Improved Anvil Adventure *spoilers*

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Well I've been hearing some good things about this mod, and decided to dust off my BG2 cds and give it a go. I never did like tactics due to the cheesy forced scripts, so hopefully this will be a welcome change.

Anyway, I'll be playing with ease of use and Baldurdash TOB fixpack, with the following party.

PC - multi f/t w/ proficiency in staff
Jaheira - SK to R/C (thats druidic enough for me)
Edwin
Aerie
Tank (either korgan or minsc)

Thats about it. Will update this thread with impressions as I go along

[edit] off to a weird start. After SKIng jaheira, she gained only 2 proficiency slots from level 0 to level 7?? Same happened for my SKed kensai/thief. Oh well. Going to leave Jaheira alone, unless someone can tell me whats the problem and how to fix it?

[edit] Just finished Irenicus dungeon to the tunes of Johhny Cash. Nothing like beating stuff to death to the tune of 'and i shot a man in reno, just to watch him die!!!'.

Nothing special yet. Guess IA doesnt affect the dungeon. Dropped Jaheira cos, for some reason, her romance didnt trigger in SK. Picked up Aerie instead, and SK'ed her to archer. Next stop, Viccy and SKing her to a cleric/ranger

[ October 02, 2006, 20:32: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

This is a great idea, teh!

I will use your reports in the mod's walkthrough. See this topic as well.

What's your main PC's alignment?

 

Neutral Good. Just checking, in the walkthrough, it says smarter liches are not compatible. How bout improved mages? And also, if I plan to add on some weidu components, should I reinstall IA?

[edit] Just finished thief stronghold. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it seems the cowled wizard chooses his spells more wisely? He couldnt overcome Viccy's magic resistance though, and she clubbed him to death.

Current party is PC - kensai/thief
Aerie - archer
Viccy - cleric ranger
Edwin - mage

[ September 30, 2006, 14:59: Message edited by: teh ]

 

As mentioned in the readme, IA should be the last mod you install. If you want to add other mods, you will need to uninstall IA, install your other mods, and then install IA again. Hitting the Re-install option will not do; you should uninstall IA and install it again to make sure that it is installed after all other mods.

The complete list of incompatible mods and mod-components is available in the "Installation" file text. You can find it in a folder named "Documents" inside "ImprovedAnvil" folder. It is also attached to the mod's readme in the forum.

 

Yup I've read the readme. One more thing. IA improves copper coronet and fire giants. But the readme doesnt mention that the tactics improved coronet and fire giants are imcompatible. So are they?

 

"Tactics" mod's Improved Fire Giants component is compatible with IA, (but "Improved Battles" mod's Improved Fire Giants component is incompatible with IA, as mentioned in the readme).

Ascension's Improved Yaga-Shura is also incompatible with IA.

"Tactics" mod's Improved Copper coronet is most probably compatible with IA, though I have not tested them together in practice.

 

Huh, does tactics really improve Copper Coronet? Well I never noticed a difference.

Oops, sorry for the intrusion. ops:

Keep us updated about your IA game, buddy, I am curious!

 

Quote from "Tactics" mod's readme:

If this is all it does, then it is surely compatible with IA.

Important note for the readers:

This topic will contain some serious and (sometimes) unnecessary spoilers. If you intend to play Improved Anvil mod for the first time, it is strongly recommended that you stop reading this topic right here and now.

[ October 02, 2006, 13:59: Message edited by: Sikret ]

 

Just had my first encounter with one of the upgraded components, namely Mencar and party.

Fight went like this

PC hid in shadows
Edwin summoned 3 ogres to tank mencar.
Viccy took on berserker, Aerie provoked the fight.

Aerie fires an arrow at mage, while PC backstabs mage simultaneously. Mage is blown into chunky bits, and the following spells trigger on pooky

1. stoneskin
2. firesheild
3. globe of spell turning?
4. Invinsibility.

Definately a upgrade here, as I remember that mage and pooky would only put up some crappy spells. In an eariler run (where mage survives the backstab), he casted death to remove my summons.

