Looking for BattleSquares help/advice

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Any way to optimize this little part of the game? TIA

 

1.) Use a strong character. My druid won the levels without reloading between battles.

2.)You don't have to finish them on your first attempt, you can return any time until you fly away with Oswald to Kuldahar 2 chapters later.

3.) If you like cheese you can just save after each battle and reload if you happen to get a hard enemy or unlucky rolls.
If you're greedy you can reload the last fight of each of the 50 series until you get a (random) reward you like.

 

Nah, I'm not going to reload for better rewards or anything, but is there some way to have more fights, using more squares, or is it always the same?

 

No, to complete Battle Squares, you have to successfully win a minimum of 250 solo battles. Yes, two hundred and fifty. (yikes.) It can be done, but it certainly tests your patience. That said, there are a number of very good rewards that make it worth the trouble, for most of the ranks.

The last few times I've played, I use the Ease of Use mod's little tweak that lets you skip battles quares and still get all of the rewards without the trouble of fighting all 250 battles.

 

If you skip them, you wouldn't get XP, and I'd imagine 250 battles yeilds a significant amount of XP, wouldn't it?

 

Klorox, dynamic combat xp system means that won't matter.

Also BS might not even give xp (been a while since I played).

 

It gives some amount of XP for beating challenge levels, but I can not remember if it gave XP for monsters or not.

 

No exp from monsters, not in HoF mode at least. Can't remember what it was in normal mode since it's been ages I played the game with normal difficulty.

One thing that does make battle squares easy in HoF is a sorc with Malison & Disintergrate. Boo-ya! Black Blade of Disaster is also a treat.

But those just go to show how cheesy HoF can be at that stage of the game when you've muled your way into the Ice Temple...

 

^I agree that battle squares are somewhat easier in HoF mode. You can disintegrate/finger of death/wail of the banshee tougher opponents with skill, (feats, high ability scores for increased DCs) some pre-spells (Malison, Despair) and luck (well...) big bad monster goes oof: instantly and you are victourious!

 

In my opinion (having played through it twice), Battle Squares is something like repeatedly hitting yourself over the head with a hammer. It is extremely monotonous and time-consuming, and also serves to deplete your supply of Potions of Extra Healing.

You quickly tire of it and wish it was over, but the lure of the rewards keep you going.

 

It depends on your style of playing. The first time I played them it was quite bearable, I didn't reload between battles or use a healing potion either and it was an interesting challenge since I had to keep my character from dying and kill the enemy fast enough. When the battles got too hard my party continued the story and returned later when they were more experienced.

If you try to beat all levels when you first get there ore use "save, cast finger of death, if monster survives reload" tactics you'll surely get bored fast.

The second playthrough is obviously less interesting since you already know that you have faced and beaten the challenge.

Only the reward for level 2 is good enough to stay considerably useful for the whole game btw.

 

Huh? I wouldn't call the levels 6 and 10 reward chump change.

 

The level 6 reward is useful for some monsters you meet in mid-game, but not as useful as for the battle squares themselves and you'll get many weapons which do a lot more damage than the level 10 reward during the rest of the game.

 

kmonster, I don't limit myself by thinking in such cut-and-dried, raw powergaming terms.

Yes, the L6 reward will not do its thing to all enemies in BSQ. Duh. That's why in BSQ, I think that it's best for a tank to scarf the very best weapons from the entire party from each type of damage (slash, pierce, and blunt) and have one of each equipped so that you can switch to the type which you think is most useful against each foe.

However, there ARE some BSQ enemies against which the L6 reward WILL be very, very useful.

And the L10 weapon, though not particularly useful for fighting BSQ since the characters most likely to want to use it are also unlikely to be those fighting BSQ, is a fine weapon for characters who want to use weapon finesse. Yes, even the best weapons for WF are not going to be the most raw damaging weapons. So what? This is a cRPG and some people actually do choose to do a little bit of the RP when they choose their weapons.

Try not being so dismissive of people who may actually choose to do a little RP'ing a cRPG.

 

Crucis, I don't know how you got the idea of me "being so dismissive of people who may actually choose to do a little RP'ing a cRPG", what did I post in this thread to cause you making this remark ?

My posts rather point into the opposite direction, I posted that the rewards won't really matter on the long run so that roleplayers won't feel bad if they don't force themselves to fight all the 250 battles if they don't want to.

The suggestion about returning later when the party is more experienced is also a roleplaying one, powergamers would rather force-fight their way through the squares with save and reload tactics when they first get there.


What you wrote about the L10 reward looks inconsequent to me. If someone plays a weapon finesse character for roleplaying reasons, he surely won't mind if his weapon is a little bit worse than optimal, especially since the difference between small-blades and 2-handers is much bigger.
Building a WF character but forcing oneself to fight for the L10 reward seems rather like powergaming a weakened character than roleplaying.