finish BG saga with Ascension for the first time (spoilers)

[teardropmina]

not the first time trying to beat Ascension, but the first time really beat it, and it's with a BGT from the scratch PC.Before this run, my best result was went through the first two phases, but never last long enough to see Melissan join the fight in the final battle. I've got frustrated over this battle for too many times and so this time I determined to max everyone out and then go to the battle to increase my chances. Also, I get Balthazar on my side (ok, ok, for an experienced and skilled gamer, all these would make the battle too easy). However, with this party I only lasted longer to see Melissan join in and still failed miserably in the first few tries.
the biggest problems to me:
1. Sendai's creeping doom (especially when she releases it during the time stop).
2. cannot finish off Gronir and Illasera, the two easiest to kill, first because Melissan then will join Yaga Shura, Abazigal, and Sendai...
3. Yaga Shura and Abazigal are masters of disrrupting our spellcasting.

after some hair-pulling, frustrating game-overs, I resort to my good old skull traps cheese (with simulacra, and three pool of greater restoration, we're able to set tons of skull traps). The best result I got was to get Abazigal to near death and Gromnir death in the beginning of the fight. My plan was to take out Gromnir and Abazigal immediately, send Mazzy (with reflection shield) to retend Illasera and Planetar leading summon to bug Sendai; when Melissan show up, I might get to successfully *harm* kill Yaga Shura, then the battle will be much easier to handle.
It did work few times, but still couldn't last to the end: couldn't finish off Melissan sooner and her last (the last I met) group of goons consists of some deadly archers, too difficult to keep everyone alive in that situation; I knew I have to kill Melissan before that, the longer the fight, the worse for us.
After several trails and errors and practice timing (how/when to cast spell without being disrrupted, how to successfully harm-kill Yaga Shura, and how to keep Sendai's creeping doom away from everyone etc...), I finally beat it. The funny thing about this last victory is that the skull trap cheese actually only got Abazigal to injured, and he got himself to uninjured pretty soon afterwards; so, the only good thing out of this cheese is getting the easiest Gromnir to fall (which still helped of course).
Looking back, the max lvl was the reason to get the win: spell effects seem to grow with the caster's level, and the simulacra of high lvl mages are very, very powerful as well, especially they could break the five summons limit. I seem to recall in the past our simularca ( from lower lvl mages) still need to follow the five summons rule. Don't know whether this is a bug? anyway, without those summons I'd still been pulling my hair now [img]tongue.gif[/img] also, some of Melissan's goons have level drain ability, max out fighters could have the luxury to get couple levels drained [img]smile.gif[/img]

This is my first time beating the Ascension, and so I saw what was added to Balthazar for the first time. It's really nicely written. His epilogue is short and good, especially in the end, he visited CandleKeep to see the humble beginning of a legend...that's a GREAT line.

I will go back to it in the future, and try to beat it without skull traps [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Xen]

Congrats. And use Project Image.

[teardropmina]

I didn't use PI because I think it's very dangerous to let my spellcasters lose the ability to move in the throne of bhaal.

[Lord]

Nice job! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
Just one time, I had Balthazar work with me. However, his dialogue in the end wasn't working, so I had to reset to chunking him before starting the fight with Amellysan so that he wouldn't come back later when Solar appeared.

[teardropmina]

ok, so I tried to fight Ameylssan and the five without skull traps cheese, but "righteously" used the two green scrolls I've kept in the scroll case from the early days of SoA [img]tongue.gif[/img]
and a W in the end [img]graemlins/cheering.gif[/img]

now, I'd take a rest, and then go back to another game (that party is just back from Underdark now); they'll try this much, much later [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 04-01-2004, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: teardropmina ]

[Xen]

Well good luck. [img]smile.gif[/img]