IA v6 Final

[isleepwithfucking goats]

^

 

Sure that adds up too.

 

Overall regarding the Golem exploits, I'm not sure to what to say. A few added levels are good vs. Rakshasas and a few other foes, mainly because your buffs have a better chance of not being dispelled. With my 3-4 levels above normal, I still couldn't dispel most enemies or perhaps none at all ( at least not with remove magic ). R/C's dispel magic will work even under normal levels ( Orcus for example ). Anyway, dispelling is not really needed that often especially with Necro in party, and protag should be Necro an no other really. Few enemies need dispel that I can think off: Dracolich, Orcus. The first one, is impossible to have high enough level without serious Chapter 2/3 exploits. But even without dispel he is manageable. Orcus fight: Cleric should come out of silence by the time the minions are slain and he should be high enough level to dispel Orcus ( 27 ). Usually the last SoA fight.

I'd say it's ok to drain them once in a game, but if I were to play again I probably wouldn't. At least not all. The ones that add a significant "challenge" are: Alhoon Golem, Guarded Compoun Golem, Globe Machine in WK. Globe Machine Ultra's being the toughest to drain I believe (IIRC).

 

 

Back to Vagrant quests. After Drowned Soul which was relatively easy, comes Master of Mirrors. Sure enough the battle brought back very faint memories

Since buffs are dispelled, the battle is not easy, no battles are easy where buffs are dispelled actually.

Took quite a few tries to beat him, positioning is very important. Basically you have to get out of the buffed Mirror Master LoS, otherwise he starts spamming ADHW to your fighters under Alacrity. He is like a little Karun the Black but tougher, funny little guy that one. The unbuffed Mirror Master, still uses spells but is more soft, mainly debuffs. Then those Mirrored Ghost/Whisper Spiders, need quite a few hits to go down. Having another Riskbreaker in this fight, would have helped quite a lot, the Archer was a bit weak. Didn't use Swanmay while Spiders where alive, so I didn't "soften" them. An elemental golem spawned by the Swanmay, may have caused more trouble than harm at the beginning of this fight ( I think ).

Anyway, 3 Swanmays are needed on Necro for this fight. First to use, after Spiders are dead and buffed Mirror Master used up his PFMW. He is LVL 36 mage, my Cleric was LVL 34, no chance to dispel him. So used up first Swanmay to soften the buffed Master. Don't remember exactly how it went, I think I probably killed the Elemental before I started working on the buffed Master. Then another 2 swanmays for the unbuffed Master. Had to Wish for rest, was kinda running out of summons, and the 3rd Swanmay didn't spawn since I had already 5 monsters summoned. So Wish for rest helped bring that 3rd Swanmay back. Theoretically you could get away with only 2 Swanmays if you summon them at the right time and manage to finish off the Mirror Masters in a decent amount of time. Have to look out for those Swanmays, they die in 2-3 hits, very fragile.

 

Regarding the Vagrant quests. I don't recommend doing them after Auriel + Ultra. Primarily because of no XP. It feels extremely awkward to fight tough enemies and get no XP. None of them give any XP, not even the Master of Mirrors. You get some XP or Quest XP after everything is said and done, but very little. The Axe is worthless of course, can't even sell it. Threw it on the ground as soon as I got it.

Only do the rest of the quests if playing with Exploits or if you haven't played them in years/v5.

On the other hand I recommend doing the quests up to Aurel + Ultra with a Necro protag each run. They are somewhat interesting, and bring some decent gold and some XP. So instead of draining Elementals, I recommend doing these quests.

 

Also "The Four" mod is recommended. Great items ( gloves + robe ). Can't even imagine playing a Sorcerer without permanent Alacrity anymore. It's just so convenient. The Robe should be acquired after Underdark, even though it's easily done in CHA 2/3.

 

One more thing regarding the editing of scripts: "SCRIPTINGSTATEX" should also be removed from the Vagrant specific scripts. I completely forgot about that one.

[kreso]

@Inkal

Well, I was thinking about mage and cleric behaviour. You won't see clerics in Anvil casting "Remove paralyis" on held targets or "Heal" on wounded fighters, which SCS casters do. Of course, one might say that there's no need to cast that since no creature in Anvil can be held anyway .

As for IA>AI, yeah, it does.

