<center>Ways in which Improved Faldorn is a Cheating B****:</center></font>

• Human with 19 STR</font>
• Pure Level 15 Druid, with 128hp and 4 ApR (Legal maximum is 102 hp and 1 ApR)</font>
• She Shapeshifts, so she can't be a Totemic Druid, yet she has two Spirit Animals with her</font>
• Both combatants are supposed to be stripped naked, yet she still carries a Staff of Thunder and Lightning (although I suppose I should be grateful it's not something like Sanchuudoku or TorGal's Claw)</font>
• Has Bhaalspawn abilities for some reason</font>
• Since when do Druids know Righteous Magic?</font>
• Casts Nature's Beauty, which in itself is reason enough she should be dragged out & flogged</font>
• Casts Nature's Beauty again</font>
• For some reason, is permanently immune to Cold, Magic Cold, and Electricity. Perhaps Weimer based her *.CRE on Improved Bodhi?</font>
• Upon entering combat, gets auto-buffed with an incredible array of spells that give her:</font>
  • </font>
  • an extra 20 hitpoints</font>
  • immunity to Fire and Magic Fire</font>
  • 25% Magic Resistance</font>
  • +6 to Strength (for a total of 25)</font>
  • 25% Resistance to all Physical damage</font>
  • Regenerates something like 3 hp per round</font>
  • Immunity to Nature's Beauty (Hey, I think I smell something. Hypocrisy, isn't it?)</font>
  • Immunity to all weapons of less than +3 enchantment (Improved Bodhi strikes again)</font>
  • Every single buffing spell available to Druids (and even some that aren't), for free and all at the same time, whether she had them memorized or not</font>

There are dozens more lines under her "Affects" tab, but I've only copied down what I feel pretty sure in translating. Those more familiar with dissecting this sort of thing are welcome to add to this list of Ways in which Improved Faldorn is a Cheating B****.


Oh, and if anyone out there has ever beaten Improved Faldorn (legally), please assure us that it can be done! Preferably without using a Rebalanced Shapeshifter or Anti-Paladin->Druid.

In the Tactics readme, it even directly states some of that:

"State" is not the same as "justify."

I liked the Improved Druid Grove. Improved Faldorn sucks warthog unmentionables.

I don't have Improved Druid Grove installed to check Faldorn's stats, so how many proficiencies does she have? She shouldn't be able to have more than 1 proficiency in each weapon category.

Her proficiencies are all legal. It's her Base ApR that's set to 4.

And if she is so bloody tough let at least Cernd kick her butt - but he dies too. :mad:

[ 06-23-2004, 02:57 AM: Message edited by: Leslie ]

If Six says it sucks warthog unmentionables, I believe him that it isn't fair/fun/etc. However, Six, are you totally opposed to Tactics "cheating" to the very letter of the law? In real p'n'p D&D, the DM can fudge skills in any direction he pleases, especially to make an enemy more challenging. That's the point of Tactics, it seems to me. The game rules apply to the players; the dungeon master is free to create an NPC or a creature beyond the normal limitations of their race or class, to provide challenge to the players and their limitations. Giving a human enemy 19 STR doesn't seem unreasonable at all. Of course the DM should still make vaulnerabilities for the enemy, else it would be impossible and no fun for the player. What I hope to glean from SixOfSpades reviews, is not whether Tactics cheats, but whether a Tactics battle is winnable/challenging/and fun.

I second that! Everything on the way to Faldorn was a well deserved upgrade but she was ridiculous. When I gave my feeble attempt I had Cernd at a respectable level where he could cast a couple level six spells but no seventh. I prebuffed him with every potion he could swallow and cast Improved Invisibility and a couple other spells on him. I got her with an Insect Swarm to start and summoned a nymph. Then summoned a fire elemental and cast Wondrous Recall. Another nymph and Insect Swarm later I did what little else a real druid could casting doom and some similar minor spells and shapechanging into a werewolf and not hitting her. The two Insect Swarms never got past her ironskins or did any damage. They did manage to disrupt her spell casting but who cares, she doesn't even need to cast ANY spells to defeat a high level druid.

I've got a NRL party going and I plan on getting to her right before Improved Irenicus since I can't face her afterwards. ;)

Actually, if you're playing No-Reloads, I would strongly advise avoiding Faldorn altogether. The way Weimer has it now, pretty much the only* way you can beat her is through luck. At least nothing truly essential is blocked off: You won't become the Hero of Trademeet, and you can't do the Trademeet Crypt or the Skin Dancer quests, but at least you can buy things like Blackblood, Tansheron's Bow and the Belt of Inertial Barrier.


I have no real objection to fudging the rules, provided that A) It's done in moderation and B) There's a good reason for it.

Example 1: There is a Demi-Lich (reasonably) late in the game that is immune to instant death. This means that it is immune to the Undead-slaying abilities of weapons like Azuredge, and also to the Turn Undead ability of a very high-level Cleric (and a party Cleric could very well be high-level enough to Turn a Demi-Lich by the time they meet this one). Now, this is a cheat. But all it really does is make the battle less contingent on cheesy tactics like Reloading until the Demi-Lich fails his Save vs. Death.

Example 2: In the Improved Twisted Rune, the Rune Assassins can all see invisible targets. This makes less sense than in the previous example, since it'd be next to impossible for a Thief to hear somebody sneaking around in a room with tons of spells flying all over the place. I'd have preferred having them actually Detect Illusions, but at least Weimer has this in his defense: The Rune Assassins really aren't much of a threat anyway, and they could see the invisible even in the original, unmodded game (go to the Tanner's basement and see for yourself).

Example 3: TorGal's Claw, on top of its being a +3 weapon with some rather nice on-hit enchantments, does 2D6+3 damage. I think the only other SoA weapons that can beat it in terms of raw damage are Warblade and Carsomyr, at 1D12+4 and 1D12+5, respectively. Since when does a Dagger do more damage than a Two-Handed Sword?

