Rathwellin the Bard

This is my first run though the game but i usually check with the various walk-throughs from time to time to see if I'm missing anything. And boy am I!

I just recently finished the final level of the Dragon's Eye - ugh hate time travel - and from what I can tell I'm supposed to be whisked back to the Ice Temple somehow ... but it's not happening. I can head for the exit or take the boat and then I leave without the Ice Temple triggering. I end up in the Fields of Slaughter and promptly wander into a decent little fight there.

So my question is why am I not getting the Return to the Ice Temple? Did I miss something way back when. Is there an in game variable that I could set if so?

First I need to apologize. I?ve been meaning to write this post for a long time ... but it has taken me far longer to actually *finish* my game than I thought it would. In addition to all the normal real life stuff I?ve gotten back into PnP gaming and that?s eaten up a fair amount of the time I formerly devoted to playing BG. Even now I have yet to do the Throne and face Ascension. So in a day or three when I finally get to it I?ll probably post an update.

I decided way back when that I wanted to do two things. I wanted to play though the entire series with one character again and I wanted to really test out the Refinements changes during the course of a ?real? game and not just some test scenario.

For my PC I chose Laedon, an Elf Sorcerer. It was fun playing though the original saga with a Sorcerer using TuTu but I will not bore you with tons of detail here. Suffice to say that simply by playing this way I chose some spells, like Sleep, that you usually don?t see in a ToB game.

In SoA I had planned on using a 6 man party with Jahiera, Minsc, Aerie, Yoshimo/Imoen, and the final slot to be a rotating one but usually filled by Valygar. However I found that I accumulated enough gold for Spellhold prior to even *starting* my stronghold quest so I ended up doing chapters 3-5 using a 5 man party. Even though I finally did start using that final party slot more I did most of chapter 6 and all of 7 with that same 5 member group. This did have an impact on XP ... as I ended SoA with a fair amount more of it than I usually have and that meant that Refinements HLAs started showing up in chapter 6.

I didn?t find this terribly unbalancing as I had also installed a few mods such as Rogue Rebalancing with its Chosen of Cyric encounter (OMG!!!!) though I avoided most of the cheese that is Tactics (I included a few things like the Poison encounter to see how it stacked up in ToB vs Refinements changes). Where I noticed it the most was the fight with Brodhi and the final battle with Jon. Both were significantly easier than usual for me. It was hard to tell if this was due more to the higher party XP level (probably the case with Brodhi) or some of the new HLAs (probably the case with Jon as I had just gotten Aura Cleansing before that battle).

I?ll interject here that I usually play on Core difficulty and that I?ve played several SoA games since I?ve trudged through the ToB storyline. I?ve experimented with Tactics and really refined my fighting style since I?ve played ToB. These two factors undoubtedly had an impact on my subsequent impressions.

Once I got to ToB I dispatched Illasera with ease and then invited Sarevok to travel with me. After that I breezed though ToB, killing Grommy and then Yaga-Shura before taking on Watcher?s Keep. After that I tried out Tactics Ritual (a snoozer at this level) and headed off to face Sendai, Abazigal, and then Balthazar.

I?ll be honest. I?ve never had much trouble with the Illasera, Gromnir, Sendai, or Ravager battles, but the WK final seal Guardians, Draconis, and Improved Abazigal have always been hard for me in the past. Not this time though. The Guardians were toast in record time. Draconis wasn?t bad at all, and Improved Abazigal wasn?t exactly easy but it was close.

One of the major reasons for this was Refinements.

Let me switch gears for a moment. I?m going to give a quick breakdown on my party, how I use the character, and what HLAs do and don?t do for me.

