of some of Bernard's better scrolls, especially Simulacrum, which he will definitely purchase in the future. Bernard's stock has randomly been assigned the Girdle of Fortitude and the Efreeti Bottle, but Nad isn't particularly interested in those. He returns to the Graveyard to give the teddy back to Wellyn.

Nad decides to take a mini-tour of some of the other districts to see what is happening there at night. First he heads for the City Gates.

City Gates

Nad is ambushed on his way to the Gates, but the bandits have a change of heart .


When he gets to the Gates, Nad witnesses another confrontation.



Nad is happy to profit from the loot.

Government District

Nad is accosted by the guards ("they're at the Gates you fools!"). His mind focusing potions have worn off, so Nad nips in to the Temple of Waukeen to buy a couple more. With his regeneration, low AC and healthy stock of healing potions, Nad is feeling brave tonight.



He takes out the priest first and then the fighters.

The Bridge

Nad is ambushed again but word is certainly spreading among the bandit community.



However the muggers in the Bridge District didn't get the missive. They try to rob Nad (again, only 1 out of 4 hits with a backstab) and soon regret it.

Nad meets the Cutpurse merchant next to the derelict house and purchases a potion of regeneration and a couple of polymorph self scrolls for the future. Mrs Cragmoon is also around but Nad is running a little low on coin and doesn't purchase any more potions from her for now.

Waukeen's Promenade

Nad meets Jayes and purchases an Improved Haste scroll from him for 2500gp. Again, he can't use it for a long time but this will be a lethal spell for Nad (he now in fact has 2 Improved Haste scrolls, he also found one on Lehtinan's body). Nad returns briefly to the Mithrest to reorganise his inventory and prepares to go to the only Athkatla district he has not yet visited, the Docks.

Docks

Nad runs into more thugs in the Docks and these guys are more competent. Nad takes several backstabs (again the captain has several invisibility potions which he uses). In fact some of the thugs walked out of Nad's line of sight and re-hid in the shadows for another backstab! That's not something you see in vanilla. Nad has to use healing and extra healing potions to stay alive.

Immediately after the thugs Nad faces the mad cleric. The cleric opens with a Poison which Nad saves against, but that's the only spell he gets off. The shadow thief guard invites Nad to enter the guildhall.

Before that Nad quickly explores the thugs' hideout and goes to Valygar's house to question Hervo. The Temple of Oghma next door has nothing that Nad wants.

Nad returns to the shadow thief guildhall and accepts Renal's quest. He goes to Mae'Var's guild and presents his letter to Gorch. He goes down to see Mae'Var and accepts his first task.

He returns to Gorch to trade and purchases several potions: speed, explosion, 2 x invisibility and 2 x freedom. Gorch also has Boots of Stealth for sale, but Nad's natural sneaking skills will be fine. Boots of Speed are what he really wants, possibly combined with Boots of Grounding for the Stormlord's Heels.

Nad explores the southwest Docks area and purchases 3 more potions of explosion from Fovem. He returns Renfeld to Rylock and runs into Xzar. Xzar's offer to tell Nad where Irenicus is piques his interest, so he accepts the quest. Rylock instructs Nad to clear out Prebek's home, but first Nad wants to go the Temple of Talos while it's still dark to steal the Weathermistress' amulet.

Returning to the Temple district, Nad loots the Temple of Talos and runs into this interesting bug.



Weathermistress Ada is both asleep and awake! It's 3am, maybe she can't make up her mind . Thankfully Nad is able to pick the chest without any alarm being sounded, and he is relieved to sneak out of the temple unscathed.

On the way back to the Docks Nad briefly stops at the Copper Coronet to question Suna Seni. He learns that Valygar may be at his cabin in the Umar Hills.

Nad returns to the Docks and gives Mae'Var the amulet. Mae'Var sends Nad to see Edwin, who orders the death of Rayic Gethras. Sure thing Eddy. But not yet...a high level wizard is beyond Nad's current ability. Instead Nad prepares to enter Prebek's home...

An update on Nad's current stats and equipment.




The next big ticket item Nad wants to save up for is arrows of dispelling. The trouble is he keeps seeing potions everywhere that he simply has to have... .

Prebek's House

Nad's drug cocktail is frost giant strength, clarity, speed and freedom.



Nad starts by cutting apart the ghast closest to him while the mages unleash remove magic and slow, both of which Nad resists. And then he unleashes his secret weapon.



A potion of firebreath is enough to take out both mages and the second ghast. Nad finishes the flesh golem with Arbane's sword.

