Released in June 2001, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal concludes the saga begun by the original Baldur's Gate and continued in Baldur's Gate II. Chaos grips the land as the remaining Bhaalspawn wage all-out war upon each other to claim their birthright as the new Lord of Murder. Explore vast new dungeons, gain incredible new powers and find such ridiculous amounts of high-level loot that even +3 swords become junk items — or ignore all of it and do a speedrun instead.
Best time: 0:36:52 by Eli 'Smilge' Chase on 2008-11-23, done in 15 segments appended to one file. Game saves are available in a .rar file.
Author's comments:
Version 2.5.26498 (latest patch)
Played on "Core Rules"
Segmented (15 segments)
Character Creation:
I chose Elf because I think they have a slightly better "Find Hidden Doors" % than the other races. My manual fell apart a long time ago (don't leave it in your car on a hot day) so I was just guessing. It doesn't matter much really.
Sorcerer is my class. The ability to cast multiple different high level wizard spells is crutial for getting through these fights quickly. I can't see this being done as fast with any other class.
Alignment only matters a few times in the game, and even then it's minor. I chose a good alignment to be able to talk the cleric into giving me a key in Saradush.
Abilities have no effect on my game other than wisdom (needs to be 14 or more for my limited wishes).
Spells I needed will be listed here. Others are just filler.
I cast some skull traps to where the first Bhaalspawn is going to appear. Four will kill her, but 3 works sometimes and the sooner you rest the sooner she appears.
I have Saerevok open the door for me, then I tell him to get lost. He wouldn't survive in the next room anyways.
I cast some cloudkills to take out the low level enemies that spawn here. Mordenkanien's Swords are awesome, since they are immune to pretty much everything. After my 5 swords are out I haste them, then cast a high damage incendiary cloud to help deal with the drow. After that it's pretty much a matter of waiting for the job to be done.
In Saradush I follow Damurdoc's strategy to get into Gromnir's Fortress.
Gromnir, however, is dealt with much differently. He's suseptable to death spells, and disentegrate works wonders. I hop out through to the roof without killing anyone else, since Melissan comes as soon as you leave the area. I pocket plane to safety and head toward my next target.
Yaga-Shura may be invulnerable to harm, but he is not invulnerable to Mind Flayer intellegence drain. When a creature's intellegence is reduced to 0, it will die. I use limited wish to get access to the level 9 spells (Shapechange and Time Stop) I need to pull this off. I'm off to Sendai next.
I grab some quick spells from the level up, then I use a hasted Mordenkanien's sword to take out a "talk-locked" drow captain. This allows me free time while I wait for the door to open. I use this time to cast some protection spells and a spell trigger that I'll need later.
This next kill is courtesy of 'Betich'. I use my Spell trigger (Skull trap x 3) on myself. Spells with AoE friendly fire that are cast on yourself, either with a contingency or spell trigger/sequencer, ignore magic resistance. This is a very powerful tool, since drow are loaded with Magic Resistance and certain ones have even more. Mirror Image saves my life, as an image will take a hit instead of me.
Big thanks to 'Betich' for sharing this amazing trick.
I grab the key to enter the next area, and also pick up an amulet that must have been made for speedrunners. 'Amulet of the Cheetah', increases movement speed by 2 and casts Improved Haste once per day.
To proceed with the next fights quickly, I need to take some time to level up. So what's better than infinitely spawning, easy, low hit point, poor AI enemies that happen to be right on my path?
Answer: ones that errendously give 10x the experience they should. Each of these little gnomes give 12000 exp, where the equally difficult Orogs in the same area give 1200. Bioware's typo is my gain, as it takes me only a couple minutes to grab two levels. Their poor AI allows my project image to slaughter them unharmed.
On level up, I take Improved Alacrity, Dragon's Breath, Breach, Time Stop, and Shapechange. I take out the Lich with a couple of Dragon's Breaths, and I skip the next two fights by Time Stop + Mind Flayer brain sucking them before they can even enter dialoge.
I time stop again to run past the Illithid that block my way, and enter Sendai's Room.
The 'why's of this fight are many, and hopefully I'll cover it in the audio commentary. Here, at least, is the 'how'. Big thanks to Ekarderif for the shapechanged project image idea.
Walk in with:
The Fight:
I use the tried and true Time Stop/Mind Flayer to kill the door guard, and grab a dragon's head off a human body.
I use another "Betich's skull trap trick" to kill the werewyvern. From here I mostly follow DAMURDOC's route to gain entry to Abazigal's room. I could find no way to get into Abazigal's room without getting the breath potion, rope, and geas scroll.
This fight looks a bit simple, but a lot of strategy had to go into it to get it just right. Dragon's Breath is my weapon of choice (20d10 and ignores magic resistance). I use Project Image to be able to cast Dragon's Breath 6 times (3 for his human form, 3 for his dragon form). I had to position him so the knockback portion of Dragon's Breath won't send him across the room, making me have to track him down. I finish the dragon off myself with a Time Stop thrown in to prevent retribution from this one-hit killer. On my way out, I talk-lock Elminster to save a few seconds of dialoge. Balthazar is my next target.
I decided that killing the Guard Captain is the fastest way through the gates. After that, it's a simple (not really) Time Stop/ Improved Haste Slayer kill. Balthazar is immune to the Mind Flayer's attack, which is why slayer does the job here.
The aptly named challenge rooms proved challenging. I had been doing them in the same order as DAMURDOC (2-3-4-5, as they opened throughout the game.) However, my Ravager and Cyric fights had a lot of luck manipulation involved and after many hours of attempts, I decided to switch routes. I start with Ravager, whose magic resistance is erased with 3 contingencied Pierce Magic's. After that, an Improved Alacrity and some fast cast skull traps knocked his 534(!) hit points to nothing in a matter of seconds.
Cyric's followers are taken out with 2 Incendiary Clouds and a Dragon's Breath. I put Protection from Fire in the Contingency to avoid killing myself.
Slayer is brain sucked, as is my alternate self.
Now it is time for Melissan to die.
I Chain Contingency myself with 3 Project Images when I'm helpless (casting Project Image counts as helpless, big thanks to Ekarderif for this) and talk-lock Melissan. I get 4 Projected Images casting Summon Planetar as quickly as I can. Normally, you can only have 1 Planetar at a time. However, summons (like projected image) do not have to obey summoning restrictions. My planetar army makes short work of Melissan time and time again. Dragon's breath is used to make the ice prince die quicker, and Improved Alacrity Dragon's Breath knocks out the Fallen Solar (who is immune to Planetar's Attacks). The spell I cast at the end was Breach, but I later found out that it doesn't actually remove Melissan's Stoneskin (which is why I cast it). There's really nothing for me to do to her other than wait while the Planetars carve her up.
This final area was really as easy as it looks. The only hard part is having lucky Planetars roll high numbers on their attack dice.
If this area was the only thing stopping DAMURDOC from single-segmenting, then a single-segment run may be just around the corner.
I plan on more speedruns in the future, which may or may not include single-segment SoA, single-segment ToB, and a new, faster, segmented SoA.
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