Laedon - In the past when I?ve played a non-Refinements ToB level Sorcerer I?ve chosen Timestop and Improved Alacrity at 18th level and followed up with Dragon?s Breath and Wish at 19th. After that the game became easy. Cast Time Stop, Cast IA, toss a few Dragon?s Breath spells and maybe a Horrid Wilting or two, the close with a Wish. This was noticeably different at first with Refinements. At 18th level I chose Chain Contingency and Inner Focus. This is the first game I?ve ever played where I abused Chain Contingency. I?ve been aware of the cheese before but never really needed with the old pre-refinements spells. I?ve got to say that without Chain I probably wouldn?t have beaten the Chosen of Cyric encounter. At 19th I got Time Stop and Casting by Intent ... though I almost never actually used Time Stop. I just didn?t need to with the Chain Contingency cheese and my killer party. At 20th level Wish and Spellcasting Speed Increase entered the picture followed by Aura Cleansing at 21st level. Things really didn?t start breaking until level 24 though by which time I had all three Spellcasting Speed Increases. With 3 of those and the dreaded Robe of Vecna Aura Cleansing became nuts. In planning for this ability I had made sure that Laedon had at least one or more damaging spells at every level. By 24th level it was insane. I could bust out my entire spellbook 1st-8th level and just nuke my way though most encounters. The *real* kicker was that I never had to use my 9th level spells so I was always free to Wish for all my spells back after or during nearly every battle. Given 7 tries it?s not hard to do and if you don?t get your spells back over half the time you get a nice little party buff as a consolation. This combo, Spellcasting Speed + the Robe + Aura Cleansing + Wish is as broken as it gets but it did make for some killer screenshots. Other HLAs were mostly misses as I?ve yet to really need to use any of them. You guys already know that I don?t like the elemental HLAs so I will not belabor the point. Most of the others are interesting but just don?t ever actually get used since they are so overshadowed by AC. Laedon has about 35% for both total kills and XP kill value for the game. That?s about as high as I?ve ever gotten with a Sorcerer. For what it?s worth Laedon holds the Staff of the Magi and his primary weapon is the Boomerang Dagger.

Jahiera ? I?m a sucker for doing things ?right? so all of Jahiera?s early HLAs went up the fighter tree since she didn?t gain that 15th+ Druid level for a long time. Refinements didn?t make big changes here. I made good use of Critical Strike and Hardiness with here. Jahiera is my ?meat shield? and secondary healer. She has the best AC in the party, is nearly constantly Stoneskined, and her main job is to draw enemy attacks. Any kill she gets early on is a bonus. However her kill totals have gone up as her equipment has gotten better and she has gotten the Druid 7th level and HLA spells. Nothing she does seems ridiculous or unbalanced to me so the Druid/Fighter HLAs get a thubs up.

Minsc ? For much of SoA Minsc was right up there with Laedon for kill stats. He was the party?s melee enforcer. Not long before ToB he graduated from Two Handed Swords to fighting with Flail and Axe and got even nastier. However with Sarevok in the party and Jahiera improving his kill % went down quite a bit in ToB. HLAs were good but didn?t feel significantly different from an unmodified game. Like Jahiera his most commonly used HLAs were Critical Strike and Hardiness.

Sarevok ? Everyone knows what a monster this guy is. In most ToB games I?ve played he is the first or second best in kill stats, but he barely earned those honors this time. He was nearly even with Jahiera and Minsc. HLA wise I used Greater Whirlwind the most with him since that maximizes the odds of one of his Deathbringer Assaults. Refinements changes seemed fine here too.

Aerie ? I don?t really use Aerie well. It?s just too hard keeping up with all her spells and Imoen?s and the PC?s. So the poor elf had the worst stats of ToB. Though she did make major contributions in several battles. I was just a tad frustrated by her HLAs. As a muticlass spellcaster it takes her a long while to get 7th level cleric slots and even longer for 9th level mage slots. I chose Scribe Scrolls first but after that was pretty much winging it. Cleric/Mages could really use another non-spell HLA or two. I almost never actually used Scribe Scrolls either. I tried it just for fun a time or two but it seemed just ?meh? to me. I don?t think that it would hurt to let this HLA be picked multiple times.

Imoen ? I like Swash Imoen. I really like Swash Imoen. I had Imoen using buckler and the Firetooth Dagger (specialized) much of the game. That gave her the party?s second best AC and a potent ranged attack to boot. This change were very noticeable in the Underdark but became less so as the game progressed and Imoen relied more on her spells. I ended up skipping out on Time Stop for the most part with her too, currently she has 3 Dragon?s Breath spells and 1 IA memorized. On the rare occasions when Laedon has flubbed his Aura Cleansing for one reason or another Imoen had really been able to throw it down. I really like the fact that she has access to Dragon?s Breath and my sorcerer does not. It does help balance things out. Overall the HLAs looked good for her as a pure Mage too. One thing that I didn?t like was the color changes. Blegh!

Balthazar ? Not really a party member (not yet anyway), but I finally tried the Refinements Balthazar battle one time last night. It was hard to tell exactly what changed but one thing I noticed was that in the past Balthazar seemed to target my PC moreso than other party members. This was always a problem given his Quivering Palm and other stuff. Last night though he just seemed to melee with whomever was nearest. That made thing *much* easier. On the positive side he did manage to disrupt my sorcerer?s attempts to activate Aura Cleansing *twice* via that fireball thing he does. I didn?t get it off until a third try (lol broken Wish combo) and even the massive Lower Magic Resistance / Horrid Wilting / Chain Lighting / other damage didn?t kill him though it got him to ?Near Death? and Jahiera was able to finish him off. Overall this battle could use some additional improvements IMHO.