All those drugs for a fight that lasted 4 rounds . But he had to have the defences in place or he may have been slowed or confused or whatnot.

Among the loot Nad finds a Wand of Magic Missiles and what looks like a Horn of Valhalla (though he can't identify it). So he runs to the Temple of Oghma to buy a potion of genius, and identifes the Silver Horn of Valhalla as well as the Studded Leather +2 he's been lugging around since the Captain Haegan fight. This is a good find - Nad now has a summon. He also has a diamond at the Mithrest that he could use to upgrade the horn. And the Wand of Magic Missiles is also useful to interrupt stoneskinned mages.

With so many buffs in place Nad stops at the Sea's Bounty on the way back. He finds the secret door and enters...

Pirate Cave

I know from past experience this can be a very tough fight. So Nad starts by summoning the berserker warrior with the horn to buy himself some time and draw some of the early attacks. The pirate mage responds by casting chaos at the berserker, but the berserker and Nad both save (Nad was safe anyway from his potion of clarity and even a confused berserker would have served Nad's purpose).



Nad is still working on the first pirate when the berserker perishes - he sure didn't last long!



Nad soon kills the first pirate but the rest of them are scarily buffed - they have all drunk giant strength potions, and some have speed, clarity, freedom and whatnot. The mage has cast Shadow Door, and Nad does not want to give him free reign to cast spells (Nad is worried about Emotion and Remove Magic in the main). So Nad chuggs invisibility and begins to detect illusions.

Gotcha



Now Nad can concentrate on the fighters and interrupt the mage with the Wand of Magic Missiles. So he opens with a backstab as the mage begins to cast a spell.



Nad uses the wand but the mage has magic resistance. Yikes! He casts Minor Globe of Invulnerability, so the wand won't be useful at all now. Nad keeps hitting the second pirate but he is also taking a pasting in return. As soon as he kills him, Nad chugs another invisibility and then also a potion of regeneration to heal.

The mage casts Confusion centred on himself, but that's no use. Nad waits for the regeneration to heal him and the Minor Globe to wear off. Then all of a sudden...



The mage starts casting a divination spell. Rather than let his invisibility go to waste, Nad unleashes a backstab. The mage casts Oracle while Nad continues to melee. The mage's Minor Globe wears off and he begins casting a second spell, so Nad quickly uses the wand...magic resistance again. Where's he getting it from? He didn't drink magic protection or anything at the start, I scrolled the log and checked. The mage casts Chaos but Nad is immune thanks to his clarity.

Nad continues to work on the third pirate but is still taking a beating. The mage starts a third spell which Nad again fails to stop with the wand. It is...Remove Magic. Yikes! Nad, already badly injured, starts to run away from the pirate captain as the spell hits...but he resists and his defences are not dispelled. Phew!



Nad desperately needs to drink invisibility to heal but he has no aura, having just used the wand. He uses his speed to stay away from the captain until his aura clears and he can chugg invisibility. The mage summons monsters and Nad waits for his regeneration to heal him and for the summoned monsters to leave.



Once Nad is healed and the monsters are gone, he finishes the third pirate with a backstab, leaving just the captain and the mage. The mage begins to cast and Nad uses the wand again. Finally the Magic Missile hits...but the spell is not interrupted. Damn you SCSII! You promised me your mages would not get uninterruptable spells . The mage finishes Flame Arrow but Nad saves for half damage.

Nad is now working on the captain and has the upper hand. The next Magic Missile to interrupt the mage is blocked by magic resistance again and Nad takes another Flame Arrow - but this time he fails his save and is in terrible trouble with just 14HP left. With no aura once again, a single hit from the captain will kill him...so Nad runs for it .


He stays out of the captain's way just long enough to chugg invisibility...and it is in the nick of time, as the mage was beginning to cast a spell but can no longer target Nad.

Nad waits to heal but his speed, clarity and regeneration all expire. He drinks healing potions to speed his recovery but he doesn't have another potion of clarity. He should be ok though as the mage is probably out of disabling spells.

Once healed, Nad backstabs and then melees the captain; the mage hits Nad with a Magic Missile. With the captain dead, Nad can take his excellent longsword (he now has one in each hand) and go to work on the mage's stoneskins. But the mage keeps casting Magic Missiles and walking away. Without haste Nad cannot stay on top of him and sucks up more and more damage .



Nad tries to interrupt some of the spells with his wand but it proves futile. Nad continues to suck up Magic Missiles and then Acid Arrows and has to use healing potions until he finally gets rid of the stoneskins and can finish the mage.

