9 replies to this topic

[urdjur]

I'm planning to tackle BGT + Ascension with a full SCS I+II (and Spell Revisions + a few other compatible mods) with a solo sorceror that can't use items. I want to be able to defeat every monster in the game (theoretically at least), so spell selection and an in-depth understanding of the AI of SCS is clutch. A few questions:

1) Will SI: Abjuration protect from Breach? I asked Demivrgvs too, but he was uncertain.
2) Will the SR spell Know Opponent affect the Chromatic Demon so that he can be hurt by - say - Mordenkainen's Sword even under SCS?
3) If I have Fire Shield: Blue up, will the Chromatic Demon in fire form still attack me or is the AI too clever for that? If the Know Opponent trick won't work, I need access to [cold] damage, and most options for that are quite bad so I'd like to know what will work. Would the +2 bite (piercing) from the Winter Wolf form of SR's Polymorph Self be able to hurt him?
4) What sort of weapon immunities do SCS liches and demiliches have? I reckon 6+ level antimagic and True Seeing (rather than the 5th level priest spell) are required to pierce their defenses enough to land a breach? And that they are immune to Lower Resistance (Vth level).
5) Which enemies see invisible as an innate ability in SCS? I reckon dragons, demons, liches and a few others?

If any of you have any questions or thoughts on obstacles that will be difficult to overcome in a run like this, don't hesitate to post.

[DavidW]

All answers are for straight SCS; I'm not really on top of SR.

urdjur, on 02 February 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

1) Will SI: Abjuration protect from Breach?

Yes.

Quote

2) Will the SR spell Know Opponent affect the Chromatic Demon so that he can be hurt by - say - Mordenkainen's Sword even under SCS?

Pass.

Quote

3) If I have Fire Shield: Blue up, will the Chromatic Demon in fire form still attack me or is the AI too clever for that?

At the moment it's not that clever, but it's a good idea, so don't count on the next version not getting tweaked.

Quote

If the Know Opponent trick won't work, I need access to [cold] damage, and most options for that are quite bad so I'd like to know what will work. Would the +2 bite (piercing) from the Winter Wolf form of SR's Polymorph Self be able to hurt him?

Not unless it also does piercing damage.

Quote

4) What sort of weapon immunities do SCS liches and demiliches have?

Non-magical only for liches, I forget for demiliches - but they're normally running PMW wherever possible.

Quote

I reckon 6+ level antimagic and True Seeing (rather than the 5th level priest spell) are required to pierce their defenses enough to land a breach?

About right.

Quote

And that they are immune to Lower Resistance (Vth level).

Probably, but I don't recall for certain.

Quote

5) Which enemies see invisible as an innate ability in SCS? I reckon dragons, demons, liches and a few others?

I don't think I change the vanilla settings without explicitly saying so - and I think the only time I do so is in the Illithid component (depending on your option choices)

[Demivrgvs]

urdjur, on 02 February 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

1) Will SI: Abjuration protect from Breach? I asked Demivrgvs too, but he was uncertain.

Sorry, I checked yesterday but forgot to post. As David says, SI:Abj stops Breach.

Quote

2) Will the SR spell Know Opponent affect the Chromatic Demon so that he can be hurt by - say - Mordenkainen's Sword even under SCS?

I don't know SCS CR Demon so well, is he supposed to be immune to physical damage? KO lowers physical resistance by 10% but I purposedly made it not affect certain creatures (e.g. golems don't have vulnerable points)...if the demon has to be immune to it I should be able to handle it, just let me know.

Quote

Quote

3) ...Chromatic Demon in fire form... Would the +2 bite (piercing) from the Winter Wolf form of SR's Polymorph Self be able to hurt him?

Not unless it also does piercing damage.

I don't understand David's answer...did you mean "also does COLD damage"? Btw, winter wolf's bite does both piercing and cold damage.

Quote

4) What sort of weapon immunities do SCS liches and demiliches have? I reckon 6+ level antimagic and True Seeing (rather than the 5th level priest spell) are required to pierce their defenses enough to land a breach? And that they are immune to Lower Resistance (Vth level).

Pretty much correct, and liches are indeed immune to LowRes yes.

Edited by Demivrgvs, 02 February 2012 - 06:25 AM.

[urdjur]

Quote

Non-magical only for liches, I forget for demiliches - but they're normally running PMW wherever possible.

Which I must Breach of course, but I was wondering about innate immunities. It's just that you noted that you made them more like their 3rd ed. versions (which have DR 15/bludgeoning), so I wanted to know if stuff like MMM and Mordy Swords would both work post Breach.

Quote

I don't think I change the vanilla settings without explicitly saying so - and I think the only time I do so is in the Illithid component (depending on your option choices)

I'm not exactly sure what the vanilla settings are though. My experience tells me dragons, some (?) demons and liches spot me while invisible. Any more (except flayers)? Rakshasa perhaps? I don't recall exactly.

Quote

I don't know SCS CR Demon so well, is he supposed to be immune to physical damage? KO lowers physical resistance by 10% but I purposedly made it not affect certain creatures (e.g. golems don't have vulnerable points)...if the demon has to be immune to it I should be able to handle it, just let me know.

IIRC, SCS changes its physical resistances from 95% to 100% and gives it 100% immunity to magic type damage (like Skull Trap). I don't think it has any MR though, so as long as you can produce all forms of elemental damage you should be OK. Know Opponent is an alternate strategy that seems fine to me.

Quote

I don't understand David's answer...did you mean "also does COLD damage"? Btw, winter wolf's bite does both piercing and cold damage.

