Cheesy Items and spells?

[Dundee Slaytern]

You cannot honestly tell me that PfMagic scrolls are a viable tactic unless you exploit the cheese of cloning which approximately 0.00001% of the gamers know about.

High Magic Resistance is not easily gained either, unless you are high level, in which case almost anything becomes a walkover.

Stacked AoE spells are viable though, although this will mean that you need a Mage( especially for the Spell Shield). What about an all Warrior party then? Take the pain I suppose. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I nitpick a lot I guess, but as can be evidenced, fighting the Improved Beholders require extraordinary alternatives without the shield. Fighting the Improved Sahuagin however, does not.

Cast a Free Action, drink a Potion of Freedom, equip Arbane's Short Sword, wear a Ring of Free Action, etc... and the stunning bolts become a non-issue.

Ring of Gaxx, antidotes, elixir of health, slow poison, etc... and the fact that they have so few Bolt of Biting, and the issue of poison is also a non-issue.

Melee? MELEE?? Well, besides the fact they do not have fearsome melee, it is not relevant to the shield anyway.

It is soooo much easier to deal with the Improved Sahuagin without the shield, then it is to deal with the Improved Beholders with the shield.

EDIT] Grammatical mistakes.

[ 04-23-2003, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

[Rataxes]

You cannot honestly tell me that PfMagic scrolls are a viable tactic unless you exploit the cheese of cloning which approximately 0.00001% of the gamers know about.

Sure they can be used to clear out the two major Beholder lairs in the game. I did it with one lair once quite some time ago, when I couldn't really find a better use for the one I had left. The Beholder Lairs are, after all, a few of the most magic-intense areas in the whole game.

High Magic Resistance is not easily gained either, unless you are high level, in which case almost anything becomes a walkover.

Monks can pretty easily get the MR required to somewhat safely battle Beholders, Viconia can also be used to absorb their attacks, as can Solaufein if one has that mod.

Stacked AoE spells are viable though, although this will mean that you need a Mage( especially for the Spell Shield). What about an all Warrior party then? Take the pain I suppose. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Imp Sahuagin aren't really that easy either without spells or the shield. Their THACO is way below zero, they attack fast, do significant damage on Insane, got mucho HP, and are pretty powerful in Melee as well. Anything but a very well-equipped and high-level Warrior party will in fact have trouble facing those groups.

Cast a Free Action, drink a Potion of Freedom, equip Arbane's Short Sword, wear a Ring of Free Action, etc... and the stunning bolts become a non-issue.

I suppose 4 Sahuagin launching 30-35 dmg bolts augmented by Called Shot at 4 APR each, is also a non-issue?

Melee? MELEE?? Well, besides the fact they do not have fearsome melee, it is not relevant to the shield anyway.

No it is not, by "getting close" I meant, close enough for them to actually see and attack you. I know that killing them with AoE spells outside their sight range is a common and easy tactic.

It is soooo much easier to deal with the Improved Sahuagin without the shield, then it is to deal with the Improved Beholders with the shield.

I'll just have to plain disagree here. Though I don't really find either monster that difficult, the difference in difficulty when equipping the respective shield, is bigger with the Sahuagin.

Imp Beholders go from being quite deadly to still posing a threat if you're not careful or have well-equipped fighters. While the Imp Sahuagin go from potentially causing some real trouble unless you're very carefully prepared or well-equipped and high-level, to being no more dangerous than a piece of cotton.

[Malthaussen]

A couple of points... when Perseus, or whatever old Geek it was (proper names are the first things to dribble out of your memory once you're over 40) killed the Medusa because he used a shiny shield to bounce her gaze back at her, was this cheese? Well, one man's cheese is another man's rat bait.

Ever since the original design of D&D (or even Chainmail) back in the days before personal computers, there has been an ongoing "weapons escalation" that has produced edition after edition of rules additions and new versions. Great for lining the pockets of whoever owned TSR at the time, but it meant a never ending struggle to "balance" the game between player power and monster power.

We are seeing the same thing in the IE. Players used, abused, and loopholed the program to death, spending the gods know how many cumulative being-hours trying to figure out the best way to maximize the kill power of their parties while also enhancing their survivability, and then began to complain that the game was "too easy" or "too cheesy." So Mr Weimer and associates kindly spend a great deal of their spare time and brainpower (free for nothing) to enhance the bad guys and limit the "cheese," and another gaggle of rules-exploiters and loophole-finders began to dissect the results for the best ways to negate the enhancements. And you've all done a very good job, since it appears the consensus of opinion on this thread is that the Advanced tactics and monster mods are still "too easy" and the equipment originally placed into the game is still "too powerful."