What a horrible fight .



A battered, bruised but victorious Nad leaves the pirate cave and the Sea's Bounty, his invisibility stock greatly depleted.

Nad goes back to Rylock to tell him Prebek's house is cleared and levels up to Thief 14.

Could you explain your intermittent references to 'aura' in context of wands/potions etc.?

Sure. Apart from attacking with a weapon, a character can only take one action per round, which is 6 seconds. So if you cast a spell, use a wand, read a scroll, drink a potion or whatever, you cannot take any other action except for attack for 6 seconds.

So for example when Nad used the Wand of Magic Missiles but it failed, he wanted to drink a potion of invisibility. But because he'd just used the wand, he couldn't drink the potion for 6 seconds. During that time he could attack or run - those were his only options. Once the 6 seconds had expired, he could then drink the potion.

Aura is simply the term used by the game to define this. When you use a non-attack action you get "aura", which takes 6 seconds to clear. That's why if you ever use Improved Alacrity, you will see the "aura cleansed" message each time you cast a spell. That's the Improved Alacrity spell dispelling the aura allowing you to cast another spell immediately.

You know I've played this game for, well since ToB came out, and I never could figure out what 'aura cleansed' was about, thank you.

In a way I'm actually disappointed, I was hoping one of the mods you are using had found a way to block the abuse of potions. In 'real' AD&D taking more than one potion at a time is fraught with risk. The odds are neither potion will work or be cancelled. There is also a slight chance that both will work with varying degrees of effectiveness, and a 1% chance one of the potions effect will be permanent, but a chance (more than 1% IIRC) that the character will explode, with death being permanent. Unfortunately Bioware didn't implement this, either because it was too difficult, or they couldn't be bothered.

I still think they should have found a way to limit, or prevent, taking multiple potions, if they had of course Nad would be in real trouble.

Haha, yeah, Nad is a dodo without potions.

They didn't really implement any magic clash issues. If you're going to restrict potions, you also have to do something about the ridiculous number of defences a mage puts up.

Jaheira's Wit wrote:Haha, yeah, Nad is a dodo without potions.

They didn't really implement any magic clash issues. If you're going to restrict potions, you also have to do something about the ridiculous number of defences a mage puts up.

I agree, some of the defensive spells they came out with in late 2nd Edition are ridiculous; stoneskin (and Ironskins) is an abomination IMHO. That and a fair few other over-powerful spells wouldn't feature in any campaign I DM'd, for either side.

It is my solemn duty to report that Nad perished at approximately 8.30 this morning. May he RIP .

So Nad completed the Harper Quest without issue. He used the considerable loot he acquired from the Estate and Xzar and combined it with his other savings to purchase a bundle of arrows of dispelling. He now felt confident enough to go after Rayic Gethras.

The mephits were dealt with swiftly, Nad using his potions of icedust to mitigate the fire damage. Nad then used the absorption potion he purchased from Arledrian to help deal with the stone golems (only Arbane's sword could touch them). He took his usual cocktail and went up to see Rayic Gethras.

Nad told Rayic Gethras he would leave immediately. Instead of leaving, Nad fired an arrow of dispelling at him, dispelling his stoneskin. Yay. Rayic Gethras responded by casting Protection from Magical Weapons. "Haha" thought Nad, "Gotcha!" He fired another arrow of dispelling.

Weapon Ineffective.

Excuse me? I must be seeing things. Fire again. Missed. Rayic Gethras is casting another spell. Fire again. Hit!

Weapon Ineffective.

Now the description on the arrows of dispelling specifically says they are considered to be non-enchanted when determining what they can hit. And Nad is using just an excellent short bow. He is not using any magical weapon. So the arrows should dispel the Protection from Magical Weapons and leave Gethras helpless. But they are not.

Rayic Gethras finishes casting his spell, Sphere of Chaos. Whatever the effect is that hits Nad I do not know, but he must have failed his save and he dies instantly.

Game over .

I do not know what mod or effect it is that's causing arrows of dispelling to be ineffective against Protection from Magical Weapons. But clearly that's wrong. And it's very annoying. My entire anti-mage strategy for Nad was built around arrows of dispelling smashing through their protections. If that doesn't work Nad doesn't stand a chance in the rest of the game, so he may as well give up now given how many mages he's going to have to face.

Back to square one.

