10 replies to this topic

[Eric P.]

Hello,

I've been trying different parties and cutting down Orcs like there's no tomorrow (who wouldn't love that?), but still my parties get wiped out in the Large Battle portion of tbtweaks mod. Does anyone have advice for defeating the enemy forces while minimizing friendly casualties? Go ahead, spoil me if you like

Happy gaming,
Eric

[Kaeloree]

Moved to the TBTweaks forum.

[the bigg]

Moved to tb#quest.

As for strategy, you only need to kill the general to finish the mission. Most enemies are at level 12 or lower, so death spell and various crowd control spells work excellently ('Horror' or similar lower level debilitating spells should have a 50% success rate), and you should be able to simply ignore all the lower level warriors and archers. It is important to kill off mages quickly - multiple Teleport Fields are really nasty. Enemies don't use smart targeting, so it should be easy to protect mages by simply keeping them at the rear. The hardest part is keeping track of everything is going on - try using a couple extra autopause triggers.
Of course, it's been ages since I played this, and I suck as a tactical player - I wrote the mod and know what the various guys do, but I ended up playing it through with ctrl-R
Besides, tb#quest should be taken as an experiment field, rather than an A class mod - like, say, Goo, Geometry, or Jerry Zinger.

[Tassadar88]

Geometry

?

I believe that TheBigg is talking about the Cloakwood Square and the Circle mod

[Eric P.]

Well, the slaughtering of Orcs part is fun (and they do take some punishment before falling), and falls very well in line with my favorite ranger character's "only good Orc is a dead Orc, nine times out of ten" philosophy

The enemy mages and priests are what makes this battle difficult, and I agree with what was said about the teleport fields. I get as far as wiping out the first wave of foes, then locate the General, but I can't get close enough to deliver more than a couple hits on him before my characters get moved around the area, and it gets more and more difficult to corral them and take out more mages and priests.

My opening move has proven effective: as my current party includes three arcane spellcasters, and each has a single-use Cloudkill wand, I put out three slightly overlapping Cloudkills to cover just about all the foes in the first wave, especially the spellcasters. My ranger and two fighters start taking out any foes who get too close to the spellcasters, who then launch Fireballs into the crowd, then get the remaining enemy spellcasters with Magic Missiles and the like. It's at this point that I run out of clever ideas, and just start dogpiling on each enemy spellcaster. Then the next wave of foes comes down on my group, and the teleporting starts soon thereafter.

I'll have to be ready with some more spells, I think, and take the advice of ignoring the shock troops to cut my way through to the General ASAP (without using ctrl-J in the CLUAConsole). I really want to get to where my party can focus on taking him out

I noticed that, if I rest twice before talking to the guy who takes the party to this battle site, he vanishes. Well, he did say he was in a hurry...just have to memorize spells and rest up one time, then tell him we're good to go

Thanks, all, and if there are any more helpful hints, please keep 'em coming!

Happy gaming,
Eric

[Eric P.]

I noticed that, if I rest twice before talking to the guy who takes the party to this battle site, he vanishes. Well, he did say he was in a hurry...just have to memorize spells and rest up one time, then tell him we're good to go

I'm pretty sure he sticks around indefinitely if you're an ass when he first talks to you. Don't threaten him, but make it clear that you don't care. He'll give you a line like "I'll wait here 'til you're ready to listen" then proceed to sit there until you listen to his request.

Awesome, I'll try that, then! I was concerned about not having enough time to properly prepare my party before missing the opportunity.

As for spell recommendations posted above, I'm currently unable to find Death Spell for any of my spellcasters, and they do have up to eighth level slots available. I don't see anything above fifth level spell scrolls for sale anywhere in Waukeen's Promenade. Maybe I need to expand the search?

Thanks again,
Eric

[f9th-underdog]

you should be able to get some higher level spells from Ribald, after CH6 you say you want to see his 'special wares', also don't sell him anything until you are in his 'special wares' section, you get 25-50% more to sell them.
I make liberal use of project image, horrid wilting, death spell, fireballs, wands of fire, potions of explosions arrows of detonations, (only give one at a time) who doesn't like a good explosion?
get as many summons as you can, more interference and canon fodder is always nice, I use Item upgrade, and the ring and staff of elemental control is nice with 3 elementals popping up.
cloudkills are nice but they hang around too long and you usually end up teleporting into them or an ally will and turn hostile, although it should keep them from casting for a while as they keep taking damage.

When you find a big boss and his guards thats always a good place to drop a horrid wilting or 2 it makes chopping through them a lot quicker.

You do have control of the friendly battle mages and they each have a death spell so use that up first before they get killed and it's lost.

[Eric P.]

I'll save all these suggestions and refer to them during play. I feel liberated, now that I know I can put off the battle long enough to do some other things and raise the cash I'll need for the nukes

I did notice that bit about cloudkills lasting too long...especially if I cover the first area of foes with three of 'em (and of course launching fireballs and/or stinking clouds into the mix), and end up cornered. By the time I get past that wave, the next one is coming in at full force, and then the teleport fields are all over the place.

I like tough...but I don't like suicidal *L*

- E