SCS Bodhi (Part III)

Part III of the Sword Coast Stratagems Guide for SCS BG2.

Back to Part II: SCS Torgal.

In the previous post we took out the troll hordes of the fortress and the grove. Rakshasa aside, we encountered no roadblocks. However, I foresee a few roadblocks ahead; for example, vampires, shades, beholders, mindflayers and dragons. 

Thus, the party pushes the main quest along to Chapter Three in order to increase their XP yield and gain key items such as the Amulet of Power BG2 and IMoD BG2, both of which bestow immunity to one of the most crippling negative status effects in the Bhaalspawn Saga: Level Drain. These are key items when taking on the vampire lair of Bodhi and the undead realm of the Shade Lord.

Unlocking Chapter 3

Guild Faction: Thieves' Guild. Wealth-permitting, give the 15,000 GP to Gaelan Bayle and then head over to Aran Linvail in the Docks to receive the Amulet of Power (bestows a one-point reduction in casting speed and Immunity to Level Drain). This should be gifted to Aerie along with the Robe of Vecna when you can afford it because the reduction in casting speed offered by both items will stack, allowing her to unleash her arcane and divine repertoire in the blink of an eye; for example, Righteous Magic is a divine buff with a long casting time that will now be cast almost instantly. 

Now, follow the thieves' guild quest chain until Bodhi's lair; it's easy FedEx stuff that you should have no problems with. (It's a bit sad just how trivial those quest are, actually.)

Improved Mace of Disruption. Not available until the third chapter is unlocked, and wieldable in our party only by Aerie, IMoD is notable for its 2d12+4 dmg vs. Undead, Immunity to Level Drain and on-hit save vs. death at 4-point penalty or be disrupted.

Vampire Lair

Who cares about IMoD when you have five arcane spellcasters?! I do. But the point is, Aerie can wield it at 4 ApR with 25 Strength and max weapon dmg roll. Here is a setup that will enable her to crash through the generic vampires, ghoul lords and grimwarders lurking within Bodhi's lair:

Aerie  (Cleric 10/Mage 11) vs. vampires:

• Wield: IMoD off-hand, Defender of Easthaven off-hand.
• Wear: Elven Chainmail, Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, Helm of Balduran, Sewer Cloak, Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Earth Control.
• Buffs (Aerie cannot yet cast PfMW): Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Protection From Evil 10' radius, Chaotic Commands, Improved Invisibility, Improved Haste, DUHM, Righteous Magic (30 dmg per hit) and Armor of Faith. Recast buffs when they expire (duh). :P

SCS Vampires

SCS: Smarter Vampires. Vamps can still be critted and immolated with Sunfire. Vamps can shapeshift into vampire wolf or vampire bat, at-will.

They shift to the physically-immune bat-form and flit about when they get desperate, or if they want to close in on you quickly. Be watchful because their bat-form movement rate is off the charts.

Even the lowly fledglings employ domination and on-hit two-point level drain.

Taking this further, Durst and Gellal are unique vamps who like to fire Cloud of Bats and Children of the Night: Call Rat Swarm. The former ability is similar to the druid insect-line of spells in that it's good at interrupting spellcasting, and the latter ability summons eight lil' rats that scurry through the party's ranks to inflict on-hit disease. Of course, Tanova, Lassal and Bodhi are even more powerful:

Tanova SCS

Vampire Mage: Tanova. This vamp is a bit scary in that she is capable of casting Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and firing off Spell Trigger: Mislead, Spell Shield, Spell Immunity: Divination when she gets desperate. Again, it comes down to Jan's Detect Illusions and casting Breach when she refreshes her Stoneskins; that way, Aerie can go for the IMoD disruption. In the pic below, Aerie disrupts Tanova but simultaneously falls to her on-hit two-point Drink Blood Con-drain [1].

Oh well, it wasn't a bad performance... Aerie disrupted every vampire on the first level of the lair with IMoD.

[1] With a piddling Con score of 9, I'm not surprised. A few Drink Bloods and Aerie's history. Since DUHM at her level only adds +2, we really needed the Girdle of Fortitude (sets Con to 18 for 8 hours; stacks with DUHM).

Lassal SCS

Blood & Spike Pit: Lassal. Under Improved Invisibility Lassal won't attack after the dialogue, so Aerie - now resurrected - stepped up and disrupted him on the first blow! Thus, Lassal was unable to fire Vampire Fear or Children of the Night: Call Rat Swarm. You could also just blind Lassal and make him run around the pit like crazy, looking for you. Just be careful he doesn't get in anyone's face because he will immediately dominate or level/con drain them. In contrast, a blinded Bodhi is immobile (see next section).

