Soloing a Sorceror through SCS II V.6.

[Wisp]

Ok, some probably unrelated to SCS II Underdark weirdness now.

 

The first of these is, as far as I can tell completely unrelated to SCS II, but Vithal and the Elemental portals related to his quest exhibited some odd behaviour. Firstly, the portals didn't summon any regular elementals (I think I read somewhere that they summon 1 for every time you save your game) and Vithal did not require his book to start the "teleport away, fight a Greater Elemental" thing that goes on. Also the earth portal didn't summon its Greater Elemental for some reason.

I've just seen this on my own playthrough and put it down to local weirdness. I'll check it out.

 

In case this is still unresolved; in my play-through, the elemental portals spawned regular elementals, ca 15 (way fewer than my number of saves ) for each portal. However, it'd appear as if there's a variable issue here. When I spoke to Vithal after having fetched his spell book, he jumped straight to his I'm-going-in dialogue, rather than taking the book and having the earth guardian spawn. Both of the subsequent portals worked like they should (guardian spawned and then Vithal went off).

[DavidW]

Ok, some probably unrelated to SCS II Underdark weirdness now.

 

The first of these is, as far as I can tell completely unrelated to SCS II, but Vithal and the Elemental portals related to his quest exhibited some odd behaviour. Firstly, the portals didn't summon any regular elementals (I think I read somewhere that they summon 1 for every time you save your game) and Vithal did not require his book to start the "teleport away, fight a Greater Elemental" thing that goes on. Also the earth portal didn't summon its Greater Elemental for some reason.

I've just seen this on my own playthrough and put it down to local weirdness. I'll check it out.

 

In case this is still unresolved; in my play-through, the elemental portals spawned regular elementals, ca 15 (way fewer than my number of saves ) for each portal. However, it'd appear as if there's a variable issue here. When I spoke to Vithal after having fetched his spell book, he jumped straight to his I'm-going-in dialogue, rather than taking the book and having the earth guardian spawn. Both of the subsequent portals worked like they should (guardian spawned and then Vithal went off).

 

I've found it; it's fixed in v6.

[DavidW]

Second, Move the Robe of Vecna makes Azamantes the toughest Lich in the game. The only problem with this, and Liches in general, is that they fall far too easily to the 3 Undead destroying weapons. Perhaps an item tweak for these that removes the massive save penalty, or improve Liches Save vs. Death by 4, to compensate.

 

If I knew how, I'd change the items myself. What program do I use to do this? Shadowkeeper?

 

Near Infinity works. (Shadowkeeper may too; I don't use it much.)

[Demivrgvs]

Second, Move the Robe of Vecna makes Azamantes the toughest Lich in the game. The only problem with this, and Liches in general, is that they fall far too easily to the 3 Undead destroying weapons. Perhaps an item tweak for these that removes the massive save penalty, or improve Liches Save vs. Death by 4, to compensate.

I've opted for reducing the save penalty of MoD and Azuredge from -4 to 0. I think reducing this overpowered ability is much better than having liches with ultra low saving throws.

 

If I knew how, I'd change the items myself. What program do I use to do this? Shadowkeeper?

Shadowkeeper doesn't do this sort of things, it mess with saved games and .cre files. You have to use Near Infinity, which isn't difficult to use after some practice.

[Ilyich]

I've opted for reducing the save penalty of MoD and Azuredge from -4 to 0. I think reducing this overpowered ability is much better than having liches with ultra low saving throws.

 

Is that both Maces, before and after Cromwell? There are also 2 Runehammers, before and after Cespenar, as well as Azuredge +4 from Item Upgrades. As an aside, I agree about the saves being fine already.

 

Shadowkeeper doesn't do this sort of things, it mess with saved games and .cre files. You have to use Near Infinity, which isn't difficult to use after some practice.

 

OK, I'll Google Near Infinity and see if I can figure it out.

 

Anyway, I have a question about the Ascension mod. Is there a way to get all the improved battles and extra Bhaal abilities from the Pocket Plane, without the improved final battle?

[Wisp]

Anyway, I have a question about the Ascension mod. Is there a way to get all the improved battles and extra Bhaal abilities from the Pocket Plane, without the improved final battle?

 

Yes.

However, these are not WeiDu mods and it's generally recommended that you install non-WeiDu mods before any WeiDu mods (at least that's what I've heard).

Also note that this version of Tougher Illasera does not come with a pair of boots of speed, unlike the Ascension one.

Oh, and I don't think the extra Sarevok and Imoen stuff are included in these components.

Oh#2, there might be a way to edit the Ascension tp2 file to exclude the final battle before installing the mod, but I have no idea how you'd go about doing that.

[coaster]

Alternatively if you want to go down the Weidu route, Unfinished Business contains a restored Bhaalpowers component.