So it looks like a pure melee character probably cannot solo BG2 with the mods I have installed. Even if I had UAI, there aren't enough scrolls of Breach in the game to deal with the mages and liches I will have to face. And with the Randomiser, there's no telling where things like Cloak of Mirroring, Shield of Balduran, scrolls of Protection from Magic and weapons like Carsomyr will be. And tbh, Nad probably couldn't defeat the guardians of these items anyway.

So it looks like I have to use a magic using character if I want to have a chance at this solo .

Is it possible that one of the mods has fixed the 'glitch' that allows a weapons effect to work on a target even if the weapon can't hit it?

In vanilla for example fire from flame blades, fire arrows or dispelling from arrows will affect the target even if they have stoneskin on.

You don't have to complete all side quests before going to Spellhold of course, so you could leave mage fights until later.

The real problem could be the randomising of item placement, if you could rely on finding items where they 'belong' a lot of your problems would be reduced.

Not resting doesn't help, if it wasn't for that restriction then enrage would make mage battles less lethal. In Chateau Irenicus and a few other places not resting makes sense, but not in most places.

I think saving your money to buy certain items, like the Efreeti Bottle or the Simulacrum helm would have helped. Relying on enrage and spending more skill points on HIS and Stealth rather than Detect Illusion (which I've never known to work!) might have helped too.

Rayic Gethras was protected from magical weapons. So normal weapons should affect him. Nad was using a non-magical bow and arrows that are considered non-magical too. So the arrows *should* have hit Gethras and his defenses *should* have been dispelled. Hell, if Nad had known the arrows wouldn't work, he would simply have shifted to his longswords and finished off Gethras (his stoneskins were gone because the first arrow struck).

I would understand if it were a lich, because a lich is immune to non-magical wepons. And if Rayic Gethras had cast Protection from Normal Weapons or Mantle, that too would be ok. But he cast Protection from Magical Weapons, which is precisely the spell that arrows of dispelling are meant to counter. So it's bizarre they proved ineffective. It has to be an SCSII issue - that's the mod that's changing +1 weapons into non-magical weapons and fiddling with how the spells work.

To be honest, any level-ups that Nad gets between now and when he gets HLAs are an irrelevance. Whoopie, 2 more HPs and 25 skill points. Going to Spellhold early and trying to fight mages later wouldn't change much - he still has to fight plenty of mages in the main storyline (Irenicus in Spellhold for starters!) and then there's all the lethal opponents in the Underdark. Nay, Nad needs to be as high level as possible before embarking on the main storyline.

And besides, he's already Thief 14. His speed of levelling up is insane. Before long Nad is going to be getting the highest level dungeon spawns - which means liches all over the place .

I don't think not resting is an issue. Nad still had an Enrage available - he just didn't think he'd need it (and I'm not sure what difference it would have made in the Sphere of Chaos - maybe just +2 to save vs spells. Enrage doesn't protect against immolation or disintegration, which is probably what happened). Even with Enrage, Nad's save vs spells would have been 7 - which means a Finger of Death, Symbol: Death, heck even an Abi-Dalzim's would have a pretty strong chance of killing him.

My thinking was that Nad's best chance against mages was to attack - dispel with arrows and swoop in asap. Nad is not equipped to get into a chess match against them (and Enrage only lasts for about a minute anyway - SCSII mages are more than competent enough to protect themselves for a lot longer).

You're absolutely right that Randomiser makes a huge difference to the difficulty. You cannot just go equipment hunting if you don't know where anything is! But I wouldn't have it any other way. It makes the game far better IMO, you have to confront each encounter instead of just working out the optimal path to get the best items to make other encounters trivial. And the joy of getting a key item with Randomiser is amazing. You really feel like you've earned it. Randomiser is the one mod I cannot live without.

The Simulacrum Helm is randomised! All the good items, including those owned by merchants, are randomised. Nad's stealth ability was never an issue btw. Nad had natural 80% in both HiS and MS, and with his permanent mind focusing potions, both skills were at 100%. Detect Illusions is absolutely essential though - it's the single best anti-illusion ability in the game! It goes through everything - SI: Divination or Abjuration, Non-Detection, nothing can stop it. Once you get Detect Illusions to 100%, all you need to do is spend 1 round detecting (and the great thing is you can detect even while wearing armour) and all enemy invisibility gets dispelled - mirror images, shadow doors, improved invisibility, mislead, project image etc. It's a gamechanger.

I enjoyed reading about the adventure! RIP to nad.

galraen wrote:Is it possible that one of the mods has fixed the 'glitch' that allows a weapons effect to work on a target even if the weapon can't hit it?