SCS Bodhi

I found out an interesting way to resolve the SCS Bodhi BG2 encounter. It goes like this:

• Chaotic Commands 
• Stake Lassal 
• PfMW 
• Talk Bodhi 
• Lower Resistance x3 
• Recast PfMW 
• Greater Malison 
• Blindness 
• I WIN

As you can see in the pic posted below, she just stands there doing nothing. That means she is at your mercy for 10 turns. By rights, that is long enough to destroy her several times over. But what happens is - without you inflicting any damage on her whatsoever - she delivers her departure line and slinks away into the darkness.

Yet again, Blindness - a first circle spell - proves itself to be godly. See also: BG2 Best Spells.

Ok, what other options do we have at this humble party level?

Aerie was unable to stand against Bodhi in a physical duel for more than a few rounds because she had not yet broken into the sixth arcane circle for PfMW. Aren't Stoneskin and Mirror Image enough? No, because Bodhi's high rate of attacks go right through them to inflict on-hit three-point Level or five-point Drink Blood Con drain per hit.

So yeah, PfMW is of paramount importance against Bodhi. 

In another lil' experiment I conducted, Edwin and Charname loaded their sixth circle slots with PfMW in order to tank her draining blows; recasting it three times during the battle as Bodhi foolishly whaled away on our Fire Shield (Red). Perhaps it is difficult to script melee enemies to not suicide on Fire Shields? I don't know. Of course, you might as well unleash AoEs such as Sunfire while she's whaling away on you.

Fire Shield (Red)

• Mandatory pre-battle buffs are:

• Chaotic Commands (to ward off Sepulchral Sleep)
• Fire Shield (Red)
• PfMW (cast just after staking Lassal)

Bodhi sometimes shapeshifts into a vampiric wolf but it doesn't seem to empower her. OTOH, her Touch of Death is like an AoE Vampiric Touch that inflicts 36 magical dmg on everyone caught within range. (Belt of Inertial Barrier will halve that.)

Sepulchral Sleep

I advise against bringing anyone else into the fray because if Bodhi is mobile she will always go for whoever doesn't have PfMW. Isn't she a smart lil' cookie? So yeah, just have Jan, Nalia and Aerie hidden away around the corner for the duration of the encounter. Anyway, if all goes well Bodhi will run off with her butt on fire due to the Fire Shield. (Bodhi is scripted to flee after incurring about 100 dmg/"Injured" status). 

Touch of Death

Does just Web + MMM work? Yeah, I tested it. That's cheesy but highly effective, as usual.

Lower Resistance x3 followed by Greater Malison and Doom? Yep. This opens her up to Blindness (see above) and basically whatever else you want to throw at her.

Skull Trap or Set Snares? Bodhi will be damaged when she appears, yes. But her MR may resist Skull Trap. Again, cheesy.

Polymorph: Mustard Jelly? Yeah, piercing immunity means vamp wolf can't harm the caster, but Bodhi will just shift back and Drink Blood instead. Dead.

Summons? Low level summons are worthless because they don't strike with enchanted weapons. Summon hundreds of spiders and skellies; they will do nothing.

Return to Linvail for a major XP bomb: 50,000 XP per party member. I wouldn't leave Athkatla before getting a few more key items, but it's entirely up to you.

Temple Ruins

If you haven't already, what you might like to do now is dig into the easy quests in Umar Hills; namely Fael, Madulf, Mimic and Valygar. Remove Valygar from the party after he unlocks the Planar Sphere or simply slay him and use his corpse to open it. Pick up Mazzy's note in the Ranger cabin to unlock the Temple Ruins. The acorns that you found on Ilyich's corpse should also be delivered to the dryads in Windspear Hills.

Penetrating the Temple Ruins. At this party level, and Shade Lord and Shadow Dragon aside, the Temple Ruins dungeon is a cake-walk. Buffed with the basics and wielding IMoD for disruption of the undead mobs dotted about within, Aerie raids the dungeon single-handedly. Again, trashy low-level undead aside, we only encountered Wraith x3 (2,000 XP ea), Bone Golem x2 (18,000 ea) and a Greater Mummy (14,000).