 

I'm not sure about Ascension, but can't you just skip the first (main) component and install the rest (the improved battle components)?

[Ilyich]

Update

 

I've just started Improved Sendai's Lair (about to enter the Barracks) so I'll update this as I go, but 1st, I have found something weird with some of the Drow. Specifically, the ones that drop the following items: -

 

1. Elven Chain +1, Drow Katana +3, 1 Potion of Extra Healing, and 1 Antidote.

2. Elven Chain +1, Heavy Crossbow +3, 1 Antidote, 2* 20 Bolt +1, and 10 Bolt +3.

 

The problem is they under level 12, and are therefore killable by Greater Deathblow. These low level Drow also do not seem to use potions. The Drow Mages and the Drow with the Woodsman are all fine, however.

 

More to come.

 

The Kensai and Preistesses are also fine.

 

No problems with the North and South tunnels, although I remember a slavemaster Drow in the North tunnels in other playthroughs, he was absent this time.

 

The Lich was fine, no problems.

[DavidW]

Update

 

I've just started Improved Sendai's Lair (about to enter the Barracks) so I'll update this as I go, but 1st, I have found something weird with some of the Drow. Specifically, the ones that drop the following items: -

 

1. Elven Chain +1, Drow Katana +3, 1 Potion of Extra Healing, and 1 Antidote.

2. Elven Chain +1, Heavy Crossbow +3, 1 Antidote, 2* 20 Bolt +1, and 10 Bolt +3.

 

The problem is they under level 12, and are therefore killable by Greater Deathblow.

 

If so, that's from the vanilla game - I won't have altered it.

 

I'm not even sure I mind - if no-one is killed by Greater Deathblow, what's the point of it?

[Ilyich]

I'm not even sure I mind - if no-one is killed by Greater Deathblow, what's the point of it?

 

Good point.

 

The Illithid ambush was a welcome change and an enjoyable, if short fight.

 

As for the Sendai fight, I thought it was excellent, striking a great balance between the easy unmodded fight, and the ludicrous difficulty of the Oversight version. The only problem I saw was the top-left statue did not prebuff, which is odd, as I recall it being a Druid in the unmodded game. All in all, this was an excellent component.

[Ilyich]

Improved Abazigal's Lair

 

Again, this is excellent. When I first read "Lizard Men," the 1st thing that sprung to mind was , but they were strong and quite a challenge to kill. The eyes are a very welcome overhaul, and in fact killed my Berserker if I forgot to use Hardiness. The Tyrant Golems were not a huge threat, to be honest.

 

I don't think there are any components left, so I'll do a summary of my thoughts after Melissan.

[Ilyich]

I have finished the game, and as promised, some final thoughts on the mod.

 

First, I noticed this in all 3 of the fights I had with Mariliths but overlooked it due to other, more dangerous opponents. Their Animate Dead ability only summons 2 regular Skeletons despite the ReadMe stating that Mariliths cast at 20th level, which should yield 1 Skeleton Warrior.

 

Second, there were no bugs in the final stretch of the game that I noticed, the final fight was surprisingly easy, even without Breach and other debuffing spells, most likely due to Melissan not being effected by the mod as of V5.

 

Lastly, aside from the bugs mentioned earlier in the thread, this mod is pretty much the best tactical mod available, because unlike the others, it doesn't seem to cheat by using ReallyForceSpell anywhere near as much. Congratulations on a superb job, David.

[Demivrgvs]

Second, there were no bugs in the final stretch of the game that I noticed, the final fight was surprisingly easy, even without Breach and other debuffing spells, most likely due to Melissan not being effected by the mod as of V5.

Well...judging by your WeiDU Log you haven't installed Ascension, if you want a harder (and better imo) ToB experience install it and SCS's component specifically dedicated to it.

[Ilyich]

Well...judging by your WeiDU Log you haven't installed Ascension, if you want a harder (and better imo) ToB experience install it and SCS's component specifically dedicated to it.

 

I have to admit that I hate the Ascension final battle. I had to use the console to kill Yaga-Shura, which I believe is a long known bug. If no-one can be bothered to fix that, then I'll never play it again.

 

Plus, Melissan gets Irenicus, Bodhi, Imeon and Sarevok to fight you, due to her "being able to control Bhaalspawn." This is stupid, because Irenicus and Bodhi were never Bhaalspawn and Sarevok is no longer one, so this makes no sense at all.

[DavidW]

Well...judging by your WeiDU Log you haven't installed Ascension, if you want a harder (and better imo) ToB experience install it and SCS's component specifically dedicated to it.

 

I have to admit that I hate the Ascension final battle. I had to use the console to kill Yaga-Shura, which I believe is a long known bug. If no-one can be bothered to fix that, then I'll never play it again.

 

SCSII fixes it (if the bug you mean is Y-S's permanent 99% resistance to everything)