In vanilla for example fire from flame blades, fire arrows or dispelling from arrows will affect the target even if they have stoneskin on.

In all fairness, I'm reasonably sure this only applied to Stoneskin or Ironskins, not to things like Mantle and Protection from Magical Weapons.

vaypah wrote:In all fairness, I'm reasonably sure this only applied to Stoneskin or Ironskins, not to things like Mantle and Protection from Magical Weapons.

My post isn't applicable to anything that gives appropriate magical defence; I wasn't sure about Protection from Magical Weapons.

Jaheira's Wit wrote:...Rayic Gethras finishes casting his spell, Sphere of Chaos. Whatever the effect is that hits Nad I do not know, but he must have failed his save and he dies instantly.

There's a chance of disintegration.

My strategy for dealing with Rayic early using a solo melee char is to drink 1 or 2 Fire Resistance potions (they stack to 100% if 2), and then activate the trap right beside him. The trap launches a fireball that doesn't make Rayic hostile and doesn't become untrapped. Three fireballs usually bring him down. I know that's a pretty dumb way to deal with him, but I figure he cheats anyways (if you run downstairs and return or if he follows you, then he gets all his stoneskins back endlessly).

Jaheira's Wit wrote:My entire anti-mage strategy for Nad was built around arrows of dispelling smashing through their protections. If that doesn't work Nad doesn't stand a chance in the rest of the game, so he may as well give up now given how many mages he's going to have to face.

Sadly, if the arrows had worked against PfMWeapons, then you'd have been pretty messed up by Liches being immune to non-magic weapons, so I think a dispel-strategy is out from the start. Perhaps the Protection from Undead scrolls have not been randomized though (I haven't used that mod, but it sounds nice), and are certainly effective against undead.

I think a valid strategy to consider it more running. It's pretty hard I suppose, but if you're able to keep some areas behind you clear then hopefully you can run and hide or at least let their defense spells cool off. Another decent strategy mentioned earlier would be to collect more summons like the Genie to soak up spells. It's unfortunate you can't rely on the positioning of the Staff of Fire, because it's certainly near the top as the most broken-powerful summon item in the game (around 20 charges of 16HD elementals immune to regular weapons but with no AI script), unless it's description/effect mismatch was fixed by one of your mods. I think I'd prefer the running strategy myself. If I were Nad and not cheese-killed by some mage-hackery, I'd have returned to Edwin to let him know that he's out of luck for now.

If you restart as another fighter, consider using 2 proficiency points in a larger variety of weapons (Celestial Fury is certainly a powerful choice if you find it, but Stiletto of Demarchess (description isn't correct in vanilla; it might be casting Hold Monster without area effect, this is actually quite strong but +2 won't hit everything) and Pixie Prick (against mages and thieves) are similarly nice. The Sleeper flail is okay.) since you can't rely on finding what you wanted. I had a solo Dwarf Kensai in Vanilla that would swap between Celestial Fury and Pixie Prick depending on what he was fighting (he held both always, but the main hand was whichever was more likely to work). That was fairly effective. Surely you can rely on the placement of the Flail of Ages though, which is a very effective weapon in most circumstances.

Thank you for your comments. To address some of the points raised.

Brevan wrote: My strategy for dealing with Rayic early using a solo melee char is to drink 1 or 2 Fire Resistance potions (they stack to 100% if 2), and then activate the trap right beside him. The trap launches a fireball that doesn't make Rayic hostile and doesn't become untrapped. Three fireballs usually bring him down. I know that's a pretty dumb way to deal with him, but I figure he cheats anyways (if you run downstairs and return or if he follows you, then he gets all his stoneskins back endlessly).

That's really clever actually . Never considered anything like that. I usually just disarm all traps, so I never know what the traps actually are. Touch on the dairy side though.

The reason I have so many mods installed is to make it difficult and to avoid cheesy tactics. Nad could deal with Rayic Gethras just by standing next to the stairs and running up and down as he begins casting a spell. And once his spell book is depleted, finish him off. But...what would be the point? It's silly.

In hindsight I figured out exactly what I should have done and it's so easy. I should have just hit him straight away with a potion of firebreath (I think I had some) or potions of explosion. I don't think he had a protection from fire and he doesn't have many HPs. One or two potions would have felled him immediately irrespective of what weapon defences he put up. But still that would only get me through a handful of mage encounters. There's only a few of those potions, but there's 80 arrows of dispelling.