Viccy and Aerie take on the berserker. Dmg seems to be upped. Nothing significant though. Thief is incapacitated from a chaos. Falls soon after berserker.

Mencar himself has alot more hitpoints if I'm not mistaken.

Last was pooky. Manage to dire charm and hold most of my characters except Viccy(bless her MR) who pounds the crap out of the imp.

Overall, definately a improvement in mage spells, but will have to play more and see what more the mod offers. Also, dire charmed pc just sits there instead of attacking party members. Kinda make dire charm useless.

[edit] Just took out the guarded compund as well. First, for the most obvious changes

1. Cleric can summon a fallen deva and cast implosion

2. Kensai has whirlwind.

Had to resort to some cheesiness by luring the 2 man-beasts down and dispatching them individually. Had all party members except Viccy drink potions of invinsibilty. Viccy then abosrbed most of the nasty disabling spells. Party then went downstairs and waited till the deva was unsummoned.

Next was the kensai. Lured him downstairs, surrounded him with 5 ogres. He went down after killing ALL of them and bringing Viccy down to half life. Went upstairs, cast an insect swarm and web, and let Aerie shoot both the cleric and mage to death (with some summoned monsters to help) The thief died somewhere in the confusion (guess she was not upgraded...). Now to use my shiny new katana...

Bugs - deva casts cure serious wounds on PC thrice.

Summon deva is not interruptable? Aerie disrupts every spell the cleric casts after implosion and summon deva though

[ October 01, 2006, 02:52: Message edited by: teh ]

 

As for Mencar's party:

1- Did you attack Mencar's party before they say their piece and turn hostile?

2- How much damage did you inflict to the mage by the initial backstab and dart?

EDIT: How did you say that you poisoned the mage? What is a poisoned dart? Did you mean poisoned dagger? Poisoned arrow? or what?

As for Slavers' HQ:

1- The bug you mentioned about the Deva has nothing to do with Improved Anvil, because I have not touched Deva's scripts.

2- Be careful! You have gone to the Slaver's HQ a bit too early for your party (provided that you have not cheated to give them levels and items). The true battle is ahead.

[ September 30, 2006, 20:19: Message edited by: Sikret ]

 

Well they spoke, I took the diplomatic way out and placated them, then attacked after making preperations^^.

Initial backstab was around 78 if I'm not mistaken, but I could be mistaken. The poisoned dart/dagger I picked from the night knifes (those thiefs who lure you into a trap after the thieves guild quest). Didnt read the description, but the green pointy thing looked like a dart, so...

And I'm not going to the slaver HQ yet. Leaving that to after de'arnise keep

[edit] Just checked my game. Yeap its a poisoned throwing dagger

 

The mage in Mencar's party is immune to poison and specially immune to the poison of posioned daggers (Opcode[25]). So, I'm now completely confused about your report of the battle. The mage could not have died of poison, for sure.

But you said that you went there and defeated them all.

 

I think what teh is referring to as the Slaver HQ is the conclusion of the CC slavers (the grounded ship). I may be wrong though.

 

Yes, it's possible, though from the context of my previous message (when I wrote "You have gone to the Slaver's HQ a bit too early ..."), it was not hard to guess that I was talking about the Guarded Compound.

I don't blame teh for sending inaccurate reports, because it's not easy for most players to track the details of events in the heat of the fight. However, for the reports to be usable (by me) in the mod's walkthrough, I need them to be more accurate than this. (For example, when a creature is immune to poison, I cannot write there that he can be killed by throwing poisoned daggers. Right?)

I could just ignore the reports when I saw that they contained mistakes, but I interfered, because other players might read them here and be misled.

I'll still be glad if teh continues to send his experiences of playing Improved Anvil, but I expect more accuracy; otherwise, the reports will only contain unnecessary spoilers about enemies (ex: which of them has which spells) without being useful in respect to preparing a correct walkthrough for the mod.