19 STR is indeed not truly overblown, but it is a cheat. I wouldn't complain about it in something like my Tactics Review, but it deserves being listed here. Especially since in BG1, Faldorn's stats were 12/15/11/10/16/15. Boy, I wonder how much steroids she needed to take to crank herself up to 19/18/16/13/18/15. And what a shock for the player who actually had Faldorn in the party at the end of BG1! :eek:

Hmmm....I thought that my Reviews covered the fun/challenging points pretty well....can you quote any examples you found insufficient or misleading? True, I did (and will) point out any noticable instances of cheating, but note that I also gave each one of those a qualifier on how it affected gameplay: I shrugged off the matter of the Rune Assassins mentioned above, but I was not so forgiving of Stalman's infinite "Heal, Heal, Zone of Sweet Air" B.S.

* After sleeping on it, I have developed a way by which a well-balanced party could theoretically beat Improved Faldorn without actually cheating.

1) Keep Jaheira in the party.
2) Wait until your primary Wizard is around Level 20. (Putting Jaheira around Levels 16/14, with about 4 HLAs.)
3) Return to the Druid Grove, and buff Jaheira up with everything that lasts longer than 1 turn.
4) Have Jaheira cast all her Insect Plagues and Creeping Dooms on somebody with Boots of Speed, who keeps running away from the bugs to postpone them.
5) Finally, shield Jaheira with a Death Ward, have her Doom herself, and cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on her until it sticks.
6) Have Jaheira cast Regeneration on herself for good luck.
7) Have your frantically-running-away-from-insects guy talk to Faldorn, and start the "duel."
8) Hope that Otiluke's does what it says, and makes Jaheira immune to pretty much everything. Since it was cast by a Level 20 caster, Faldorn (who is Level 15) has about a 1% chance of Dispelling it.
9) Have your high-level Wizard(s) empty all their Remove Magics as close to Faldorn as they can get them. Provided Faldorn's buffs are dispellable at all, a Level 20 caster should have a 75% chance of dispelling them.
10) When you're out of Remove Magics, finally have frantically-running-away-from-insects guy run over to the edge of the pit, close to Faldorn. The bugs will hit him and spread to her and her damned Spirit Animals.
11) Have Jaheira cast Cure Disease so she can see again.
12) Hit Faldorn's side of the pit with every damn Area-of-effect spell you've got, except the ones that do Cold or Electricity damage.
13) If Faldorn is still alive by the time the Otiluke's expires, have Jaheira ready to Shapeshift Fire Elemental, and Greater Whirlwind for dear life.

After going through all of this, one must sit back and say, "What the #$&@ is up with that $%^*!?!?!" At this point, the prospect of fighting Faldorn <u>without</u> a Druid (as in the old TimeStop -> Shapeshift Mindflayer) is starting to look like the more reasonable alternative. But until Weimer corrects this, I'll probably just stick with uninstalling the Improved Druid Grove every time I get to Faldorn, and putting it back when I've beaten her.

[ 06-24-2004, 03:57 AM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

What do you think about the odds if

1) the challenging druid was able to keep his or her equipment during the fight, or

2) you could say screw the laws of the ritual and have any member of your party fight Faldorn

I don't know how the game engine or modding works so maybe those aren't even possible fixes, but if they were it might make for a fair fight.

Your above strategy is a bit of a lengthy process. A high level Sorceror with 3 remove magics in a sequencer equipped with the Robe of Vecna could let them loose as soon as Faldorn goes red and have her dispelled while Jaheira is casting Insect Plague. Jaheira's Insects will hit her before she can cast and then you could run like hell with Jaheira while hitting the Arena with AoE spells. Do remove magics and AoE spells make their way into the Arena BTW? I've never tried.

[ 06-24-2004, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: SpongeBobTheDestoyer ]

Or... Hardiness and Armor of Faith stack. Slap them on Jaheira, and all of the Green Protection scrolls you can get. Improved Haste, Haste, and the Boots of Speed. Regeneration, and IH will double-time Regeneration. Iron Skins. Cure Disease (it works versus NB?!) to get rid of the blindness (I'll take your word on it). Shapeshift to Fire Elemental, and Critical Hit HLA. Waste Faldorn. [img]smile.gif[/img]

This is all purely theorectical, because I've never actually played the Druid Grove component, becuase I never knew it existed until a couple of days ago. (sticking with reinstalling, trusting that weimer wouldn't stick anything n ew in. [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

That's a good way of allowing more variety into the fight--since Druids are stuck at Levels 13 and 14 for pretty much all of SoA, allowing items is pretty much the only way of taking past achivements into account. I see nothing wrong with Jaheira equipped with Armor of the Hart and the Sentinel Shield, or Cernd with Shadow Dragon Scale and the Ring of Gaxx.

Violating the ritual would mean that either
A) Good luck, Faldorn's immortal except against another Druid, or
B) She isn't immortal, which would trash a nice bit of roleplay that I wouldn't like to lose. I've always held all of the Druid Grove mumbo-jumbo to mean that Faldorn is tapping into the power of the ley lines to call forth the Earth Mother's power into the highest local Druid, thus making her invincible. It's only a challenge of Druid vs. Druid that can confuse the Mother, thus causing her to not bestow her power at all, thus making Faldorn....pretty much just another Druid. A Level 15 Druid, all right, but nothing otherwise special about her. (Which, of course, raises the question of what the hell Faldorn did to jump all the way up to ToB levels by the time the rest of the BG1 crew can even get to the Druid Grove, but we'll probably have to live with that.)

True, but Jaheira will most likely die to friendly fire if you don't have her shielded with Otiluke's. And that means she won't be able to cast anything once she's in the arena. Don't disregard those Spirit Animals, either: The Wolves can Level Drain you, and the Bears can inflict Fear. (Weimer has steered clear of the Spirit Snakes, for some reason.)