Brevan wrote:Sadly, if the arrows had worked against PfMWeapons, then you'd have been pretty messed up by Liches being immune to non-magic weapons, so I think a dispel-strategy is out from the start. Perhaps the Protection from Undead scrolls have not been randomized though (I haven't used that mod, but it sounds nice), and are certainly effective against undead.

Oh absolutely, I knew the arrows wouldn't work against liches. I hadn't actually worked out what I was going to do against liches . Run away possibly! Or wait until HLAs for UAI and use scrolls as if I were a mage. Actually most of my late game strategy was a rather hazy "I'll have UAI by then so I'll be able to cast spells from scrolls and play Nad like a F/T/M".

The protection from undead scrolls are not randomised, they are simply removed from 9 our of 10 stores. Which means there's literally only one or two scrolls in the whole of the game (so they become as rare and precious as protection from magic scrolls). Nad went to every temple in Athkatla and none of them had one...which means they might have been available at the Bynnlaw temple or possibly in the Underdark? Don't know. But really Nad only wanted those to help against vampires. SCSII liches I would think would not be so dumb as to be fooled by protection from undead scrolls. Even if they couldn't see Nad, they would probably start summoning pit fiends and whatnot if they noticed they were taking damage .

Brevan wrote:I think a valid strategy to consider it more running. It's pretty hard I suppose, but if you're able to keep some areas behind you clear then hopefully you can run and hide or at least let their defense spells cool off. Another decent strategy mentioned earlier would be to collect more summons like the Genie to soak up spells. It's unfortunate you can't rely on the positioning of the Staff of Fire, because it's certainly near the top as the most broken-powerful summon item in the game (around 20 charges of 16HD elementals immune to regular weapons but with no AI script), unless it's description/effect mismatch was fixed by one of your mods. I think I'd prefer the running strategy myself. If I were Nad and not cheese-killed by some mage-hackery, I'd have returned to Edwin to let him know that he's out of luck for now.

To be honest, apart from multiple-summons items like the staff of fire, 1 use per day summons would be almost useless to Nad. I didn't say it because I didn't know for sure it was achievable, but I was planning never to rest with Nad . Well, I would have taken the 3 free rests you get (when you go to Garren Windspear's cabin, when you go to Brynnlaw, and when you go to Hell) and I might have tried my hand at wish resting late in the game if I had UAI, a Wish scroll and some Simulacrum scrolls. But that would have been it. So that's why Nad just didn't bother with 1 use per day items . Besides, Nad's philosophy was that he could absorb spells himself with the right combination of drugs and items...

Brevan wrote:If you restart as another fighter, consider using 2 proficiency points in a larger variety of weapons (Celestial Fury is certainly a powerful choice if you find it, but Stiletto of Demarchess (description isn't correct in vanilla; it might be casting Hold Monster without area effect, this is actually quite strong but +2 won't hit everything) and Pixie Prick (against mages and thieves) are similarly nice. The Sleeper flail is okay.) since you can't rely on finding what you wanted. I had a solo Dwarf Kensai in Vanilla that would swap between Celestial Fury and Pixie Prick depending on what he was fighting (he held both always, but the main hand was whichever was more likely to work). That was fairly effective. Surely you can rely on the placement of the Flail of Ages though, which is a very effective weapon in most circumstances.

I have true grandmastery installed, so the difference between ** and ***** is pretty huge. So I think Nad realistically has to choose specific weapons and go ***** rather than spread his proficiency points around. And flails was definitely going to be his second grandmaster weapon after longswords!

You also have to bear in mind that Nad dualled at Fighter 7. This was early in the game so he had no problem hitting things, but late in the game and into ToB, Nad's THACO would have sucked. His base THACO would have been stuck at 10 for a Level 21 Thief. Which is dreadful by ToB standards. So he needs grandmastery to help him hit things late on. But yeah, it's a huge risk when you don't know what weapons will appear where! Conversely in a party game I have running, where I'm playing a straight Fighter who will dual to Thief at Level 13 and who is a grandmaster in longswords, I picked up the Sword of Flame, Dragonslayer and the Blade of Roses all within my first two days in Athkatla! So yeah, the unpredictability adds a whole other dimension.

I still do think it's possible to do SoA at least with a melee character, but it requires a lot of luck. Maybe a Dwarf Fighter/Thief multi would be easier because of the huge saving throw differences...you would soon have negative saves vs death and spells, so you could stop worrying about what mages can do to you. But it would take forever to get HLAs (I have them delayed until Level 21 at the earliest, which for a Fighter/Thief would mean 4.8m XP to hit Fighter 17/Thief 21). So you'd still be struggling in the late game.