I haven?t been able to test a lot of the other changes. No elemental princes. No Sword Angle. Etc.

One thing that I want to hammer home is that 9th level spells suck for the most part. They are either cheesy (Chain Contingency, Time Stop, Shapechange, and Wish), not useful (Time Stop in major ToB fights and most of the others all the time). Only Spellstrike really seems both useful and balanced to me. Making the Sorcerer HLAs innates really highlighted this in game. I just can?t get over how much these spells blow.

I want to close with a repetition that the Sorcerer is still largely broken with Refinements 1.3. It?s not any one thing. By themselves Aura Cleansing, Spellcasting Speed Increase, Wish, and the Robe of Vecna aren?t really that bad. Powerful yes ... and maybe even a little cheesey in the case of wish but overall not that bad. It?s only when you put all 4 of them together that madness ensues. Even 3 of the 4 at one time are a bit over the top. Take away the Robe and you still have the issue of major spell bangs followed by multiple Wishes and a rinse and repeat.

One quick and dirty suggestion I have for ?fixing? this is to make Wish a Mage only deal. Either make it a HLA, part of the True Dweomer package, or just make it an unscribeable scroll. Just do something so that Sorcerer?s aren?t getting 5+ of them in one sitting.

Just for reference I'm still stuck without my main PC.  AMD has shiped me a new processor but it's still a few days out.  In the two weeks that I've ben without a PC at home for the most part ... I'm sitting on the floor typing on my 4 year old son's machine right now ... among other things I've been planning out my next game of BGII after I get done with my current one.  One decision I made was to include Nallia in my party.  

In a lot of ways she is an underused NPC.  Her thieving skills frankly suck though with potions it is possible to use her as a primary thief, but Jan and Imoen are so much easier to use that folks typically pick them, make a thief PC, or go without.

Mage wise Nallia looses out to Edwin (and Kelsey/Tashia if you go the mod route), breaks even with Imoen, and edges out Jan, though players tend to pick all of these others over her.

All of this is too bad IMO.  I find her to be an interesting NPC and if you are a fighter type PC then it's good to have her in the party for the stronghold stuff.

Quite separately from Nallia I was thinking about Refinements and how much I would like to really test some of the specialist mage HLAs when it finally hit me.  Imoen had been improved in Refinements (making her much better than Nallia overall) so why not do the same for Nallia?  I could make Nallia a specialist mage and then have both her and Immy in the same party without worrying about overlap at all.

With this in mind I gave the matter some more consideration.

1.  I didn't want to duplicate existing NPCs so the Conjurer and Illusionist speciality types were out.

2.  I didn't want to cheat too much beyond giving her a kit on her second class thus I didn't want to give her a kit for which she did not meet the stat requirements for so Abjurer, Diviner, Enchanter, and Necromancer were out.

That left Invoker and Transmuter to decided between.

Invoker made a lot of sense for Nallia in my mind.  As the daughter of a fighter it seems likely that she could easily have focused on 'battle magic.'  Also the opposed schools rang true to my feelings about Nallia's character.  Conjuration seems a bit close to slavery for someone like Nallia to use, though I can see some counter arguments here, and Illusion seems to be a bit misleading for someone like Nallia who wants folks to see the 'truth' (at least as she percieves it).

Transmuter also seemed very fitting to me.  In the 'real world' transmutation was traditionally associated with wealthy nobles.  It also just seems like a 'right' choice for someone interested in changing the world like Nallia seems to want.  The loss of Abjuration (helping / defending others) was a bit of a blow, but didn't offset much how well the speciality seems to me to fit her.

From a meta-game perspective Transmuters don't seem like a very popular choice and, while more likely to be chosen as a PC kit, a lot of gamers tend to avoid the Invoker kit due to it being the only one with two opposed schools, both of which are big hits.

I'm curious to hear everyone else's thoughts here.  Does one school or the other seem 'more appropriate' to you?  Is this something that would make a good Refinements optional component?

Oh, and for the record, I left Wild Magic out deliberately.  It just didn't seem to fit her well and I don't care for it much in play either.

Is Yikari still limited to 1 attack per round while using CF like most monks?

I remember the days before the first BGII offical patch when monks got the same number of attacks while armed or unarmed. It seems to me that it would be appropriate for Yikari to have this for the katana at least.

OK.  I've waited patiently for a whole week after Littiz hinted that 1.04 would be out after TGM had a bit of time to take a look.

I can't wait any longer to ask!

  

So what's the ETA these days on 1.04?