Advice needed

[Guest Paul]

Hi,

 

first off thanks to DavidW for this mod.

 

I'm close to completing BG with a custom party. I found SCS to be incredibily frustrating (difficulty wise), but also rewarding as well. I'd like to take the same six characters all the way through SOA/ToB as well and want to install SCS2.

 

I generally like a tougher challenge, but the one thing I'm wary about is the combo of Imp Invis and Spell Immunity divination. If I install smarter mages, will all the mages use this? I'm a bit worried about gimping my lead char, an inquisitor, too much. Already, in BG, I felt the dispel slightly gimped, as whenever he tried to use it on enemy mages, it seemed to bounce back on my party (spell deflection?). I could never remove minor globe of invulnerability. I ended up using it on anyone with a status effect.

 

Already my one mage's spellbook is basically full of antimagic, dispelling and invisibility removal, with no real offensive capabilities. Will this get worse and is it recomended to play with a backup mage? I could tinker (shadow keeper) with my fighter thief and make her a mage thief, but that will leave me a bit weak on melee. I don't like to rest too much and one mage might be stretching it. If I'm going to do it, I'd like to do it before the end of BG, so I can add the spells then.

 

I'd really like to add smarter mages and priests if possible, but I don't want to end up hating the mod!

 

Thanks

[DavidW]

I'll mostly leave others to advise, but

 

(i) SCS mages at 18th level and up use the II/SI:Div combination about half the time

(ii) I don't think dispel magic can bounce, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

[Wisp]

Aside from Smarter Mages, Smarter Priests and Smarter General AI, I would recommend that you install the More consistent Breach component and the component "Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility". The Breach component makes it a lot more fun fighting e.g. liches (of which there are a fair few) and the Antimagic component was specifically intended to address the II/SI:Div issue.

Then of course, there's a whole bunch of additional components to pick and choose from, depending on what you like. You may want to forego installing the tactical components until you feel comfortable with the AI, however. But the other AI components may be worth considering as well (otherwise you'll mainly notice the Smarter Mages component).

 

Additionally, aTweaks has a component that makes Minor Globe of Invulnerability and its big brother dispellable. Maybe you are interested in that.

 

If you use the component that weakens the Inquisitor's dispel, keep in mind that your caster level is rounded down. So if you are level 3, you are really dispelling at level 4 and so on. This gets better when you reach standard BG2 levels, since the 50% bonus is appreciably bigger if your level is higher.

[Guest guest]

Already, in BG, I felt the dispel slightly gimped, as whenever he tried to use it on enemy mages, it seemed to bounce back on my party (spell deflection?). I could never remove minor globe of invulnerability. I ended up using it on anyone with a status effect.

 

You possibly already know this, so don't take offense, but just in case you're fairly new to the game: Dispel magic affects allies/enemies alike, and when the little animation hits the point you targetted, lots of little dispel magic balls spread from that point to all targets within the 30' area; I guess that can make it look like it's 'bouncing' off the enemy, is this what you're experiencing?

 

Again, if you're not new, and/or definitely meant bouncing in some other way that is not normal for dispel magic, then ignore me.

 

And, er, I agree that my own mages seem to be for dispelling enemy mages with SCSII installed, a lot more so than normally, e.g. I end up filling slots with lots of breach spells, secret words, etc.

 

On the next playthrough, i'm going to try the general smarter AI and most of the other stuff, but skip mages/priests.

This is due to the above point along with a couple of other things I hope to avoid: Lag upon seeing enemy mages/entering new area with them, and, secondly, general lag: I've read around and about (possibly even the readme) that the longest scripts are from these mage/priest components, and while I hate to lose them I do get sustained lag in my game and hopefully this will solve the issue by not having them (or maybe i'm hoping it doesn't, and then I have no excuse to not install them!).

 

Either way, I'd give them a try if you've completed the game with vanilla mages/priests beforehand.

[DarkWon]

Sometimes its annoying when enemies that had no idea you are coming and are too low level to even know sequencers are completely prebuffed (e.g. the Ulgoth's Beard Acolytes in SCSI.....evil evil fight!!) *shudder*

 

Of course we are talking about BGII so almost everyone would know sequencer, i just use them as an example because took me something like 12-15 reloads and made me really hesitant about using this feature in BGII

[amanasleep]

Sometimes its annoying when enemies that had no idea you are coming and are too low level to even know sequencers are completely prebuffed (e.g. the Ulgoth's Beard Acolytes in SCSI.....evil evil fight!!) *shudder*

 

Of course we are talking about BGII so almost everyone would know sequencer, i just use them as an example because took me something like 12-15 reloads and made me really hesitant about using this feature in BGII

 

Prebuffing doesn't require sequencers.

[Shaitan]

Sometimes its annoying when enemies that had no idea you are coming and are too low level to even know sequencers are completely prebuffed (e.g. the Ulgoth's Beard Acolytes in SCSI.....evil evil fight!!) *shudder*

 

Of course we are talking about BGII so almost everyone would know sequencer, i just use them as an example because took me something like 12-15 reloads and made me really hesitant about using this feature in BGII

 

Prebuffing doesn't require sequencers.

But that fight is damn hard