I obviously sure as hell hope they do.


A good starter idea, but when you realize that Faldorn's got 6 castings of Ironskins, immunity to Fire, the ability to cast Regeneration on her own account, and more attacks per round than Jaheira does....I think you'll begin to grasp the futility of the situation.

I don't think Remove Magics or other AoE spells make it into the arena, come to think of it... I believe I tried it once and it didn't work. I hope for your sakes that I'm wrong.

Unless Weimer changed it, AoE spells do not reach in the circle. I've tried that on several occasions and it never worked for me.

And correct me if I'm wrong... but doesn't Otiluke's Resilient Sphere also hold its target? That means she can't cast anything on herself...

If no AoE spells can cross the "wall," then pretty much the only option is to have a party Sorcerer (or Mage, if you've done WK) continually casting Wish. Is it me, or should Weimer have noticed something was slightly amiss when Improved Faldorn became more difficult to beat than Improved Irenicus?

My alternative plan of attack involves Jaheira sitting in the Sphere until Faldorn's Nature's Beauties and FireStorms are gone, and then casting things like Insect Plague and Storm of Vengeance on herself--they might not make it out of the Sphere, but it's worth a shot--and then summoning up a storm (Conjure Animals, Greater Elemental Summoning). The Summons should appear next to Jaheira if she casts the spells on herself, and since they're not in the Sphere they should be free to attack.

I strongly doubt that Otiluke's Holds its target--but if it is, you can always use Free Action.

Of course, I can't speak with certainty on this, not having put any of it into action--but I will. My Nalia is currently Level 16, have patience.

Fixed in Baldurdash.

I was thinking about this today & came up with a couple of things to try using weimer-cheese to beat weimer-cheese (it'll take me a while to get back there to try these out, so if anyone wants to, please do)...

- Can Solaufein Dimension Door into the pit? I know it's very cheesy to pass items into the pit, but if Sola can DD in, he could "legitimately" carry some Druid-friendly items in with him, right? And then help out with fight...

- What about Improved Kitthix? Can it DD into the pit to help with the fight, even if summoned outside the pit?

... &, getting away from weimer-cheese...

- How about targeted Summons? those that you can pick the spawning point - can someone outside the pit summon a Planetar (or whatever, that's very high level) into the pit?

- my last run through I didn't have Jaheira & didn't feel like levelling up Cernd, so I CTRL-J'ed my Thief into the pit, set a bunch of traps, CTRL-J'ed him out, then let Cernd fight it out with the benefit of the massive trap damage & he won - extremely cheesy/cheating, but only slightly more so than just CTRL-Y'ing Faldorn, which seems equally justified.

Even if any of those work, it still means clearing the Druid Grove is a "right before confronting Irenicus" battle, which is silly.

(while I'm at it, I'd just like to say that Improved Druid Grove rules, while Improved Faldorn utterly sucks)

- Imrahil

Check out this topic:

http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php?topic=15435.0

It outlines what some people have done that works, though quite a few involve cheese.

The winning strategy without cheese:

And something that I never thought about...

[ 06-29-2004, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

Well, some findings.

I must now regretfully confirm that Area of Effect spells will not cross the perimeter of the arena, even if their center is outside the pit. This includes Teleport Field, so the guy who said that he Telly'd Faldorn outside the pit to be slain by the rest of the party must have been playing with Multi-Strongholds on.

Otiluke's Resilient Sphere does indeed Hold the target, even with Free Action applied. Wish they'd thought to mention this in the spell description. Bugger!

That I find odd--Faldorn has permanent Physical Mirror (to counter the Guard cheese), which, if it works like the Shield of Reflection, bounces the damage back to the Trap-setter....so Faldorn should have been unaffected, but your Thief should have died. Interesting. I wonder if those Traps could be set outside the arena?

Yeah, I wasn't exactly expecting reports of people beating Faldorn honorably. And about that Kensai(12)->Druid who claimed to have managed to pull it off without cheese: The first time I fought Improved Faldorn, I picked up the staff, hit her with it, and got "Weapon Ineffective." And the last time I fought her, I couldn't even find the staff at all. I did like the guy mentioned and tried leading the Dread Wolves (not Spirit Animals, sorry, my bad) around, but no "Item here" pointer could I find.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My objections:

1) Improved Faldorn forces the player to include Cernd and/or Jaheira as a permanent member of the party, or to be a Druid on their own account, which is an unreasonable requirement for a major quest.

2) Improved Faldorn forces the player to wait until the very final stages of SoA (after Improved Bodhi, maybe even after Watchers' Keep) before they can even begin to stand a chance against her, which is absolutely ludicrous.

3) Improved Faldorn cheats in so many ways that I can't even number them. Among the most offensive ways are the fact that she attacks while casting spells, the fact that she casts Nature's Beauty (and yet is immune to it herself), the fact that she has buffs and immunities not available to Druids of any level, and the fact that when she enters combat, all of her buffs are cast for her for free (whether she had them memorized or not) and in 0 time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have previously said that Weimer writes code well, but doesn't know jack about game balance. I think his own words of "I am getting the impression from many sources that Imp Faldorn is, shall we say, a bit strong," reveal just how out-of-touch he is. Perhaps when he was playtesting the difficulty of Improved Faldorn prior to release, he was doing so with an AntiPaladin->Mage under All-Strongholds.

[ 07-02-2004, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

That I find odd--Faldorn has permanent Physical Mirror (to counter the Guard cheese), which, if it works like the Shield of Reflection, bounces the damage back to the Trap-setter....so Faldorn should have been unaffected, but your Thief should have died. </font>[/QUOTE]I imagine it's like setting traps for Kangaxx, who also relies on Physical Mirror - even the auto-buffing scripts take a second to fully kick in, which is longer than it takes the trap to go off.