That said, parties who take on the ruins post-Underdark/Chapter Six may end up facing off against two liches and four Greater Mummies. This is due to BG2's built-in encounter scaling of generic mobs; it has nothing to do with SCS or any mod. All it does is scale some generic mobs to party level in thresholds (it does not affect bosses or unique enemies). Tidbit: Westley Weimer's infamous Tactics Modification Pack pits you up against two liches and their pet pit fiends that hit for 500 poison dmg - regardless of your level.

Conduct the ritual at the statue of Amaunator to open the warded door. The dialogue selections are as follows: 

• 2-3-1 
• 3-1-1
• 1-3-2 

The Greater Mummy is capable of summoning an Aerial Servant [2], animating dead (lots of them, including skeleton warriors), inflicting on-hit mummy rot (disease and spell failure) and activating a paralyzing fear aura (hold + fear). In fact, with aTweaks: PnP Undead it will eventually unleash the deep divine casting powers of a 19th level Cleric if you let it shamble around long enough.
[2] Sports natural invisibility and a grab attack that is the equivalent of Druid entangle.

Below: Bridge over an abyss. The Greater Mummy animates its legion, buffs them with Bless and Chant, and then buffs itself with Righteous Magic and Armor of Faith before preparing to inflict hideous negative status effects on the party, most of whom have run south. Meanwhile, the Bone Golem has detected the presence of party members hiding in the north, and sets off to rip them to shreds.

SCS Shade Lord

Negative Plane Protection is vital against the Shade Lord; otherwise, its AoE Darkling Aura will level drain the party and make them lose spells - and what is a Mage without spells? Now, with Aerie wielding IMoD and Charname wearing the Amulet of Power, that's two of us warded.

In addition, Aerie's divine repertoire offers NPP in the fourth circle and she has three slots which is just enough to ward Edwin, Nalia and Jan as well. But the problem is, NPP has a pathetic duration of just five rounds and we cannot buff in the dragon's lair because Thaxll'ssillyia will go hostile, wardstone or not. Thus, we must buff in the dungeon above and lose a precious round of NPP. Not only that, but we must vanquish the Shade Lord before NPP expires on Edwin, Nalia and Jan. How are we going to do that when the Shade Lord fires a contingency that includes Shadow Mantle, Spell Turning and PfMW? Answer: Secret Word or Pierce Magic → Breach → Melf's Minute Meteors.

Black Blade of Disaster

Pre-battle buffs (cast in main dungeon):  MMM x4 (Aerie wields IMoD) → Stoneskin x5 → Mirror Image x5 → Improved Haste x5 → Righteous Magic (Aerie self-buff) → Negative Plane Protection x3 (Edwin, Jan, Nalia) → Double-time it to the Shade Lord.

Shade Lord: Mirror Image and Blade Barrier

Battleplan. The Shadow Altar summons forth Shadows at intervals to hinder the party. Spend enough time fighting the Shade Lord, and they will grow into a horde. Thus, it is best to take out the altar first.

First up, Aerie casts DUHM, charges the Shadow Altar and whales away with FoA as everyone else fires MMM, too. It will take about 30 meteors (1-3 dmg) and a couple of FoA hits (7 base + 3 rainbow dmg) to take out the tanky altar. Yes, just ignore Shadow Patrick because he is a very weak shade-archer that won't be able to hit the party through their illusions with any degree of reliability.

With that brief amount of time gone by, the Shade Lord has now fired Shadow Mantle-Spell Turning-PfMW contingency and begun to creep towards the party to unleash Darkling Aura. NPP is still active so DA has no effect (but NPP will expire soon!)

Cast Secret Word or Pierce Magic on the Shade Lord and immediately follow up with Breach. Have Jan strip the Shade Lord's Mirror Image with Detect Illusion.

Now exposed to incurring damage, it's just a matter of whaling away on the Shade Lord with IMoD + MMM (16 dmg + 1-4 dmg per hit). With such high ApR you should interrupt his spellcasting with ease.

"No! This.. can.. not.. be.. ee..eeee..!" (25,000 XP)

(Shade Lord cannot be disrupted.)

Note that with 10 ApR MMM it is sometimes possible to vanquish the Shade Lord before it manages to fire its pre-buff contingency - and yes, I'm talking post-dialogue - however, that is clearly cheese. :P

Make sure all party members stay mobile. Don't just stand there and get level/ability drained by the Shadow mobs. It's easy to run rings around the slow-moving spectral undead while under the effects of Haste/IH.

