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Did all 3 parts-- IWD, HoW, ToL, and I'm somewhat disappointed... Behlifet was the hardest of the three bosses mainly because you can't start buffed and because, for some reason, I couldn't get spells to register on him at all... so I just buffed myself up to the max (potions + spells) while running around the outside of outer edge of the room to avoid traps, then killed him with weapons instead after taking out the cornugons and iron golems.

On the other hand, Icasaracht was a pretty run-of-the-mill fight-- buff up ahead of time, click through dialogue, cast Lower Resistance, pelt with AoE spells to take her and the fish-people out, destroy magic bubble, the end. Luremaster was even easier-- went down with a single Disintegrate spell, game over.

I did initially hit a roadblock when I got to Yxonumei (high MR, couldn't stand toe-to-toe with her at that point due to lack of sufficient buffing spells/slots for them), so I just went and did HoW and ToL at that point, then came back later and mopped the floor with her.

One thing I noticed that kinda sucked is that I didn't gain any extra attacks from using Haste or Oil of Speed... I noticed a similar issue when I killed Drizzt in BG1 with my solo single-classed mage as well, so I'm guessing it must be an Infinity Engine thing... even if it doesn't make any sense.

Haste should double the attacks per round, maybe you think otherwise since the character sheet shows the unhasted attacks per round. Did you really test it (summon an 1 attack per round monster, enable attack rolls and count who hits how often) ?

You can start the Behilfet Battle buffed (globe of invulnerabilty protects from dispel magic), vampiric touch works well on the demon.

No, I just went by what it said on the character screen... either way, it seemed like he was attacking pretty slowly for it to be more than one per round, but oh well... spoze I could go back and turn on the "auto-pause every round" option to see if I was attacking multiple times or not... Kind curious about he globe of invulnerability thing anyway... the description says it can be brought down by dispel magic...

As for casting spells on Behlifet, my spells wouldn't register on him at all... no "magic resistance" message, no save message, no effect, no damage, no nothin'... plus, spells don't work on the Golems anyway, and I found it easier to just take them and the conrugons out (their gas clouds still hit me occasionally if I ran through them, and sometimes they'd all bunch up, and I'd have to run around them, and onto the dispel traps, while chasing Bhelifet around the room as he teleported).

Regardless, I didn't get hit at all really due to Mirror Images/Stoneskins, anti-slashing gear, and Trollish Fortitude took care of the little bit of damage I took from the gas clouds pretty quickly.

Maybe you couldn't cast spells at Behilfet since he was under the effect of "improved invisibility" which he casts sometimes.

I remember the first time I challenged Belly-fit. It was a total nightmare. It almost drove me nuts having to watch whatshisname jump into Jerrod's Stone over and over again just to reload the battle, lol. Everard, that's the guy.

My mistake was trying to treat the battle like I had all the others in the game - some ranged attack, a few spells, some summons and some hit, run and re-heal tanking.

Virtually all forms of ranged weapons are ineffective, the majority of spells are virtually ineffective (especially as Belly is pro-fire) and the traps can't be removed. Not to mention the fact that you need +4 and preferably +5 weapons in order to inflict decent tank damage.

It turned out that the longer one dallied around and tried to avoid the assaults prior to attempting to attack, the stronger Belly's position became.

Then, suddenly, on one reload I'd had enough. I just set all my characters to hand-held weapons and made them all charge at Belly at once and to hell with any getting chopped up in the process.

And Belly went down far quicker than I could ever have expected.

Every load since then I've just tanked him with Speed potioned +4 and +5 weapons. I think the quickest I did it was with a Human Fighter with the +5 Longsword and a Dwarf Fighter with either a +4 or +5 axe. Felt like seconds.

I couldn't imagine soloing with a mage, and it's battles such as this which put me off soloing in general. Yxonumei would be another, as would the Tower of Archers.

I suspect Tenser's Transformation, Improved Invisibility and a potion of Speed would be the best bet, though I'm not sure what weapon one would use, it'd be awfully slow with a Dagger :/ and you'd still be prone to Dispel Magic.

Re: Globe of Invulnerability:

In my last playthrough (see other thread) the two Golems immediately attacked my Illusionist, the AI is clever that way to target weak and low-HP characters first. So I just cast the Globe on him and had everyone else exit the inner circle. The Golems just stand there pounding him for the duration while everyone else can attack Belly on the outer-rim.

However, the first time I did this I miss-timed my assault on Belly and he got away from my tanks. When he charged in on my Illusionist my Illusionist started losing Hit Points. I've no idea what he did as I couldn't see what was going on, what with a gnome hidden behind a demon, two Golems and tuns of bellowing green smoke, and I did look for information as to why this happened but couldn't find any. The Illusionist didn't move at all from the centre of the inner ring, so it definitely wasn't a Dispel Trap.

kmonster wrote:Maybe you couldn't cast spells at Behilfet since he was under the effect of "improved invisibility" which he casts sometimes.