I'll have to try that - then I'd feel less cheesy at least (although I did rationalize it to myself along the lines of "well, it's not like I couldn't just climb down into the pit & prepare the battlefield"). It's still relying on HLA's, though, & there should be an SoA-only way of beating her.

I noticed there's a new One Day NPC out - a Druid at that, so I imagine I'll have an opportunity to try some new tricks on Faldorn shortly. I agree about it forcing you to take a Druid along now - maybe weimer could make it so, if you don't recruit Cernd, he gets Imoen's Belt in that fight, so there's a non-cheesy way of just bypassing the whole thing.

- Imrahil

Euh... You're starting to make a believer out of me. =/ A Druid could possibly get high enough of a level to have Dispel Magic succeed, but it'll be a job trying to get it to finish. Physical damage is nigh impossible (damn Ironskins), not to mention the sheer crappiness of a Druid's thac0 and ApR (well, our Druids --;; ) and the fact there is only one weapon usable. Elemental damage, similarily, will not be of much use unless you can Dispel Magic. Not to mention NB is neutralized... And damaging her is going to be a bitch as well, because of Regeneration. Now, I cancel out even Spirit Troll's Regeneration by using a good ole Slow. But Druids don't have slow, and in this fight, nothing could give slow.

Here's what I could gleam from CTRL-Q'ing Faldorn into my party:

Fire and Cold both heal her, with a res level of 127%. 100% Electricity is also on, making almost all elemental attacks point/useless. thac0 of 2, with an ApR of 4. Without any armor, she's going to be hitting every time, with 24 damage every hit. Unless CTRL-Q makes all buffs permanent, she gains all of the bonuses of the spells permanently, as none of them were dispelled after resting. 40% MR, and the normal effects of Armor of Faith.

Bloody hell... She beat a Deva one on one. She draws with an Elemental Prince (it got unsummoned). None of them did any damage to each other.

Well, I suppose we should be glad weimer didn't Imp. Haste her as well. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 07-02-2004, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

I do not disagree that Improved Faldorn is too difficult (or, impossible) to beat. I do not disagree that Faldorn's stats/abils are outside the normal limitations.

I like Six's reviews (except the part when he said Weimer is out-of-touch... in the Weimer quote you gave he appears to be sarastic in saying she's "shall we say, a bit strong"). Weimer knows what he's doing, he's doing it on purpose and it is in fact the very point of Tactics, isn't it? Now maybe this particular componant is beyond, and if all of Tactics was this hard it would be no fun at all. But is it still within what you bargin-for when you install Tactics?

Now, to my real point for this post. If I can phrase it. The best way I can think of to say it is: WHY SHOULD your character be able to slaughter any and all enemies in the game? Should there not be forces which are stronger than you, at any given level/chapter? Do you really insist that in the entire life of a baahlspawn, you should never face a battle you cannot win?

(I'm not offering justification for why Faldorn would be that one power you couldn't defeat -- how about Eliminster, god-like powers, etc. -- but more generally stating that the world could/should include forces more powerful than you at any time.)

What's broken about the game if you turn around and leave? Trademeet town is screwed, you lose a little experience and an item. Life goes on, and you fight other evils elsewhere. It's not like some loop that won't let you escape until you win, that would truly be unreasonable. Six already answered this above:
The theory I'm working with -- Faldorn's*cough*Devil's advocate -- In specific response to your objections:

1) "Forces the player to include...a Druid... which is an unreasonable requirement for a major quest." >> No. It would be more unreasonable to say that the entire game-world should include nothing which is for-druids-only. That would be to throw away the whole idea of the Druidic hierarchy, the challenge for leadership. It is a "major" quest, but it is optional and untimed. Any other class can clear this quest up until Faldorn, and then tuck your tail and go home with the knowledge that you did not have the birthright to fight against a druidic leader in her home-grove.

2) "Improved Faldorn forces the player to wait until the very final stages of SoA." SO?? What is wrong with Tactics Mod (which is designed to make the game harder), changing one of the easiest quests from the very start of the game, into one of the hardest quests which you must save until the very end *if* you want to fight it? (I would actually advise, don't fight it, but admit there is a force you cannot beat and go home until you are prepared to return with god-like vengence).

3) "Improved Faldorn cheats in so many ways that I can't even number them." From the perspective of game-engine and rulebook technicalities, yes, of course you are right. From a standpoint of "Is this fun?" you may also be right, Faldorn cheats so it is not fun. BUT from a role-playing perspective, as a former Dungeon Master myself, I absolutely think that the game-world SHOULD present challenges which are inexplicable and unusual/unique creatures with abilities beyond the normal (perhaps a flying ogre, perhaps an inate ability for a b-spawn such as SlayerChange). I also believe the game should include enemies which are unbeatable through sheer force. (Ideally, to make it fun, there should be an alternative way around it, at least to escape it, if not defeat it).

FINALLY, the only justification I can offer for Faldorn's powers-beyond-what-druid-should have: Faldorn does say that she is magically enhanced and empowered while she is in her Druid's Grove shelter. There are many enemies throughout fantasy who are stronger in their home, not because of the walls but because of some kind of shared-power thing (Guess I am thinking of Saruman in Isengard before it is breached). This makes sense for someone like a Druid leader who is literally feeding on the power of her grove. Really, if you could just go in there and stomp the leader on the druid turf with no equipment, that should be saying a lot.

There's no question really, that this Faldorn is virtually unpassable at any stage of the game you're likely to be there, even if you wait. Unless you cheat or cheese significantly. I guess I agree that is going too far, but I'm trying to justify it. I'm thinking if I was a DM, and I had put that in my campaign to force the players to find other 'tactics...'

What do you think?

Has Weimer said he's going to tone it down?

[ 07-02-2004, 07:42 PM: Message edited by: Hank Parsons ]

*cough* unseeing eye *cough* *cough*

Well, I beat the bitch.

