Tactics for the tactic-less. -very slight spoiler potential.

[Russ]

Mild rant: how often have you asked for help fighting somebody, and the answer they give you on how to fight them is to drop what you're doing, travel halfway across Amn, and get in even deeper trouble trying to find an item to help you with your original problem? By which time you're so tough that it's no longer an issue? Or even worse, chuck out your character and get a new one, who'll then be vulnerable to some other challenge you didn't even notice last time you played?

I really hate seeing people post just to hear themselves type. So in answer to people who've asked for help recently, and to try to justify my oxygen budget for the day, here are a few tactics that are generally valuable when fighting nasty monsters, for those of you whose idea of group combat comes from the gang scene in Big Trouble in Little China. Since the last guy to write was asking about vampires, I'm going to tailor it to that to start, but then get general quickly.

Okay. Strategies. Here are one or two that will assume a general party, with no particular npc's, no particular major items (or the level requirements to cast them... like your average 9th-level party really has access to spell-trigger and sunray...).

Tactic #1. MARATHON:

This is a strategy that works well when you are in a room, and can make your opponent go through a doorway to get to you, and therefore limit the size of the fighting front he can muster. Those of you who have read your history will know it has nothing to do with running shoes. It also assumes that you can summon things that will actually damage vampires, but is usable in other situations.

Assume you have at least one tank who can be, somehow, reasonably protected from level drain. If you have nothing to do that, assume that you might have to resurrect him, pump restorations through him, etcetera. Use him as a weak center on the vampires' attacks. (alternately, if you can summon up one very large critter who may be immune to level drain, let HIM be your center.) Summon as much as you can on the wings, and while the guy in the center tries to hold him at bay, everybody dogpiles him on the wings. As you get rid of one, DON'T charge forward, BUT WAIT FOR THEM TO COME TO YOU. If baddy #2 is a vampire mage, you may have difficulties, but your garden variety vampire has no ranged attacks: becoming undead makes them arrogant and stupid, and they forget that crossbows are still a Good Thing (tm). When they have nothing left but auxiliary and/or weak monsters, roll over them.

The Firkraag dungeon fight is not optimal for this, but if you're quick about it, it can be done. As a general tactic, it is extremely effective ASSUMING THAT YOU HAVE DONE ADEQUATE SCOUTING.

Tactic #2. Marathon Variant

HUSSITES: This is better for lighter parties, or parties with dedicated missileers (archers, mazzy, etc.)

You are going to do the same basic thing, but in this case, you're going to create some kind of barrier that allows you to dictate who in particular gets to go toe-to-toe with the bad guy. In this case, what you're looking at are tables, pillars, merchant stalls, that sort of thing. The difference is, you hold the bad guy off, but have your other characters lobbing in fifty varieties of missile weapons, always at one target at a time (this because the DnD rules don't simulate wounds accurately.. which is no cause to gripe, since we exploit it to our favor, too.) Spell-wise, this is excellent combined with confusion, chaos, that sort of thing, because typically you'll have a couple of folks who escape the spell, and you can beat them down while the others count ostrich eggs.

Tactic #3: Marathon Variant
CANNAE:also for lighter (read, tank-challenged) parties.

As Marathon, but you're going to pull a bait-n-switch. What you're going to do is have a healer ready to help your tank, or load up your tank with resistance items and spells. Then you're going to have a spellcaster set off linear combat spells (lightning bolt, Aganazzar's Scorcher), in order to put a hit on everybody down the hall or being jumped on who's in a "line" behind the fist attacker. If you can do this with multiple spellcasters, so much the better. The spell is especially valuable if you can do it with two or three spellchuckers doing lightning into a corridor, as you'll have multiple reflections off the crowded walls.

Tactic 4: WOLF-PACK

This is the absolute standard for street gangs, groups of thugs, and generally any group where fighting ability is relatively wide-spread, and where one's fighting a single but tough opponent. (Obviously, the SLOW spell only helps this one). Basically, you hit him from one side with two fighters, then they fade out five or six steps. As the target moves to deal with them, two or three more hit him from behind (now, you do have a thief, right?). When the bad guy turns to deal with the guys who just hit him, repeat. This can be very effective on single, very tough guys... I used to use it in BG1 on ogres all the time. It is best outdoors. YOU MUST DISENGAGE YOUR FIGHTERS WHEN THEY STEP BACK, OR ELSE YOU WILL SIMPLY WIND-UP WITH A DOG-PILE, and then whoever is the designated slappee amongst your party's going to be hurt. Done correctly, the bad guy never gets a real chance to hit back.