You want challenge? I suggest you challenge yourselves, instead of waiting for somebody else to challenge you. Mr (Ms?) Piringle has decided, for role-playing purposes, to play a team with no magic at all (potions excepted). I imagine she (he?) is hardly "bored" at all by the experience. Find something to interest yourselves, whether it be creating new weapons and mods and situations or deliberately restricting your own play and *role play.* That was, after all, what the entire RPG experience is supposed to be about, not rules lawyers figuring out the nth "flaw" in somebody else's hard work and chortling over how clever they are.

-- Mal

[Dundee Slaytern]

Hehe, good points, Malthaussen, and as a matter of fact, Rataxes and I do. Restrict ourselves that is, but we debate on what is cheese, and what is not in order to decide what should be restricted.

There was one time where I restricted myself to not use metal armour or helmets, and everybody had to be proficient in bows and quarterstaves if they could. They made it all the way through the game( SoA-ToB).

Even today, I still restrict myself and am slowing edging to borderline insanity on restrictions. I construct elaborate tactics involving Mod items, but strangely enough, forbid myself to use them.

In response to Rataxes, I guess this is where we decide to agree to disagree, as I simply cannot fathom the Sahuagin as more formidable than the Beholders. Everytime I fight them, I think of them as XP meatbags. Even the much vaunted Improved Sahuagin Priestess was a non-issue( and subsequently a disappointment) for me.

ADD] Oh, and she is a she.

[ 04-23-2003, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

[Rataxes]

Like Dundee said: Playing on Insane, playing without reloads, restricting myself from using certain too powerful items, spells, tactics or bug-exploits - All those things are precisely what you advocate Malthaussen, ways to create challenges ourselves when the game itself cannot adequately provide it.

In response to Rataxes, I guess this is where we decide to agree to disagree, as I simply cannot fathom the Sahuagin as more formidable than the Beholders. Everytime I fight them, I think of them as XP meatbags. Even the much vaunted Improved Sahuagin Priestess was a non-issue( and subsequently a disappointment) for me.

Well I don't think they're actually more difficult either [img]smile.gif[/img] , far from it. But the relative drop in difficulty when taking the respective shields in account, is larger for the Sahuagin.

[Malthaussen]

As a DM of very long standing (my world has been around since 1976), I have gone through many "versions" of my own as my players found new and exciting ways to "cheese" me to death. [img]smile.gif[/img] It can be a fun experience, except when one has to deal with players who seem to view RPGs as a one-on-one battle against the DM for superiority and bragging rights -- a category into which far too many players, alas, fall. Since my campaign was pretty much created by myself, with certain D&D conventions used when they seemed appropriate, I had less trouble than DMs whose worlds were strictly constructed "by the rules" -- whichever edition or sub-edition happened to be in place at the time. Of course, this also led to my being accused of "Not playing real D&D" by players whose knowledge of the rules, subsets, and addenda rivalled the competance of the best trial lawyers in the business. [img]smile.gif[/img]

When I played in somebody else's "real" D&D campaign, I always was frustrated by the others in the group who spent an hour (or more) constructing their characters -- not for role-playing reasons, to build background and atmosphere, but simply to maximize their alter-egos through their encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules. But, then again, as I've said before -- whatever floats yer boat.

What floats my boat is creating parties and characters drawn from my own long-standing (unpublished) fantasy epic, history, some few other fantasy series, or simply created out of whole cloth, and then taking them through whichever game I happen to be playing at the time and kicking some serious tail. Accordingly, I have no problem using SK or IEEP, or what have you; in fact, this style pretty much requires it. After all, Diomedes, King of Argos, was a warrior who was able to defeat in single combat two -- count 'em -- two gods, one of whom was the God of War himself. Agreed, he had a little help from his friend Athene. [img]smile.gif[/img] So if I want to give D. a strength of 21 and a similar constitution, in an attempt to profile his tremendous abilities, who shall gainsay me?

I have no problem, btw, with people discussing where and how they find the game personally challenging or otherwise, and suggesting and working on ways to tailor it to their personal preferences -- indeed, such discussion can enhance just about everybody's playing experience. But I do so hate the people who *complain.* [img]smile.gif[/img]

It's kind of funny, btw. The creators of BG2 thought they had made a pretty tough and challenging game; after all, they tell you repeatedly what to do if an encounter is "too difficult for you." Apparently, it hadn't occured to them that many players would find the game "too easy." [img]smile.gif[/img]

-- Mal

[AuraMancer]

Wouldn't you give him rather Draw up holy might, at all, Pallas Athene blessed him only temporairy...but I get your point

[SixOfSpades]

Just insert "In My Humble Opinion" before all of this stuff....