Did a bit more testing before any serious attempts were made; no, Traps placed outside the area do not fire in response to Hostiles inside (no matter how close to the Traps they get). Kitthix does not Dimension Door into the pit, but Nymphs do--but only after it's too late to be much help (I didn't try Improved Kitthix).

The party had taken out everything except Improved Bodhi. Nalia was indeed Level 20, and Jaheira was indeed Levels 16/14. Buffs included: Ironskins, Oil of Speed, Improved Haste, Potion of Storm Giant Strength, Potion of Agility, Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Heroism, Potion of Invulnerability, Potion of Absorbtion, Potion of Magic Shielding (or Blocking, or Protection, one of those), Magic Resistance (for a total of 90% MR), Death Ward, Armor of Faith, Chaotic Commands, Free Action, Resist Fear, Protection from Fire, Resist Fire/Cold, Regeneration, Improved Invisibility, and Hardiness. A Cure Disease was memorized to dispel the Blindness.

Once in the pit, Jaheira immediately cast Creeping Doom on herself, and was amazed to see that it actually got through Faldorn's Magic Resistance for once. But that happy thought quickly faded when I looked around the floor of the pit and saw that there was nothing to fight with--no Staves on the ground. Yes, I'm sure. Rightfully perturbed, I CLUA'd one in ("staf01") and passed it to Jaheira--who used it and got the dreaded Weapon Ineffective. Well, I certainly wasn't going to put up with that shit, so I had Anomen toss Pitchwife over the wall. As a result, Faldorn was finished long before she started casting Heal--damage over time bows to no spellcaster. Jaheira cast no spells other than her Creeping Doom during the fight, and still had some Ironskins left from the night before.

Then I did it again, with the same buffs, but with Jaheira using her Earth Elemental Transformation instead of Pitchwife. Faldorn fared better in this fight, eating through the Stoneskins and getting Jaheira down to about 50% health (even with Regeneration active) before she died.

Overpowered? You bet your ass.

The nasty bit is that given the size of the arena, it's impossible to be out of range of your own Dispel, giving you a 50% chance of leaving you buck naked. Maybe more, if you used Potions: From what I've read, all Scrolls are treated as Caster Level 10, and I'll bet Potions are calculated the same way--and if a Dispel Magic is successful against some of the enchantments on a particular person, it's successful against <u>all</u> enchantments.

Not to mention the fact that Weimer has more than likely made Faldorn's buffs permanent anyway, as you said above. I'm just glad she doesn't cast Dispel. :rolleyes:


My point in quoting that particualr Weimerism was not to say that Weimer doesn't know what the hell he's playing at; he does, in fact, have a rough idea. My point was that the concept of Improved Faldorn being "a bit strong" should have entered into his head long, long before he began getting feedback for her. For a creature supposed to be beatable by a solo, naked, Level 13 Avenger (or something on that power scale), the fact that she's capable of taking out a Deva seems to have slipped entirely below Weimer's notice.

"Weimer knows what he's doing" .....well, that could be taken more than one way, couldn't it? Does Weimer know that he's making the game more difficult? Yes he does. Does Weimer know that he's blowing things completely out of proportion? Apparently not. (And yes, there IS such a thing as proportion. It is NOT cool to take an NPC that was just another average (heck, below average) NPC in BG1, and turn her into the approximate difficulty level of Demogorgon.)

"The very point of Tactics" ....that, too, deserves consideration. Is the point of Tactics to juice up all encounters to the level of Solaufein/Valen/Improved Small Teeth Pass munchkinfests? Is the point of Tactics to force SoA parties to wither and die, again and again, against a string of ToB-powered opponents? Or is the object of Tactics to make the game <u>better?</u>

As for "any and all" enemies in the game, you're right, I can imagine certain creatures being superior to the might I could weild. In the face of a deity, or a Tarrasque, or 1 million Mind Flayers, or a legendary force like Elminster, or something of that nature, I would probably have to concede defeat. But a Level 15 Druid, whatever her connection with the Earth Mother might be, is simply a Level 15 Druid. And, given the unparallelled amount of artifact-level weapons and equipment the party has at their disposal, not to mention their spellpower, I do not imagine there would be many enemies that could not be beaten.

I have no objection to the game including quests for Druids only. But Improved Faldorn goes beyond that, it locks out an entire series of quests that, before, could be completed by any party. Now, the only way to do them is if your party includes Cernd or Jaheira, or you're a Druid yourself. This is tantamount to my creating a new recruitable NPC, a Gnomish Cleric/Thief, and spiking in a large amount of cheese that makes Firkraag unbeatable by anyone except a Gnomish Cleric/Thief.

I'll tell you what's wrong with it: It's unrealistic. Think of all the big fights in the game, and how many of them SHOULD outrank a Level 15 Druid in terms of difficulty: The Guarded Compound, Kangaxx, the Twisted Rune, Lich in the Docks, at least two Dragons, a huge nest of Vampires, at least one Baalor, possibly a Lesser Demon Lord, two Beholder lairs, two Mind Flayer dungeons, a few Cowled Wizard ambushes, God knows how many Random City Encounters......etc. Now count how many of those you have to fight before Improved Faldorn, just because your only shot at survival is to get your Druid up to ToB levels.

I have never disagreed with this, I have only added the caveat that there is a point when enough is frankly enough. And call me crazy, but I think that permanent Armor of Faith, Barkskins, Prot. from Fire/Cold/Electricity, Mantle, etc., etc., etc., ETC., is just a <u>wee</u> bit of overkill. And I think Weimer is in the wrong for not having the sense to notice that prior to release. What, did he actually sit back and say, "Yeah, that looks about right?"

Good idea, go make one. But don't have it require any specific party makeup, and don't have it block off any pre-existing quests.