Tactic 5: DECOY

"Run, run, fast as you can, can't catch me, I'm the hasted guy who's staying one step out of reach while everybody else pounds the dog snot out of you with missile weapons and spells. Best done outdoors, staggeringly effective even against really tough single opponents who use physical attacks.

Tactic 6: MINEFIELD

Numerous more experienced gamers have lauded the glories of skull traps and trap attacks... but if your scouting guy "just happens" to get discovered, and then goes invisible while turning the corner, and the bad guys see Jaheira at the other end of the hallway, are they really going to look at where they're stepping when they go after her? Will they have time to turn around once the thief/mage becomes visible on the backstab or ugly spell cast once they're already hurt?

Tactic 7: KILL ZONE

Similar to before, but have somebody lead your bad guy right into an area that will shortly become all messed up with grease, entangle, web, anything that will slow him down while you use that nifty wand of cloudkill you hopefully picked up in the original dungeon (or else happen to have memorized). Add salt, pepper lightly with missiles, and don't forget that Vial of Oily Burning. If you have summoned critters, you can have one/them engage the baddy(s) to keep him in the kill zone.

Hope those ideas help. Flames and money orders graciously accepted.

[Kaleban]

Nicely done Russ. Those are sound tactics (I use Decoy all the time!), and I recommend them to everyone.

Although, these tactics were easier to implement in BG1, as you didn't need a +5 weapon to hit a chicken...

[Russ]

quote:

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Although, these tactics were easier to implement in BG1, as you didn't need a +5 weapon to hit a chicken...

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(in my PnP campaigns, it often takes FOREVER to make second level... and sometimes we rig it that way with x.p. rules... sometimes character power really interferes with roleplaying. Trust me, you do NOT want your second-level paladin to be on the receiving end of my hobgoblins...)

And, otoh, others open up. Cloudkill is of course worthless against vampires... but if you have obtained the level to cast, or just happen to have a scroll of, death fog... then Kill Zone becomes a bloody nightmare for anybody caught in it...

I purposefully left out, or tried to, spell-heavy tactics like that. My personal all-time favorite is very simple, but requires three mage-enabled casters in the party... which is to have all three load up minor sequencers with magic missiles... nothing like six mm spells going off in segment two of round one, all aimed at the same target...

but if you're not running Jan, Imoen, and Aerie, or some combination in the same vein, it's not really an option for you...

btw... is it a bug for Keldórn's Free Action to fail when faced with Entangle? I was so happy the first time I saw that... I was going to throw webs EVERYWHERE! --pout--

[Lord Ludtke]

My personal favorite is the kill zone. Anytime you need extra xp and don't feel like leaving town, kill peasants and little children and wait for the guards to show up. Web,web,cloudkill,web,cloudkill and so on(I like a couple webs to make sure they stay there)

I don't know if I have been lucky, but Keldorn walks right through my webs(after cloudkills run out).

[Lord Ludtke]

Fogot this is a money making scheme,too.

At least one guard has full plate +1, and some magical shields. Everyone has full plate and the wizards have high level scrolls and gems. Kill two parties before going to temple and paying to get rep back up, and you are up around 10-14,000.

[Aelia Jusa]

quote:

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Originally posted by Russ:
Mild rant: how often have you asked for help fighting somebody, and the answer they give you on how to fight them is to drop what you're doing, travel halfway across Amn, and get in even deeper trouble trying to find an item to help you with your original problem? By which time you're so tough that it's no longer an issue? Or even worse, chuck out your character and get a new one, who'll then be vulnerable to some other challenge you didn't even notice last time you played?

I really hate seeing people post just to hear themselves type. So in answer to people who've asked for help recently, and to try to justify my oxygen budget for the day, here are a few tactics that are generally valuable when fighting nasty monsters, for those of you whose idea of group combat comes from the gang scene in Big Trouble in Little China. Since the last guy to write was asking about vampires, I'm going to tailor it to that to start, but then get general quickly.

