Any advice on how to succeed in SCS II

[Guest Darkmoon]

So I finally finished my second playthrough of SOA and first play through of TOB and by the time I finished playing through TOB my party was just waltzing through the baddies. I decide I'd like to play through again, using a whole bunch of mods (most bang for your buck I've ever gotten out of a game), and using a class that I've always love in PnP but never tried through a comp game...a Wild Mage. I down load amoungst others, Quest Pack, Oversight, and most importantly SCS II.

 

Imagine my surpise when that very first ogre mage in the Irecinus's dungeon soundly beats my party, not one, not two, but about 6 times. This trend continues throughout my game. I get to the Rakhasa encounter for trademeet and I simply can't do it with the smarter mages component installed, not to mention the night mare of a time I had versus the two Yaun-ti mages at the D'Arnise castle. The only way I was able to beat that was by luring everyone out one by one through the door way, and I still lost two or three NPCs that way.

 

The long and the short of it is I don't know what to do against mages, short of turning off their AI. Even under setting 3 I still get wallooped. Is Quest pack making this much more difficult for me? I enjoy the improved AI for the regular enemies (though I have not fought any beholders/illithids/dragons or other big scarey monsters yet) and don't want want to give that up but without the improved AI mages are a push over, but with it I get slaughtered.

 

Anyone have any advice on making this work? Or tactical advice so I don't pull my eyebrows out?

 

Darkmoon

[DavidW]

So as the author I'm probably not the best person to reply, but:

 

- in trying to break through mages' defences, learn the rules. It's a waste of time to try melee against someone protected from your weapons by a spell; it's a waste of time to try to Breach that spell if they're protected by spell turning. Take their defences down sequentially if you've got the spells; if not, play for time.

 

- look at what's displayed on the console. SCSII is pretty good at telling you what spells an enemy has got running.

 

- remove illusions via Truesight, Oracle or the like. It doesn't work against everyone, but where it does, it's a life-saver.

 

- Use your own defensive spells. Even low-level parties have got lots of boosting spells (Chant / Bless / Defensive Harmony / Stoneskin ...) Use the SCS II Ease-Of-Use AI if you're finding it tedious to raise your defences.

 

- At low to mid levels, the best defence against enemy spells is to SCATTER. Don't clump, and get the hell out of there if something like Confusion has been targetted on one of you. You can't prevent it hitting the target, but you can probably protect most other characters.

[Gort]

Use Viconia with some magic resistance items on her

[Guest erik]

Use summons, fireshields, any and all wands and scrolls you might have handy. I actually had to work for my fighter stronghold this time... but an added fireball from a wand and another from a spare scroll really helped against the yuan-ti. And some blasts from a wand of cold.

 

Finally got True Sight. Yay!

[Guest Blood Beast]

I don't know if the cheesy tricks are still working with SCSII,

 

does improved invisibility and spell immunity: divination still work?

 

how about mislead and then hide the clone trick?

 

or improved invisibility and haste on mordenkanen's sword?

[DavidW]

I don't know if the cheesy tricks are still working with SCSII,

 

does improved invisibility and spell immunity: divination still work?

Probably not. Ruby Ray etc are now area-effect, so they work through II.

 

how about mislead and then hide the clone trick?

That one probably will work. (I didn't make much attempt to block outright exploits like that.)

 

or improved invisibility and haste on mordenkanen's sword?

The majority of wizards will probably cast at least one of Death Spell (area effect, so penetrates II) or Truesight + Magic Missile, so probably not.

[dolio]

I'd forgotten about that first ogre mage, too, and it took me several tries before I got past it the first time (and he's still capable of getting lucky and beating me).

 

For him specifically, you need to get rid of his improved invisibility. Have Jaheira cast invisibility purge, and hope she doesn't get hit before the casting time ends. If Imoen has detect invisibility, you might try that, as it's quicker. Then pelt him with magic missiles from Imoen to get rid of his mirror images. From there on, it shouldn't be too bad, but, it's easy for him to be undefeatable if you don't see it coming.

 

It occurred to me that this makes soloing with a sorcerer quite different. You almost need detect invisibility or something similar at the beginning; it's hard to wait for true sight. So, you either have to make a sub-optimal spell pick, buy a bunch of scrolls, or run away a fair amount.

 

And running away can be a good tactic in combination with other stuff. I recently tackled the guarded compound with a solo fighter/mage/thief, one or two at a time by retreating down the stairs, which was still quite tough. However, using a wand of summoning and running away can be a useful tactic to wear down opponents, or distract them while you rebuild your defenses.