It's always been my understanding that tapping into the power of the Grove makes Faldorn unkillable--OUTSIDE the Challenge Ritual. Once the challenge has been invoked, the Earth Mother is unsure of which Druid to grant her power to, and therefore withholds it, meaning Faldorn is pretty much just another Level 15 Druid with some slight (SLIGHT!) advantages, such as having a natural 19 Strength. She did, after all, apparently defeat whoever was Grand Druid here previously. I have no objection to Faldorn being made more challenging than her original incarnation; I obviously have plently of good objections to make to her Weimerized version.

Not that I'm aware of.

Awesome answer to my questions, Six. You're cool as hell man. Way to go -- on beating Faldorn, on accomplishing your research, and mainly on responding to my line of questions.

Loved the part where you conceeded that a Tarrasque should be able to beat a bhaal-spawn.

I just hope you're not mad at Wiemer, cuz I know he does look at your input. SixOfSpades is talked about in the last Tactics ReadMe. I would not be surprised if he looked very carefully at your suggestions before the next release of Tactics. And since there have been 5 updates to Tactics in the past few months, I would assume there will be another and that he will end up toning down Faldorn.

Only detail I did not agree with: Six said, "Think of all the big fights in the game, and how many of them SHOULD outrank a Level 15 Druid in terms of difficulty... ...etc." Now, I do not think that a Random City Encounter SHOULD be more powerful than Faldorn! NO way. That would be saying that the Random Encounter enemies could have waltzed up to Druid's Grove and won. How about Mind Flayers and Beholders? The PC can beat them, surely Faldorn could beat them, especially if they came into her Earth Mother sanctuary. A lesser demon? More powerful than one who has the support of the Earth Mother? Nah. Liches, Dragons, Baalor, Eliminster -- yes, these should be more powerful than Faldorn at face value one-on-one (e.g. Dragon vs. Faldorn). But -- you would be allowed to face Dragon with party and equipment, when compared with facing Faldorn naked, the Faldorn battle should be harder.

I liked your explanation about the Druidic Challenge and how the Earth Mother would be unsure whom to award favor, in a Challenge. Perhaps for some reason -- be it magic, Time of Troubles, Earth Mother not wanting Bhaal-spawn to take over the grove, or whatever -- you can pretend that Earth Mother granted extraordinary partisan protections to Faldorn in an effort to keep her as the leader and block you out of the Druidic hierarchy. Goes against Druidic tradition, maybe, but the time-period of the game involves numerous unusual gods-politics.

Thanks again for your research and replies.

Bloody hell... I think you used almost all of the darn buffing spells in the game. =/ Except for a few.

What I personally don't like about Improved Faldorn is that it really doesn't require any tactics. It requires pre-knowledge and knowledge more than any specific tactics. Let's just say that you didn't know how hard Faldorn is. No preknowledge whatsoever. There is no way that you would survive. There is no indication that she's roughly on the level of a certain Demon Prince. All of the other components (save the Chapter 6 ones, I suppose) are beatable with a before-Underdark (level 13'ish range) party. This one isn't.

I mean; okay, let's look at Firkraag. With some good luck, one could beat even Firkraag at a fairly low level. I haven't tried it at that low of a level yet (respecting the Vampires [img]tongue.gif[/img] ), but I know that it's definately possible at level 13. Firkraag is at level 25! With 3 ApR. Yes, Faldorn could possibly be harder, but she's a bit too hard. I mean, how come I don't get those cool powers when I become the leader of the Grove?

On a side note, do any of you know just how much of a bloody difference having Improved Haste makes? It's so powerful... Now, I'm starting to divide up battles in three sections: Before Improved Haste, after Improved Haste, and after Time Stop. Faldorn is in the Time Stop range. All of the rest are in the Improved Haste range.

Not tthat I have anything against Tactics. I like Tactics, as SixoOfSpades can attest to (remember that long thread where you were trying to make the impossible battle? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ), but this one is going slightly over the brink.

While I was reading up and looking for that thread, here's something that I found: http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...=018880#000000 ; scroll down a bit, and see some people's view on NB. =/

And here's a little tidbit from the thread I was looking for: http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/cg...2;t=021290;p=4 Improved Demons have been made, and if you look at page 3 (where Alson talks about Ascension), a solo Cleric has finished Ascension. :D

[ 07-05-2004, 08:58 PM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

This is the problem I have with Faldorn as well - it makes me cater my game to her. Even Valen's Vampire Slayers & Sola's Eclipse Encounter are, technically, beatable with any party. Faldorn requires taking a Druid through the entire game & practically requires having Throne of Bhaal installed - I managed to beat Faldorn with a single-classed Druid using Sunnis, a Deva, Greater Earth Elemental Transformation (all ToB abilities) & every buff/potion under the sun.

There's needs to be an alternative - maybe even one that doesn't result in defeating Faldorn but still saves Trademeet - so the story can continue. Good parties don't get the chance to poison the Grove, after all.

- Imrahil

I was unable to beat Firkragg at a low level. He targets the protagonist so much, that it really doesn't matter what the rest of the party has, all that matters is whether your PC can survive long enough for the party to win.

But remember a major difference. You face Firkragg with a whole party, with equipment. You face Faldorn naked alone. If you faced Firkragg solo-naked, you would quickly find out that he is just as hard as Faldorn and probably worse.

Finally, how do you know you didn't get those cool powers when you became leader of the grove? Did you ever get attacked inside your Druid's Grove sanctuary? Did you ever get challenged for the Druidic leadership? Cuz if you did, and the Earth Mother wanted to keep you for some reason, I imagine she would buff you and defend you quite strongly. A PC should not be more powerful than Nature itself.... (Just providing one possible role-playing explanation for Improved Faldorn).

There's also the matter of the dark and evil rituals she used to bond herself to the grove, doing damage to nature. This implies that nature would not normally convey such protections upon a Great Druid. No, protections provided to druids most likely manifest in good old spells.

