Unheroic Strategies

[NiamhFoxling]

I haven't been playing BG2 or posting here on Ironworks for long, but it seems most of my posts are me telling folks who wanted help about some of my favorite, albeit sneaky, cheesy, and underhanded strategies. So here I decided to just post them for all to peruse. Maybe they'll actually help some other new person out there.

Strategy one: Traps are your friend in narrow corridor levels. It's not working so well now that I have Imoen instead of Yoshimo, since I'd pumped up his trap-setting skill to godlike proportions, but laying a long line of traps up along a corridor leading to a room with major nasties in it is one of my standard responses to getting my party's rear kicked on first try. It's a bit cheesey, possibly, but it works. Then I just arrange the party in a space at the end of the trapped corridor to take best advantage of their abilities in combat, and send one lone party member, or even a summoned creature to walk into the room with the nasties, then walk right back out as soon as they've seen him. They almost always give chase, and the traps can do surprising amounts of damage, leaving just the mop-up duties. If you use improved invisibility on the 'bait', then the monsters will chase him or her, but their ranged attacks will generally miss.

Also in the 'dungeon crawl' levels, I have one party member who's good at detecting traps sneak ahead of the party while invisible, scouting for monsters as well as traps so I don't run blind into a nest of vampires or swarm of umberhulks.

I also prefer to not get my party itself into a combat with swarms of monsters that badly outnumber them, or with the toughest ones, so I had about three of them memorize summoning spells, as well as hung onto the various items that summon critters. I send the summoned monsters ahead of my party into areas where I suspect there's Bad Things, so that I know what really *is* in that room, and also so that the monsters not on my side are a bit..busy..when my party scoots in with their ranged weapons.

I had every party member who could learn and memorize he spell learn and memorize 'improved invisibility', and I try to keep at least one of the characters with ranged weaponry invisible at all times when going through areas with lots of tough adversaries. I then keep that character on standby, and have them help whatever party member is getting the most seriously damaged at any given combat. If it's my thief class party member, I always make sure they try and sneak around to behind the enemy lines. Backstabbing is really quite nice.

In narrow corridors, summoning bears between the party and bad guys is a good way to hold off close melee combat. For the time where the bears are still alive and in the way, the party can just shoot missile weapons over them, while generally the bad guys focus on the bears and don't really go after party members.

------------------
Playing the cutest li'l Chaotic characters since 1996.

[Robin, Thief of Hearts]

Now that's my kind of tactics. I don't think they're cheesy.

The trap line is a standard proceedure for us less muscle bound thieves, and we generally set them as we move forward through the dungeons. If we have to fall back, the trap line can keep us alive. I have 2 thieves in my party, one assassin and a plain thief. That means - lots of traps!

Travelling invisible has some advantages over stealthing. You can scan for traps while invisible- and you can't stealth and do it at the same time. If you get the thief invisible, he can scout for BOTH monsters and traps at the same time. Additionally, if you take points in detect illusion skill, your hidden thief can often neutralise a lot of enemy spells as they are cast. The Hide in shadows skill is not anywhere as useful as the Move Silent skill.

I usually back up the thief with a Ranger - an archer is the best. He can travel stealthed, and if they spot enemies, the archer can snipe from the darkness with his longbow at selected enemies. If the enemy charges him, the thief can follow, to land a backstab.

When it comes to backstabbing, I've found that you have to pay attention to egress. Once you fire that backstab, you generally have to leave fast. Boots of speed is essential for a fast getaway, and summonned monsters make a great distraction. You can use a potion of invisibility to hide again and get off a second backstab, useful if you HAVE to get a kill on a particular enemy. Retreating down the trapline is a great tactic.