 

My apologies. But it is difficult when you have 'to hit rolls' scrolling up rapidly up all over the place. I have a save from just before the mencar fight, so Ill do that again.

As for the slaver HQ (guarded compound), yes it is a high level encounter, but it can be beaten, albeit with some cheese. If I had been prevented from going down the stairs (as implemented by another mod if I'm not mistaken), it would have been a vastly more difficult fight. As it is, I was able to lure them one by one downstairs into my traps and summons.

[Edit] Just redid the mencar fight, and was unable to repeat my success with the poisoned dagger. Guess I owe you an apology mate. I'll edit my above post to reflect how this fight went.

[ October 01, 2006, 02:49: Message edited by: teh ]

 

No apology was needed, my friend! I just point my finger to weak points of your reports to encourage you to make them better and probably usable in the mod's walkthrough.

All of the IA's enhanced batttles are doable, but it's better to do each of them with a party of appropriate level to be able to win the battles without using cheesy methods. Reports including cheese are not suitable for the walkthrough.

Some battles cannot be won even by cheese if you try them too early. They can, however, be won by cheat (Ctrl-Y) at any level.

As for Guarded compound, didn't you try to loot their treasures in different rooms? Your report of Guuarded Compound is incomplete.

As for your edited report of the Mencar's battle, how much damage did your initial backstab inflict? What's the thief's level and backstab multiplier? What was the backstabbing weapon? For a complete report of your battles, you should inform us of such details.

 

I've disabled cheats, so there is no question of using ctrl-y to kill anything. As for the treasures in guarded compound, my thief with 75 in detect traps was unable to detect several traps (which I'm not going to spoil here), so I've left the looting for my next visit to the temple areas.

Mage fell to a 11 dmg shot from Aerie + kai (daikon's blade) x 4 backstab. Total dmg did was 94.

Going to tackle de'arnise keep now and get that flail of ages for Viccy. With her magic resistance, she has proven to be the most invaluable member of the party so far.

 

So, you did 83 damage with that blade on the backstab?

The mage has 60% resistance to damage taken from that particular weapon type, which means that to inflict 83 points of damage, you should have actually hit him for 210 points! I don't think that it is doable on one single backstab shot even if you roll a critical hit. I'm still looking for a believable report of your battle with Mencar's party.

 

Hmmm thats strange. Cos he blew into chunky bits from that hit. Kai + 18/00 str + true grandmastery in katana + x4 backstab was enough to kill him for me. Maybe my numbers are a bit off (cos i redid the fight several times). In this instance, the contingencies didnt even fire up, as both the backstab and the arrow hit at the same time.

[edit] did it again, with screenshots this time. Exact numbers are 66 dmg from backstab. I suspect my previous attempt was a crit as well, but since I disabled the screen shaking thingy...

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/1452/1pg4.jpg
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/356/2my0.jpg
http://img461.imageshack.us/img461/2168/3vl8.png

[ October 01, 2006, 09:25: Message edited by: teh ]

 

His hp is 61. if we consider the 11 points Aeire did, then you would need to do 50 points to kill him (83 is not needed). Considering his 60% resistance, you would need to hit him for 200 points of damage. (though for blowing him into pieces, you would perhaps need to do more damage.)

But even 200 points of damage doesn't look to be doable so easily even with all of your other bonuses. Did you also roll a natural 20 (critical hit)? Didn't Aerie's second dagger also hit?

Well, even if we can find a way to justify such a high damage in theory, it would rely *so much* on the player's luck (i.e. critical hit, and perhaps other factors) and cannot be suitable for the mod's walkthrough. (i.e. We can't tell players to re-load the game repeatedly hoping for such a high damage on the initial backstab.)

Furthermore, I prefer reports of this battle which initiate the battle by choosing the heroic option during the dialogue and not by accepting to leave the place just to attack by surprise. That's why I asked for your main PC's alignment. (but this is a different matter).

I already know of a smart tactic to defeat them with a relatively low-level party. I was just hoping that you could give me a second entry for this part of the mod's walkthrough.