I'm not mad at Weimer, merely disappointed that he apparently didn't take my previous Review to heart. By that I mean that yes, of course I'm aware that he's made many changes that incorporate my suggestions (I'm playing a version of Tactics that incorporates those changes, after all), but he doesn't seem to have taken the hint that perhaps his own judgement on what is and is not "fun" and "balanced" needs to be moderated a tad.

Or perhaps he released Improved Faldorn like this just so he could watch me spout off about her. [img]smile.gif[/img] I have been sharpening my tongue on the grindstone of Jaheira's heart, after all.

I will draw up a concise list of what I think would be good for Faldorn, and send it to him. He hasn't yet responded to the rebalanced Sahuagin .CREs I sent him a couple of weeks ago, but the man's only human. (Should have been a Gnome--the INT bonus is great for this sort of thing.)

The last set of Random City Encounters has 6 enemies, all of whom are pretty darn close to 3 million EXP, which is what Faldorn has. Even taken individually (but allowing them their equipment), some of them would be a match for her: She could certainly take out the Shadow Druid without much fuss, and the Conjurer would survive only a bit longer, but the Fighter and Berserker would probably beat her in a melee, and the Wizard Slayer would come close. Even the Bounty Hunter, with his Invisibility Potions, could cause her some serious pain if the size of the arena didn't prevent his Trapsetting. The 6 of them together would surely kick her ass--the only things she has in her favor is her Fire Storm, and the chance that 2 or 3 of them would fall to her Nature's Beauties (probably the same ones that would be incapacitated by her Creeping Doom). And if they could beat Improved Faldorn, imagine what they could do to a legal Level 15 Druid.

Hmmm....the Powers are forbidden from interfering directly with the whole Bhaalspawn can of worms, but I'm not sure this qualifies. But of course, if the Earth Mother didn't object to a Shadow Druid linking herself with the Grove itself, thus weakening it, why whouldn't she tolerate a Bhaalspawn?

I endeavor to give satisfaction, sir. [img]smile.gif[/img]


I can't think of any important ones that I forgot....I didn't use Barkskin, because I wasn't sure if it'd "orverwrite" the Ironskin. I should test that sometime--I don't usually use Ironskins, I find Insect Plague much more useful. And I should note that quite a few of those Potions (Storm Giant Strength, Heroism, and Invulnerability, at least) are unusable by Cernd.

Regrettably, that is very true. Once you know that she's immune to all the Elemental Damage a Druid can dish out, she casts Nature's Beauty, she's got multiple castings of Ironskins, and she's a melee monster, then your strategy is simple: Wait until ToB, get somebody to Improved Haste you, go Earth Elemental, and then pound her, no finesse required. Tactics? What tactics?

If Faldorn was actually intelligent, meaning she depended on a smart AI to see what spells I was using and the best means to counter them, I would respect her. But the only emotion I can hold for a creature that simply relies of cheesy immunities far beyond those available to the player (in what's supposed to be a fair fight) is sheer contempt.

That's a darn good idea, actually.

Exactly. And pardon my bluntness, but I've got better things to do than order my game around Weimer's twisted notions of what Druids should be.

[ 07-06-2004, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

FWIW, Barkskin & Ironskin will stack (Barkskin affects base AC) much like Spirit Armor & Stoneskin stack for a Mage. Druids can use a plain old Strength Potion (plus receive a further minor boost from a Mage's Strength spell), Potion of Power, & Defense/Stone Form to make up for no Giant Strength, Heroism, Invulnerability.

I used Allison, the One Day NPC, instead of Cernd, but the same things should apply despite Cernd's kit.

- Imrahil

1] You can't damage her without Shapeshifting, as the Staff given can't damage her. And the forms that you do get (are they enchanted enough?) can't reliably get past her regeneration until HLAs.

2] Immune to all of the Druidic elemental spells, forcing one to use a summon or bludgeon her to death. See 1] for clarification on the need for HLAs to damage using the Druid itself. None of the other spells work reliably to damage, as even Creeping Doom bows down to her regeneration.

3] There are no summons, which, in a one-on-one battle, may beat Faldorn. This include Devas and Elemental Princes. Doesn't that just seem a bit too strong?

Now, onto tactics: 3 Decays seems to be enough to knock out whatever the heck she has on, and although the Spell Deflection animation is still on, the fourth one seems to have some effect on slowing her down. Something to test would be if slowing her down will also slow down her insane regeneration (via a spell).

ADD] I found out that Faldorn is immune to the both of the damages that Implosion deals out.

How about if one of Faldorn's spirit summons drops a staff that CAN hit her? So the Tactic required, would be to think of picking up a weapon from the ground (and then you'd still have to mega buffed, and still get somewhat lucky). Just an idea.

IRT Assassin "There are no summons, which, in a one-on-one battle, may beat Faldorn. This include Devas and Elemental Princes. Doesn't that just seem a bit too strong?" >> Um no, why would this be too strong? Are you saying you should be able to simply SUMMON, out of thin air, a creature which can beat the most difficult challenges of SOA?? If you could do that, then why not just summon through the whole game and not even play your character? Elemental Princes, come on they are a joke, your character could kill an ele prince any day of the week, of course a Druid master should be able to beat an Elemental Prince. If they couldn't then something would be wrong.

Why would a Spirit Animal be carrying a Staff? Particularly one that could damage its summoner?

No. I believe what many of us are saying is that Faldorn shouldn't be one of the most difficult challenges of SOA. Incidently, anyone know how a Deva (much less a Planetar) fares one-on-one vs. some of the other SoA bosses?

If you felt like resting often enough, then you could pretty much do that. It's even part of the reason Sorcerers are so insanely powerful.

Not true - try sending Cernd by himself to fight Ogremach in Sendai's Enclave in ToB. Bet you a dollar he gets crushed.