 

I don't know if that's too cheesy or not, but many fights are difficult straight-up. Unless you really go out of your way, the game frequently puts you up against enemies with significantly higher level skills than you have (unless, maybe, you're a solo single classer), so with the improved AI, they're quite dangerous. I used to think the warden was a pushover, but this time, he cast improved invisibility and immunity divination, cast simulacrum, then summoned a fiend. Et cetera.

[G-Mon]

Okay. Here's one I thought up a couple days ago: SI:Abj + SI:D + SI:C + Contingency: (Improved) Invisibility when helpless + Chain Contingency: ProME + ProElements + ProEnergy when helpless + PI.

[Guest Darkmoon]

All the advice has been very helpful, though I'm still getting stuck on mages. I thinks somehow they are slipping in an SI:divination on me then casting thier defensive spells and II. It makes taking them down exteremly time consuming. I just confronted that group in the northern sewers and decided to be cheesey, I dropped a cloud kill and a few fire balls to take care of the fighters and slow down the mage a bit. I reinstalled SCS II with option 3 for mages so they get the benefits of the AI wihtout being super super difficult. I took me some time to bring him down, had to wait out some of his defense spells. The one thing I'm noticing is when I get hit by a fire arrow I see multiple (like 5-9 or so) damage hits come up. Its a bit obsence, but even more annoying is how mages can cast move cast, and usually hit my mage with a MM as I have him casting a spell.

 

Anyrate, I'm rambling, my follow up question is party composition. Is there a reccomended party composition for using SCS II? Right now I have a a Wildmage as my PC, using Auren, Amber, Anomen, Jaheria, and Saerilith. I figure I'm going to dump Jaheria for Kelsey, and at the rate things are going drop Saerilith for Keldorn.

Anyone else have any advice on how to handle this mod?

 

Darkmoon

[DavidW]

The one thing I'm noticing is when I get hit by a fire arrow I see multiple (like 5-9 or so) damage hits come up.

 

I think that's just the normal way the spell works (I haven't modified it).

 

Its a bit obsence, but even more annoying is how mages can cast move cast, and usually hit my mage with a MM as I have him casting a spell.

 

Is that "annoying" in the sense that they seem to be cheating? If so I'll look into it, they're not intended to cheat.

 

Anyrate, I'm rambling, my follow up question is party composition. Is there a reccomended party composition for using SCS II?

 

Not author-recommended, certainly. In fact, a design goal of SCSII is to be doable (albeit hard) with any reasonably balanced party - I don't want to choke off role-playing options. What you've got looks good to me, but others may have opinions (they've probably played it more than I have!)

[dolio]

Its a bit obsence, but even more annoying is how mages can cast move cast, and usually hit my mage with a MM as I have him casting a spell.

 

Is that "annoying" in the sense that they seem to be cheating? If so I'll look into it, they're not intended to cheat.

 

I don't think they're cheating. But, unless they've got something more interesting to do, enemy mages seem to plink your mages with magic missiles and Melf's meteors (as they're typically the lowest hp, and most vulnerable to those). If you're casting anything with a significant casting time, that will disrupt you.

 

The robe of vecna/amulet of power helps (if you haven't moved the former to ToB; I didn't, because I'm weak willed). It's also a good idea to use such tactics against your enemy. Wait until an enemy mage/cleric starts casting something, and then disrupt them. And if worse comes to worst, wait until they plink you with magic missiles, and then cast your spell (and hope they don't hit you with meteors).

 

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot: the first level spell shield makes you immune to magic missile (and, probably, gives you a boost to your AC against other projectiles). It also seems to not be noticed by enemy spellcasters, so they'll waste their missile sequencers and such on you if you're their prime target.

[Caedwyr]

I've found Mirror Images and Minor Globes of Invulrenbility useful for stopping the low level spells from causing spell interuption. Stoneskin + mirror image is another good combination.

 

And, yes, I've also found myself using magic missiles a lot more in order to interupt enemy spell casters.

[Guest Guest]

Well I finally get to a battle where I can attempt some of these strats, deciding on plugging the Yaun-ti mages from the planar prision with low level missle/meteor while having Improved Invis and SI:Div on. Well I get in the fight, and no sooner does my first missles hit then the game freezes up. No crash to desktop, just a flat out crash. So I get to figure out that mess...before I continue on.

 

 

Darkmoon