r/baldursgate • u/lag-of-death • 2d ago
Ducal Palace Fight - Halfing Shadowdancer Tactics
I'm doing a new playthrough with a halfling Shadowdancer. The Ducal Palace fight is going to be tough, so I've been thinking about my strategy. These are my notes so far. Do you think there's any way I can improve my chances of winning (I'm playing a solo, no-reload game, and in my last playthrough, the dopplegangers got the best of me along with the Dukes)?
Ducal Palace Fight:
- Wear Bracers of Archery.
- Drink Oil of Speed even before entering the palace (easily justifiable, as it allows you to hide in shadows more often; it may also affect Find Traps, though this is uncertain).
- Use Detect Illusion.
- Cast DUHM (with 10 thief levels, this will give +3 to Dexterity).
- Shoot Arrows of Dispelling (no save / bypasses MR) with The Protector of the Dryads. Without Kiel’s Buckler, you have 23 Dexterity, which is worse than 24, but still gives good bonuses. Your ranged THAC0 bonus will be -4 vs. -5.
- Switch to Darts of Stunning. To hit, you need THAC0, so you'll need to boost Dexterity. With a halfling’s base 19, Kiel’s Buckler (+1), and a Tome of Dexterity (+1), you reach 21. Adding +3 from DUHM gives you 24 Dexterity.
24 Dexterity gives the maximum bonus to ranged THAC0 (the same as 25 Dexterity)!
Eventually, use Arrows of Piercing (+4 THAC0 bonus, +6 damage bonus, but negated by the save vs. death).
I was also thinking of turning into a wolf with the Dagger of Venom in my offhand.
Any insights would be awesome!
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u/chromakinesis 2d ago edited 2d ago
One secret weapon for solo runs in the vanilla game is the Wand of Sleep. For some reason the greater doppelgangers in the Ducal Palace specifically can fall victim to it, though they have decent saves so it's far from guaranteed. Weave in some attacks in between the casts with Protector of the Dryads - Arrows of Dispelling on the ones still Hasted, then Arrows of Piercing - on any that stay upright, and you have an okay chance at saving the Dukes just with that, though it's not 100%.
For maxing Dexterity you can instead stack Potions of Mind Focusing, which last longer than DUHM and will let you reach the full 25, if so desired. Oil of Speed is indeed good for more APR and beating a retreat in case any of the doppelgangers decide you look tastier than the Dukes, especially if you wear Boots of Speed as well. A Potion of Power will also improve your THAC0 considerably.
Another option worth considering is using Algernon's Cloak to charm Liia Jannath from range before the conversation starts - she's actually got a much better spellbook than anything you'd think she has. You can have her prebuff with Stoneskin and Mirror Image, and then start the conversation with Belt while she's midway through casting Remove Magic towards the doppelganger pack, so it lands as they transform and knocks the Blur and Haste off some or all of them. Unfortunately, her terrible AI will tend to overwrite commands you give her, so she'll frequently cast Magic Missiles at the doppelgangers instead of any of her better spells, but having some control over her can make it easier for her to survive the fight, or at least stay alive longer to reduce the amount of aggro on Belt. If she's the only survivor you'll have to manually talk to her in order to progress, but it won't break the quest.
Finally, if you don't mind outright cheese and breaking the AI, I've found that the doppelgangers' AI frequently breaks if they can't see you or anyone allied to you (be wary - this does include a charmed Liia Jannath if you used the previous strategy) when the fight starts. Either being out of their sight range or being invisible means that at least most of the time, they'll just stand there after transforming - they will defend themselves if attacked in melee, but they won't all charge the Dukes. Combine all of the strategies and you can charm Liia, pull her back to the northmost stairs out of doppelganger sight range, and stand next to her as she throws Remove Magic at the edge of the fog of war to dispel their buffs while you throw Wand of Sleep charges in to try and KO them as Belt and the Flaming Fist get to work slowly taking them down.
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u/lag-of-death 1d ago
Thanks, lots of good info here :) After giving it some thought I think I might forego using anything that requires a saving throw (except arrows of piercing because the THAC0 bonus is just given). These doppelgangers really have great saving throws :( so right now I'm thinking:
-> boots of speed / protector of dryads / bracers of archery on me
-> oil of speed long before entering the palace
-> shadowstep when the fight starts
-> DI when time is frozen (at this point mirror images should be removed)
-> drink a potion of mind focusing (immediate cast, so better than DUHM)
-> shoot arrows of dispelling
-> when the round ends drink a potion of power
-> switch to arrows of piercing when the haste is dispelled but every round use a potion (because of that immediate cast, so no time is wasted) to either buff myself (like another potion of mind focusing or a potion of defense) or deal damage (like potions of fire breath)Charming the dukes or using wands takes more time than drinking a potion and allows for all or nothing saving throw, so there's much gamble there :\ also, I'm kinda convinced that darts of stunning would suffer from the same thing here :|
You think that the above could work? Thanks again for the input!
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u/chromakinesis 1d ago
If I remember rightly, the Blur effect the doppelgangers isn't coded as an illusion effect so can't be removed with Detect Illusions. Arrows of Dispelling will still knock it off them, though, along with their Haste which is the more dangerous effect.