But if you:

a) Remove Anvil enemies' regeneration/permanent imp.haste

b) remove illegal resistances to damage

c) remove cheesy immunity to disables

d) nerf their THAC0 to legal values

e) buff SCS casters/fighters to level they get in Anvil

and I don't think fights in Anvil will be harder, quite the opossite. It's fairly easy to make game harder by editing creatures themselves, but that's not AI improvement in any way.

For me, SCS is harder since I role-play with SCS, I don't make 6 18/18/18/18/18 custom party members, and I like to actually role-play the game. I have yet to see a report of a succesful Anvil run without some seriously broken kits (for the note, I believe that vanilla Berserker is a completely OP kit with not a single drawback.)

In addition, SCS scripts are fairly random. Anvil's are not, and have huge exploitable inherent flaws, which may or may not bother the player.

After several runs, Anvil becomes very predictable, making battles much easier, up to the point where you can "auto-pilot" right through them.

One thing that's great with Anvil is the concept behind the battles, and additional encounters. As for the AI (if you can call Infinity Engine scripting "AI"), it's actually quite lacking compared to SCS.

[Saros]

 

Few enemies need dispel that I can think off: Dracolich, Orcus. The first one, is impossible to have high enough level without serious Chapter 2/3 exploits. But even without dispel he is manageable. Orcus fight: Cleric should come out of silence by the time the minions are slain and he should be high enough level to dispel Orcus ( 27 ). Usually the last SoA fight.

I'd say it's ok to drain them once in a game, but if I were to play again I probably wouldn't. At least not all. The ones that add a significant "challenge" are: Alhoon Golem, Guarded Compoun Golem, Globe Machine in WK. Globe Machine Ultra's being the toughest to drain I believe (IIRC).

 

 

The Dracolich could be dispelled only if you raise party levels high enough in chapter 3, therefore facing the tougher Spellhold version. I'd rather not do it. As for the Orcus, I thought his mage levels are way higher. Could've used successful Remove Magicks in my runs as well since my mages were way above lvl 27 (did Orcus fight last).

 

The Greater Elemental Golems cannot be drained safely without a good army of summons, this includes Swanmays and Greater Djinni. However the Ultra + Greater Elemental ones from the Globe Machine may be the easiest to drain of them all since you could leave WK at will through a portal during that fight. Moreover, in draining those guys a high-level Vagrant is the best possible choice since he has permanent IHaste and great innate resistances. Purge Magic won't strip him of anything important. The hardest ones to drain are definitely the elemental golems in Auriel's fight.

 

 

 

Back to Vagrant quests. After Drowned Soul which was relatively easy, comes Master of Mirrors. Sure enough the battle brought back very faint memories

Since buffs are dispelled, the battle is not easy, no battles are easy where buffs are dispelled actually.

Took quite a few tries to beat him, positioning is very important. Basically you have to get out of the buffed Mirror Master LoS, otherwise he starts spamming ADHW to your fighters under Alacrity. He is like a little Karun the Black but tougher, funny little guy that one. The unbuffed Mirror Master, still uses spells but is more soft, mainly debuffs.

 

 

Chain Contingency triggering on hit, loaded with 2*Khelben's Warding Whip + 1*Larloch's interrupter will solve your problems with that cheesy 36-lvl mage hiding under SI:Divination and illusions. Of course, make sure that the spells hit the enemy before his buffs activate. The fact that the CC triggers on hit makes it instantaneous (use LMD on self or another 0-time casting spell to trigger it). However this will not solve your problem with Improved Webs. Vs the Drowned Soul several stacked Invoke Courages assures that everyone saves all the time (Invoke Courage cannot be dispelled in that fight). Probably there is a way to force the Ghost spiders to shoot their web where you want them to, not messing up the entire fight.

 

Still, besides the fun of it, I really don't know why you'd even bother with that quest. It's not like you have someone to wield the Axe of the Lakesider +5 anyways, nor is it such a good weapon. Still, with a Necro PC you probably could gain some Barbarian essences, but a Necro PC gets more than enough anyways the regular way.

 

 

On the other hand I recommend doing the quests up to Aurel + Ultra with a Necro protag each run. They are somewhat interesting, and bring some decent gold and some XP. So instead of draining Elementals, I recommend doing these quests.

 

 

You could do both.