Known spells castable by the Shade Lord if you don't get the quick kill (in addition to the refiring of the Shadow Mantle-Spell-Turning-PfMW contingency): Finger of Death (and Chromatic Orb: Death), Power Word: Blind and Black Blade of Disaster. PW:B is warded with True Sight but BBoD is devastating in that it will chunk the portrait from the sidebar - and then the Shade Lord will raise the party member as a Shadow! Cast PfMW and the Shade Lord will ignore you and look for another, unprotected target.

Thaxll'ssillyia the Shadow Dragon. Yes, I could take out Thax now but I want to get more variety in our spellbooks in order to experiment on him. Stay tuned. (45,000 XP).

Firkraag's Dungeon

Penetrating Firkraag's dungeon. Exploring Firkraag's dungeon will result in high XP yield due to the thugged out encounter design; for example: Greater Wolfwere x3 (15k XP ea), Guardian x6 (8k ea), Ancient Vampire x3 (10.5k ea), Elder Vampire x3 (12.5k ea), Juggernaut Golem x2 (16k ea), Stone Golem x6 (8k ea), and one Adamantite Golem (25k).

Itemization is underwhelming, though. You won't find any items of lasting significance to an arcane party other than a Ring of Fire Resistance; even the spell scrolls are nothing to write home about. Indeed, an arcane party has no use for Red Dragon Scale and only Jan can wield Carsomyr by virtue of UAI (not that you'd want to).

Below left: Vampire swarm (Elders & Ancients). Scout them out, cast Web, and follow up with a bombardment of Skull Traps and Sunfires to vanquish them.
Below Right: Adamantite, Juggernaut and Stone golem pack. Note that Adamantite Golems sport 90% resistance to physical damage in addition to 100% MR. Aerie tanked it with the Flail of Ages (on-hit MR-bypassing no-Save 33% Slow and rainbow dmg) while everyone else hurled MMM. This epic tank will stand against such a barrage longer than anything you have encountered thus far. It makes Torgal seem squishy. Note also that it's too big to get out of the chamber it's in. Thus, you can take potshots at it from outside of the chamber, if you need to.

Wait! I can't even cast spells at the golems? If you're keen, you can nerf their MR with multiple castings of Lower Resistance and Pierce Shield.

There is a lot of other crap to kill, too. You can take out Conster, Tazok and Samia's crew, if you like. Don't forget to loot Tazok's corpse for the Sewer Key: it's how we gain access to the dreaded illithid lair and the Alhoon - a mindflayer lich.

SCS Firkraag

If you want to take on Firkraag BG2 I would suggest waiting until you can cast eighth circle Pierce Shield and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting (i.e, 16th caster level). The following notes and pics are from an incomplete test run I undertook, in which we faced off against Firkraag at 16th level. I only post it here as an aside; in this run I will take on Firkraag with spells other than basic stuff like Skull Trap/ADHW. But not until post-Underdark/Chapter Six; it's just more climactic that way.

Left: Party buffed with Resist Fear, Mirror Image and Stoneskin. 

Middle: Massive novas of dragonfire and death magic (ADHW) after the wing buffet and Pierce Shield x3 for -90% MR (Charname, Edwin, Nalia). 

Right: Firkraag is ruined by Skull Traps and ADHW spam.

• Your party should look something like this now:

I forgot to mention it in the last post: at caster level 12 Spider Spawn summons scale into Sword Spiders that flaunt 5 ApR.

• Charname ◦ Wild Mage 13 ◦ Spell Slots Arcane: 6-6-6-5-6-4
• Aerie ◦ Cleric 10/Mage 11 ◦ Spell Slots Arcane: 4-4-4-3-3 ◦ Spell Slots Divine: 6-6-3-3-2
• Nalia: Thief 4/Mage 13 ◦ Spell Slots Arcane: 5-5-5-4-4-2
• Jan: Illusionist 11/Thief 12 ◦ Spell Slots Arcane: 5-5-5-4-4
• Edwin: Conjurer 13 ◦ Spell Slots Arcane: 8-8-8-7-7-5
• Party Reputation: Heroic (20)  → Edwin speaks his "leaving line" but won't leave the party because Charname has 18 natural Charisma. Update: Actually, that's incorrect. Edwin can indeed leave the party so keep your Rep below 18 (kill a peasant).

Firkraag and Thaxll'ssillyia are left well alone for now. (To be taken out post-Underdark/Chapter Six.)

Continued in Part IV: SCS Beholders -- Sword Coast Stratagems Guide -- SCS BG2.