SCS Sendai (Part X)

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

Back to Part IX: SCS Yaga-Shura.

SCS Sendai

SCS Sendai is a combat encounter in SCS BG2. SCS Sendai is staged in the sanctum of Sendai's enclave, Throne of Bhaal.

En route to Sendai BG2's sanctum, we took out Ogremoch followed by Diatha (14,000, 26,000).

Sendai is my fave Bhaalspawn BG2. She is just spectacular. Even the vanilla battle against her is exciting, variable and memorable. 

This two-phase encounter pits the party against seven forms of Sendai that animate from statues surrounding a central platform. During this time, Drow forces spawn into the chamber in order to make nusiances of themselves. Once each and every Sendai-form has been vanquished, the full-blown Sendai - an epic level Cleric/Mage - spawns on the central platform for the final duel.

The screencap below depicts the situation a few rounds into the encounter. The party is under the effects of Mass Invisibility and Spell Immunity: Divination. As is clear from the screencap, unlike the vanilla encounter the Sendai forms don't spawn one at a time after each form is vanquished. Instead, all forms enter the fray at the same time, after short intervals, regardless of the party's actions.

Notably, and unlike Yaga-Shura, all of Sendai's forms lack innate True Sight and the Detect Illusion modal. And her conventional True Sight can't expose us because we are warded with Spell Immunity: Divination. And she can't strip us of Spell Immunity: Divination because she can't target us.

How frustrating.

Sendai and her Drow spawns waste their True Sight spellcastings on the SI:D so when SI:D expires they still can't reveal us. Which means, if we buffed with Invisibility instead of Mass Invisibility, we could conceivably stand in that chamber for 24 hours. A cute but ultimately useless fact.

Anyway, the advantage of waiting things out is that:

• We can draw out all of her forms together
• We can draw out all of her teleporting Drow together

This allows us to maximize the efficiency of our spellcastings (catch more victims in our AoEs, for example).

The above screencap shows the point at which we are finally revealed. You can see that one of Sendai's forms is an archer activating Called Shot; another is a dual-wielding berserker activating Enrage. Much more alarmingly, there is one divine spellcaster form and two arcane spellcaster forms that fire contingencies, sequencers and triggers as well. In addition, there is a particularly nasty assassin-form that prepares to move in for x7 assassinations, plus poison.

SCS Drow

When shit gets real, the stock Drow also buff themselves by quaffing potions:

Some of those Drow are HLA-capable (Greater Whirlwind, Hardiness). Others are capable of casting Time Stop.

Below: Multiple GWWs (golden glow). GWW = ApR 10. No protection from physical-based dmg? Dead already.

Now, the thing about Drow is that they are highly magic-resistant. Launch fifteen Skull Traps into a group of seven and you might just slay one.

Useless. But I'm just showing how powerful Drow MR is.

Drop twelve ADHWs into the chamber and you might slay several, including a few of Sendai's forms.

Much better.

But don't forget about the even better MR-bypassing Sunfire (a 5th circle spell):

That kind of conflagration usually leaves only Sendai's mages alive (bottom right). Any stragglers will be at Near Death. I've killed one dozen Drow instantly with Sunfire. Note that SCS Core Component: Initialize modifies Sunfire (and other AoEs) such that Mirror Image won't absorb them. That means you are going to need fire resistance in order to pull this off; specifically, Protection From the Elements (7th). Trust me.

That custom mage mentioned above is dealt with like any other, but Sendai is a Bhaalspawn Cleric/Mage whose depth of spellcasting keeps her alive for an uncomfortably long period of time.

She'll gate in a Fallen Planetar, she'll spam ADHWs and Implosion, and she'll teleport around in an invisible, untargetable state. Thus, Jan's Detect Illusions and RRoR are paramount unless we want the fight to go on forever. Sendai's deep divine spellcasting increases her survivability to the max. She'll fully heal several times against pit fiends and celestials, for example. She'll keep herself clean and clear at all times; curing the on-hit diseases inflicted by pit fiends even as she's about to finally fall... she has so much staying power.

"Wait. What am I looking at in the above screencap?" That's Sendai surrounded by illusions, wards and Globe of Blades. The white necromantic plume is ADHW, a necromantic AoE that we like to over-employ in SCS. Sendai likes it, too.

A trio of pit fiends will barely make an impact; don't bother.

Assuming we've stripped her combat and spell protections down, how do we finish her off quickly? Well, if you've been reading this series of posts, you'll know!

I've talked about the theoretical staying power of Cleric Mage BG2; well, Sendai is the prime example of that.

Four Bhaalspawn down, two to go:

[wip] -- Sword Coast Stratagems Guide -- SCS BG2.

SCS Irenicus	SCS Slayer Irenicus	SCS Illasera
SCS Gromnir	SCS Yaga-Shura	SCS Sendai
Baldur's Gate 2 (Index)	Best BG2 Mods	No Reload Run Baldur's Gate