- Imrahil

EDIT: stupid spelling mistake

[ 07-06-2004, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: Imrahil ]

... So, in your reasoning, any decently difficult challenge has to be able to beat an Elemental Prince and a Deva one-on-one? This is just my opinion, but I think that the game designers designed the HLAs to be viable throughout ToB. They're now suddenly castrated in SoA? I shudder to think what kind of challenges you think ToB should have. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

It is a viable strategy with a Totemic Druid/Cleric combination to waste the entire early and even a bit of the middle game with Spirit Animals/Fire Elementals/Aerial Servants. Just Haste them, follow a step behind, and waste. Mages fall to Insect Plague before they can Death Spell them, and nothing can really last that long against that combination early/middle game.

How about just remove that bloody permanent Mantle? You'll still have a job getting past the Regeneration.

... Faldorn's battle is a lot different than the other SoA bosses. It requires a Druid, and it's one-on-one, without any equipment. All of the other bosses allow the whole party, with all of their equipment. You can't compare them.

I'm just saying that Faldorn is a SoA battle, so let it be beatable with SoA abilities and with a Druid under the SoA experience cap without any mods and without needing to reload 2 dozen times just to get her to fail her save or something. None of this bloody nonesense of having to use some 5 million experience warrior with a HLA.

[ 07-06-2004, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

I certainly don't dispute this - I was just interested in how a Deva (or a Planetar or a Deva + Greater Elemental, etc.) would fare against the other SoA bosses, since I've never conducted the tests myself. I wonder how they'd do against Lavok, or Mae'Var, or Big Red, or the Umar Hills bad guy(s), or TorGal, etc. (all stronghold quest bad guys - another thing to consider about Faldorn - Druids now get screwed out of the Grove quests unless they waste a ton of game time after finally beating her).

It just stands to reason that if the HLA Summons do well (or even win) against the current stronghold bad guys, where you could, if you chose to, have them + a well-equipped party, then they should (theoretically at least) do equally well against Faldorn, where you have no party & no equipment.

- Imrahil

The first order of business is to make the Improved Druid Grove and Improved Faldorn into separate components of Tactics.

What I'd Like To See In Improved Faldorn:</font>

• Forget all this "entire party pre-buffs the party Druid" crap, let's just have a straight fight of Druid vs. Druid. That means purple-circling (as in "The Transformation and the Dream" sequence or Round 2 of Improved Irenicus) the rest of the party, as well as any Summons, during the fight.</font>
• Step 2 of the same vein involves removing all pre-buffs from the party Druid, to disallow things like Storm Giant Strength and Improved Haste. As soon as the challenge is issued, the party gets purple-circled, then the challenger gets hit with Spellstrike, Breach, and an Inquisitor's Dispel.</font>
• Both combatants are then given free castings of Barkskin, Ironskins, Bless, Armor of Faith, Resist Fire/Cold, Strength of One, Magic Resistance, Death Ward, and Defensive Harmony, each of which is cast at their own level--so a Level 13 Druid would have weaker castings of Ironskins, Magic Resistance, Armor of Faith, etc., than Faldorn would, and would also be likely to be stripped naked if Faldorn were to cast Dispel Magic. Faldorn also has "Summon Dread Wolves" cast for her at the start of combat.</font>
• Faldorn is given a Staff of Thunder and Lightning, a normal Sling, and 80 normal Bullets. The challenger is given a Staff and Sling (with Bullets) as Quick Weapons, and a Scimitar, Spear, Dagger, Club, and 80 Darts in Inventory. All of these weapons are Normal.</font>
• In BG1, Faldorn's stats are 12/15/11/10/16/15, so let's say that she consumed all of the famous Tomes, and her BG2 stats are now 13/16/12/11/19/16. In addition, her THAC0, AC, and Saving Throws are all 2 points better than would be legal, she has 12 extra hitpoints, and an ApR of 2 in her Human form.</font>
• Faldorn has no other free buffs or resistances, apart from being immune to Nature's Beauty--which she does NOT cast.</font>
• Faldorn may not cast spells while Shapeshifted.</font>
• In her current version, Improved Faldorn picked Summon Fallen Deva as her HLA, and she has it memorized. I suggest either Globe of Blades, Aura of Flaming Death, or Storm of Vengeance instead.</font>

Weimer must personally beat the Rebalanced Faldorn with a Level 14 Druid (any kit except the Overbalanced Shapeshifter, and no Fighter component) before she can be considered truly fit for release.

Opinions?

<hr>

It's true that allowing the challenger to retain his/her equipment is pretty much the only way of letting past experiences benefit you (since pure Druids do not gain levels in SoA), but that presents one hell of a power imbalance: If the party Druid is allowed to use Pitchwife, Fulcrum, or Water's Talon, it's pretty much Game Over for Faldorn, even her current version. Even the Dagger of Venom is capable of rendering her completely helpless. So I opted for the "low-key" equipment setup, to shift the focus back on the combatants themselves.

Personally, given my experiences of
A) There not being any weapons on the ground at all, and
B) Faldorn being immune to the one I hacked in,
I'm wondering what the heck is going on between my game and the one with that Kensai(12)->Druid who beat Faldorn to death with his Grandmastery in Staves.

[ 07-07-2004, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

Great thread. Glad to see no one got too upset if I played the Faldorn's Advocate for a bit. On the whole I agree with Six's recommendations and the need to tone this down. I just wanted to make the point about challenges existing in the world that are greater than the PC.

In the interest of full disclosure, of course, I have never come close to beating Improved Faldorn legally. I was going to leave the grove and chalk her up to an unbeatable enemy. But I ended up going back and winning with tons of cheese (Cntrl-R and Cntrl-J were used, but not Cntrl-Y) - not what I normally do.

Frankly, I would prefer a Faldorn who is beatable legitly. Do it Weimer!