I assumed he meant that too. However, I'm having second thoughts of going toe-to-toe (or actually, my Simulacrum going toe-to-toe) with CD using a humble Winter Wolf/Mustard Jelly as I won't easily be able to refresh physical defenses nor True Strike while morphed and I assume it will take some time with THAC0 10 or so (I assume waiting for crits is the only option). Also seeing how scarce the level 4 spell picks already are, I'll probably be better off just taking Cone of Cold and Melf's Acid Arrow instead. Or Know Opponent, and make do with hasted Mordy Swords. I will need at least one source of either acid or cold to handle fire trolls though. And I can get Know Opponent from my planetar... choices choices.

[polytope]

urdjur, on 02 February 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

4) What sort of weapon immunities do SCS liches and demiliches have? I reckon 6+ level antimagic and True Seeing (rather than the 5th level priest spell) are required to pierce their defenses enough to land a breach? And that they are immune to Lower Resistance (Vth level).

True Seeing (like Dispel Magic) actually has a power level of zero (in vanilla and recent versions of SR anyway), so will work on creatures immune to low level spells.

As for the Chromatic Demon, I'm not sure why you want to fight him in a poverty challenge, since you're not going to use the Circlet of Netheril anyway? You could beat him in ice form with enough flame arrows shot through sequencers and/or IA. Or lightning bolts in his acid form... Either would be better than meleeing him as the demon does regenerate.

You don't need to kill fire trolls either, unless you're attempting a completionist playthrough.

Edited by polytope, 02 February 2012 - 07:29 PM.

[urdjur]

polytope, on 02 February 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

As for the Chromatic Demon, I'm not sure why you want to fight him in a poverty challenge, since you're not going to use the Circlet of Netheril anyway? You could beat him in ice form with enough flame arrows shot through sequencers and/or IA. Or lightning bolts in his acid form... Either would be better than meleeing him as the demon does regenerate.

You don't need to kill fire trolls either, unless you're attempting a completionist playthrough.

Well, partly it's because of completionist ambitions. At least for aesthetic reasons, I would like a spell selection at the level cap (31) which would enable me to kill any foe in the game in case I wanted to. I think Melf's Minute Meteors (cast by both me and a Sim) would be enough for the ice form. As for electricity, I had first considered Energy Blades since I get it for free, but with the HLA->innate change from SCS (which I'm still undecided about), I reckon I'll be picking up Chain Lightning.

Is it OK to post a spell list here to receive input on spell selection? I know the bioware forums are normally used for that, but I need SCS/SR specific input + in-depth knowledge of the game challenges (especially as amended under SCS). Two more questions:

1) Does SI: Conjuration stop Insect Plague and the like? If yes, then I shall not be bothering with Fire Shield.
2) With PW: Blind reduced to single target and True Seeing curing blindness, would it be correct to assume that this spell is now about as useless as the other Power Words?

[Demivrgvs]

urdjur, on 03 February 2012 - 07:36 AM, said:

1) Does SI: Conjuration stop Insect Plague and the like? If yes, then I shall not be bothering with Fire Shield.

Yes it does, but Fire Shields are one lvl lower, and provides additional features as well (fire/cold resistance plus heavy backlash for melee attacks). If you're only looking for protection against insects than either one of those spells is fine, but FS may still be the best choice because it uses a lower lvl spell slot. There are quite a few things to take into account when deciding spell picks.

Quote

2) With PW: Blind reduced to single target and True Seeing curing blindness, would it be correct to assume that this spell is now about as useless as the other Power Words?

I tend to agree, PW:Blind is indeed looking pretty much unattactive right now. On the other hand it was kinda OP back then because without TS tweak a single PW:Blind could pretty much completely shut down any arcane spellcaster. I will think about it and a possible solution to make it shine once again without being as OP as it once was.

I really don't agree on all other PW spells though. SR's PW:Sleep is really good imo, PW:Silence completely ruins divine spellcasters, and PW:Stun is hard to master but has a quite great potential. PW:Kill instead is really underwhelming in its current state imo, but it won't be for long, don't worry.

[DrAzTiK]

PW:blind still remain usefull to disable some heavy fighters. (non divine/arcane spellcasters).

[polytope]

Demivrgvs, on 04 February 2012 - 02:24 AM, said:

I tend to agree, PW:Blind is indeed looking pretty much unattactive right now. On the other hand it was kinda OP back then because without TS tweak a single PW:Blind could pretty much completely shut down any arcane spellcaster. I will think about it and a possible solution to make it shine once again without being as OP as it once was.

I really don't agree on all other PW spells though. SR's PW:Sleep is really good imo, PW:Silence completely ruins divine spellcasters, and PW:Stun is hard to master but has a quite great potential. PW:Kill instead is really underwhelming in its current state imo, but it won't be for long, don't worry.

The other foes PW:Blind was useful on were dragons, which had to be made immune to blindness for SCS because of the effect of blindness on AI (scripting range when blinded is smaller than the area the creature occupies, which makes it unable to respond to anything). I guess it could be useful on beholders, if they aren't the type that can cast True Sight.

Also, I don't believe TS should cure all forms of blindness, illusionary blindness like that resulting from the spells Blindness and Nature's Beauty, sure, but not blindness from bright lights like Sunray or Glitterdust... or disease .

Maybe if PW:Blind duration was tied to creature's HD (of course it can't be tied to HP, à la PW:Stun) so that creatures with 7-12HD are blinded for 1 turn, creatures with 13-18HD are blinded for 2-5 rounds and creatures with more than 18HD are blinded for 1 round it could keep its AoE without being overpowered.

Edited by polytope, 05 February 2012 - 02:57 AM.

[DavidW]

I did indeed mean "cold", not "piercing". Sorry.