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While I do agree that people suggesting tactics like 'use comet', or 'three timestops ought to do it' aren't useful and are annoying for anyone asking for help, and also when people ask which NPC they should pick out of two, and someone says, 'neither, pick so and so' is also annoying, to be fair, often people just ask 'how do I kill Firkraag' or whatever, with no indication of what level, what NPCs, what spells, what weapons they have. People have little choice but to comment on how they did it, or how it could be done in their experience. I mean, I find it a bit patronising to suggest using haste or free action when someone asks for advice on how to kill an enemy when it's obvious that these spells are always useful. And sometimes you need specific items to kill certain enemies - like people asking how to kill iron golems in Nalia's keep without proper weapons or spells - it is good advice to suggest they go find a weapon that they will actually work, like the Staff of Rhynn. But having said that, your tactics should be helpful for anyone stuck [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Dundee Slaytern]

[RANT]
I usually try to ask for the person's average party level and try to work around it for him/her. Even if he is way, way too low in level, I still try to think of something. I am not stupid enough to tell him to use Spell Sequencers if he only has a level 12 Mage. I too find it annoying when people mention third party members when the boardie asking for help in making a decision, specifically mentions the two choices that he has already made. Even worse are those who scream and shout but fail to give valid reasons for their opinion... ...
[/RANT]

Nice tactics Russ, but may I add another? I think you may have seen this one already, but it is usable by a low level party when dealing with Vampires.

Invisible Barrier:
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The idea is simple, yet effective. Whenever you discover a room filled with Vampires, retreat your party back a bit and make one of them( preferably a Cleric or a tank) invisible. Turn off Party AI and make this invisible unit( let's call him Tom) block the door of the room. If Tom cannot block the door by himself, simply add another invisible unit to seal the gap.

Get a party member proficient in ranged weapons and buffed with Charm protection to engage the Vampires in ranged combat. The Vampires will hiss and bay for blood, but they cannot get to their target as they are blocked by Tom whom they do not know exists. Their Dominations will be useless as they are neutralised by the Charm protection.

Heh.

[Whailor]

"Find someone rich, and kill him! Then find someone richer, and kill him too! Hack and slash your way to fortune!"

Frankly all those tactics are nice to write and such, but who cares. People do it differently. The fact that someone did something 100% succesfully by always using one method doesn't mean anything. Someone else would perhaps fail all the time with the same method. When I suggest something - I don't suggest that much but anyways - then I rarely tell anything about the spells. Why? Because I aint a spellcaster. I never found them to be fun really. Only spells I usually suggest are the buffs, which are available to ANY caster type even when they just start the game. And some additional ones are available to casters of lvl 10 and below. So when reading someone's suggestions a la "Sequencer and Spell Trigger and blah blah", then I usually just skip that suggestion - obviously, when I am at the level where I get and can use these spells, I do NOT need any advice as such since I have been through the thing few times already.

As for your tactics Russ, then they are all nice and dandy but they are not so good to use. Looking at those I am asking myself whether you presume that the person reading these has already been through the game once. As the usual practice shows, very few people 'scout' as such really the area ahead. Usually people travel in a party, then happen upon the target and then the fight breaks loose. No one has then time to "set up yon Skull Traps" and "shoot the Cloudkill in designated spot for maximum efficiency". Bleh. Good thing is if people even remember to make the thief char to be detecting the traps, when not fighting. Most of the fights, and best of the fights, just happen - you open the door, walk in and "oopsie-daisy, didn't know ye'er here Mr. Dragon! Oops, sorry, the door is stuck and I cannot leave either". These fights are cool and fun, since you use what you have and as you can. Sure the prepared fight is "smoother" and all that, but heck, not that fun.

[Dundee Slaytern]

To Whailor,

[img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] Sounds like tip number 12 in my website on Dragon Slaying Tips. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[Russ]

Whailor,

Hey, ymmv. I scout. I've never owned skull trap. But I've certainly used regular ones. And being a chronic restarter, I've never been past chapter 5 (in fact, with my training schedule, I'm a martial artist in real life, I often don't play for weeks or months at a time to begin with).

Otoh, tactics like these have saved my royal butt in a number of different dungeons and indoor settings. Along about the third time I'm reloading, especially.

But you know, if these don't do anything for you, you could always post your OWN constructive comments.... since you've been through the game all the way and all that. If you get in fights quickly, what general tactics do you use? Or are you a BTilC man?

Ludtke: I'm not quite the sociopath that you are, but I admit to having laid out enough webs to cover two full screens... (then I died, but it WAS funny.)

Aelia Jusa: You do have a valid point... but the problem is, if you're halfway through the dungeon, do you just up and leave to go find a better weapon and come back? MAYBE... I guess this is a roleplaying thing. If my characters know where a magic item is, it's Ivory-soap-percentage of the time going to be because you found and identified it... granted, if you're a power-gamer, then you might do it your way.