That would only give him a +4 bonus to his saves, not make him untargetable.... I could still target him to cast the spells on him, I just didn't get any kind of feedback message whatsoever when the spells hit-- i.e. it didn't say "magic resistance", or that he saved, or that he was immune, or anything else.. it's like the spell just disappeared.

Not the end of the world since I still beat him pretty handily, but still... found it odd.

LastDanceSaloon wrote:I couldn't imagine soloing with a mage, and it's battles such as this which put me off soloing in general.
...
I suspect Tenser's Transformation, Improved Invisibility and a potion of Speed would be the best bet, though I'm not sure what weapon one would use, it'd be awfully slow with a Dagger :/

Defense wasn't a problem-- I had a sub-minus-20 AC From gear/potions/spells, and Stonskins/Mirror Images (which I could refresh a number of times) to soak hits after that, plus, I used a Protection from Fire Scroll + Potion of Fire Resistance = 100% Fire Resistance, meaning B's damage spells were useless.

Offensively, with a Violet Potion putting me at 25 STR, even with a plain old dagger, that's 15-18 damage per hit. Add Emotion: Courage + Hope spells, and that's another +5 damage, so 20-23, add Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise and a +3 or better weapon enchantment (needed to hit him), and that's 25-28 damage per hit-- and, while he will soak a small percentage of the damage, he's vulnerable to critical hits (double damage).

Even at 1 attack/round* and given that B has 350 HP, it didn't take all that long to kill him after the other 4 monsters in the room. It didn't take seconds, no, but it wasn't a tense 30-minute fight either.

*FTR-- I turned on Auto-pause at end of every round, and I still only had 1 attack/round even with Haste and an Oil of Speed.

LastDanceSaloon wrote:...and you'd still be prone to Dispel Magic

As long as you stay outside the circle on the floor, it's easy to avoid the Dispelling traps. Just have to be careful that you manually make your character run around the circle to persue B as he teleports around the room.

Just for reference, the traps are specifically on the bull-head shaped tiles, and the long, thin, rectangular tiles halfway between each of the bull-head shaped tiles, so you can walk between them without triggering any.

LastDanceSaloon wrote:Yxonumei would be another...

Yeah, she was a roadblock when I first got there due to lack of spell options/slots and her MR, but at that point I just went and did HoW + ToL (where I picked up many high-level spells and capped my level at 30, IIRC)... then came back and steamrolled her.

LastDanceSaloon wrote:...as would the Tower of Archers.

the Archer Tower was just a matter of buffing with everything possible, using Invisibilty to get into position inside the tower, and then using Sunfires to take all the archers out in 2-3 rounds. Mirror Images/Stoneskins blocked their attacks when they were actually able to hit me due to a sub -20 AC, and the fight didn't last more than a couple rounds anyway.

LastDanceSaloon wrote:Re: Globe of Invulnerability:

In my last playthrough (see other thread) the two Golems immediately attacked my Illusionist, the AI is clever that way to target weak and low-HP characters first. So I just cast the Globe on him and had everyone else exit the inner circle. The Golems just stand there pounding him for the duration while everyone else can attack Belly on the outer-rim.

However, the first time I did this I miss-timed my assault on Belly and he got away from my tanks. When he charged in on my Illusionist my Illusionist started losing Hit Points. I've no idea what he did as I couldn't see what was going on, what with a gnome hidden behind a demon, two Golems and tuns of bellowing green smoke, and I did look for information as to why this happened but couldn't find any. The Illusionist didn't move at all from the centre of the inner ring, so it definitely wasn't a Dispel Trap.

B Teleports all over the place, so you can't really pin him down with tanks anyway, and if they run through the middle of the room, there's a good chance they'll hit one of the dispel trap . The traps shoot whoever triggers them with an "Arrow of Dispelling", which will take away ALL of that character's buffs (including Globe of Invulnerability). Not a huge deal for a group of fighters, but it's devastating for a solo mage trying to kill him alone.

As for Globes, all they do is block spells of 1st-4th levels (including your own Mirror Images and Stoneskins!), the mage can still be hit with weapons without other appropriate buffs and spells of 5th level and above. My guess is you had other buffs that blocked the golem's attacks completely, but B could still hit you, or you just ran out of Stoneskins/Mirror Images when he ran in (Iron Golems only get 1 attack/round)... plus he does have spells > level 4 (i.e. Sol's Searing Orb-- Priest level 6), that aren't blocked by a GoI.

That's great that you made it through as a solo mage - my question is how? How does a level 1 mage with 6HP, technically 1 spell and a sling and a dagger/staff survive the first goblin encounter or the orc cave ?

Starting out is not too difficult if you know how.
You can get 3600 Quest XP without fighting anything, the bugs in the cellar yield additional 140 combat and 1,200 quest XP, kill 4 goblins (they can be lured away and fought one by one) and you're level 3.
The sleep spell (scroll found behind Pomab's emporium) instantly disables all the monsters you meet in the beginning and with 18 str and quarterstaff you do 4-9 damage per hit, with 18 dex and shield spell you can even tank many monsters if you want.
The orc cave is optional (but doable), only the missing caravan has to be found and reported to progress the game.