The Shield of Balduran is one of the cheesiest items ever concieved, simply due to the sheer level of power it nullifies and even reflects. I feel that a good measurement of cheesiness is how you would feel if that same item or spell was used against you. If I had a party of 4 Beholders and 2 Gauths, I could simply plow through the game in one sitting, no reloads or pausing, while half asleep. My only difficulties would be creatures with high Magic Resistance (assuming one of the Gauths could Disarm Traps and one of the Beholders had the capacity to Heal everyone). But take one Shield of Balduran and slap it on somebody like Neeber, and the world turns upside down. Add in the ease (and speed) with which the Shield can be obtained, plus the fact that an artifact of this power wouldn't be for sale anyway, and the fromage begins to seep out of my monitor. (And just what the heck would a guy like *Balduran* want with this thing anyway?)

As for Improved Beholders kicking ass in a melee, well, Weimer has done a lot of things that don't really seem to be justified. And even so, all that's done is turn the Beholder Lairs into a melee brawl: 2 Tanks--1 with Shield, 1 with Cloak--wade in and start hitting things, just like every other dungeon crawl in the game. I'm sure that Weimer had the best of intentions, but that is not a Beholder fight....that's more like a Stone Golem fight. And, since the Improved Beholders' unexplained melee ability really screws up the strategy of using your Mage as the Tank, the Cloak-Shield-brawl ticket seems to be the only way to go.

Now, the Shield of Reflection. Again, ease and speed of procuring such an item, and the way it can really screw you over if you happen to be an Archer. But, happily, there are alternatives: If you shoot somebody and it bounces back, you can
a) Shoot at somebody else
b) Have your friends go beat him up
c) Use some Summoning items and run away
d) See if you can beat it in a melee.
The fact that none of the enemies worth wearing the Shield for are smart enough to switch to any of these tactics points to the general weakness of the game's AI, not the cheesiness of the Shield itself. It's still cheesy, though--at the very least, it deserves a good solid fight before you can get it.

Off Topic Dundee, there actually is a quite viable way of handling the Amkethran Archers without the Shield: Missile Resistance. 90% without the Adventurewear ain't bad, even if it is temporary. Also quite handy for those damn eyeballs.

[Rataxes]

What if you had a party of six Archers? Your team would be in as much trouble vs Neeber using the Reflection Shield, as your team of Beholders would be if he carried the Shield of Balduran Of course you could go in and kill him with melee weapons, but that's exactly what Imp Beholders can do as well. IMHO, their upgraded melee capabilities was an excellent idea of weimer's, since it makes it impossible for a lvl 9 Fighter to steam-roll through such powerful enemies as Beholders, just because he bought a piece of enchanted metal for 17000 GP.

You'd prefer no fight at all (which is what the Shield vs normal Beholders is), rather than a "Stone Golem fight"? [img]smile.gif[/img] I personally think it's great that you actually have to have some real power to beat these guys now, and not just a single item. It makes even the lesser Lair in Unseeing Eye quite a challenge for a low level party, and one that you actually have to have decent tactics and equipment to handle, not just steam-roll through virtually naked.

[quote]Now, the Shield of Reflection. Again, ease and speed of procuring such an item, and the way it can really screw you over if you happen to be an Archer. But, happily, there are alternatives: If you shoot somebody and it bounces back, you can
a) Shoot at somebody else
b) Have your friends go beat him up
c) Use some Summoning items and run away
d) See if you can beat it in a melee.
[quote]
Your party of Beholders could do pretty much all those things, and the Imp Beholders do in fact do all these things, except summoning monsters, aint it great huh? [img]smile.gif[/img] A party consisting entirely of rangers don't have that option either though, neither can they call their friends to save the day.

The fact that none of the enemies worth wearing the Shield for are smart enough to switch to any of these tactics points to the general weakness of the game's AI, not the cheesiness of the Shield itself. It's still cheesy, though--at the very least, it deserves a good solid fight before you can get it.

Well that IS what makes it cheesy, it takes advantage of and exploits the poor AI. The other shield did the same until weimer upgraded the Beholders. It is still cheesy, but because Beholders now have a way to get around it and actually counter the Shield of Balduran, it's relative cheesiness is less IMHO.

If the AI of ranged attackers was improved - to stop firing arrows if they noticed their missiles being bounced back at them, and instead go in and fight you with melee weapons, kind of like they do if you get close to them, then I would consider the Reflection Shield a far less cheesy item, but it's just not the case, yet.

[ 04-24-2003, 03:20 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Assassin]

Actually, the Reflection Shield is the one reason why I never, ever take any points in Sword and Shield. And, if Archers went into melee, they would be really degraded due to the fact that Archers are pretty bad at melee.