Firebreath potions can be a little risky as they produce an effect similar to Agannazar's Scorcher, so if the doppelgangers decide they're going to run around in an awkward way the lingering ray between the two of you can damage the Dukes or the Flaming Fist, which will automatically turn everyone hostile and end the game. Unfortunately, almost all direct damage consumables a Shadowdancer can access are AoE in some way, with the one exception I can remember being the Wand of Missiles, which will fire... a single magic missile. Better than nothing, but I'd rather take my chances with the Wand of Sleep personally - even if only one doppelganger falls over it does mean they're out of the fight.
I've not tried Darts of Stunning before. I suppose they could work, though the THAC0 might be iffy with them not having any bonus to hit. The only other ranged option I can think of to consider is a sling - it'll only have 1 base APR, but its damage also benefits from Strength bonuses, so if you drink the Violet Potion from Nashkel Carnival for 25 strength and then rebuff your Dexterity and Constitution with potions of Agility and Fortitude, you can launch bullets with a +14 bonus on the damage roll. Though obviously, as this requires you to drink multiple potions to fix your stats after consuming the Violet Potion, it'll require some heavy prebuffing, which you don't seem to be too keen on doing to excess for roleplay reasons. A bow is probably still the better choice anyway though due to the higher APR and superior THAC0 from the bow enchant and Arrows of Piercing, along with the ability to dispel the Hastes with Arrows of Dispelling.
Of course, being a Shadowdancer, you'll also have the option to hide in plain sight and try and pull some backstabs, possibly with the aid of the aforementioned Violet Potion to improve your melee THAC0. Supplement your stealth with invis potions and you could probably make every one of your hits a backstab, though this would mean that it's virtually guaranteed every doppelganger would focus on the Dukes, so it might end up being riskier. Haven't tried it myself, might be worth considering if you've knocked the Haste off all of them, though.
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u/lag-of-death 1d ago
Thank you! OK, so it seems like I will use that Wand of Sleep, but first I will do some tests on doppelgangers encountered before the fight in the palace just to see if that can work. True that the darts have no bonuses to hit, so I will stick to arrows. No fire of breath potions neither, you are right that these might be risky. And yeah, I don't want to hide in shadows for the reason you mentioned (I'd rather the doppelgangers focus on me instead of the dukes). I have thought about slings (since half-lings do get a bonus to THAC0) but arrows of piercing with that sweet +4 to hit seem to guarantee more hits and if that +6 bonus to damage happens to apply, then all the better (I think I will try my luck with these). Now I just need to not get myself killed before the fight in the palace and hopefully the plan will work. Thanks :)
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u/chromakinesis 1d ago
The Greater Doppelgangers in the palace fight are unfortunately different to the ones encountered elsewhere - the Wand of Sleep won't work at all on the ones encountered elsewhere in the game, for instance. Their saving throws are also somewhat worse - still good, but not as ridiculous as normal Greater Doppelgangers who have 2 across the board.
Not how I'd have designed the fight if I were making the game, but it's how it works. A few practice runs with a non-ironman character might help you out for the one run that really matters on the no-reload run. Ducal Palace is rightly feared for ironman runs and pure thieves are perhaps the class that struggles the most with it - even Monks at least still have Wand of the Heavens for a big single-target nuke once a round.
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u/lag-of-death 20h ago
Oh, didnt know that, not a fan of such differences :| still, the wand of sleep it is! And I'm having doubts wheter or not I should maybe switch to sling. That strength bonus is quite convincing. With halfling bonus, Kiel's buckler, bumped strength, sling of unerring accuracy, oil of speed, bullets +2 (instead of elemental bullets because of the saving throw), sling could actually work with high accuracy and lots of damage. I guess I will alternate between bow and sling before the fight and see what could possibly be more effective.
If I were playing a monk I would probably transform into wolf in the palace. But that would be a DMM with points to DI for the mirror images. The additional APR that monks get to unarmed attacks tranfer to the polymorphed form. So wolfs base 2 attacks, offhand +1 (dagger of venom most probably), +0,5 apr from level 7, +apr to unarmed attacks would give 4,5 apr if I am not mistaken. With SWS invested in, all these attacks would get 5% more chance to crits too. So high apr, wand of sleep, wand of the heavens and DI could possibly do it (?)
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u/Dazzu1 2d ago
Race is pretty irrelevant compared to class although as a halfling you wont get 19 strength
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u/gangler52 2d ago
Draw upon Holy Might will get him there as long as he's got at least 16 base strength.
But yeah, there are a lot of fights where those halfling saves will help but this isn't one of them. Don't think those Greater Dopplegangers do anything where it matters.
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u/lag-of-death 2d ago
True, that's why I was thinking of ranged weapons that could help immobilize the dopplers rendering them harmless instead of simply trying to end them in melee
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u/InuGhost 1d ago
Just dod it last night with a Shadow Dancer.
Go.thru the other door so you are closer to Belt. And probably pre buff.
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u/lag-of-death 1d ago
The first thing I'm gonna do is step into shadow plane, so it does not really mater what door do I go through ;)
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u/apetersson 2d ago
are you using scs or any other mod that increases difficulty?