Baldur's Gate 2 Legacy of Bhaal Difficulty Guide Part 11 - Tanking with Summons

As we approach the end of Baldur’s Gate 2, the increased damage output from enemies starts to make traditional tanking strategies ineffective. This is particularly notable when fighting Mind Flayers in the Underdark, as their attacks drain Intelligence, and if Intelligence drops to 0, the party member dies, regardless of their HP total. Luckily, as we’ve leveled up, we’ve gained access to higher-level spells and summons that can do the tanking for us. We’ve previously discussed how summons have increased stats in Legacy of Bhaal difficulty, making summoning spells much more powerful in this ruleset than when playing on traditional difficulty settings. Skeleton Warriors work well against Mind Flayers due to their immunity to the domination effect, but the best summon against them is Mordenkainen's Sword. Mordenkainen’s Sword is completely immune to all damage from Mind Flayers and can only be damaged by magic.

Choosing the right summon can trivialize certain encounters. Mordenkainen’s Sword can be a reliable summon for the remainder of the Bhaalspawn saga and can make defeating the Mother Brain easy. Using Fire Elementals is recommended when fighting the Kuo-Toan Prince, as the Kuo-Toan weapons are not considered magical items, and thus, the Fire Elemental is immune. Furthermore, the Kuo-Toan Prince is weak to fire damage. We can apply a similar tactic when fighting the Githyanki in the Underdark, as a summoned Aerial Servant is also immune to normal weapons.

Defeating the Githyanki in the Underdark yields the Silver Blade, one-half of the powerful Silver Sword. To get the hilt of the sword, we need to defeat the Githyanki party in Athkatla after we escape the Underdark. Remember that we can’t use arcane spells in Athkatla without attracting the attention of the Cowled Wizards, so we can’t use Mordenkainen’s Sword. However, we can use the level 7 priest spell Gate. Gate will summon a powerful Pit Fiend, which cannot be directly controlled by the caster and will attack everyone indiscriminately. We must cast Protection from Evil before summoning the Pit Fiend so that it will instead focus on other targets. Casting the Pit Fiend allows us to isolate the leader of the Githyanki party and focus on him to loot the Silver Hilt.

With both the Silver Blade and Hilt, we can go to Cromwell and task him with repairing the Silver Sword. The Silver Sword is one of the best weapons in the game, as it has a 25% chance of triggering a vorpal effect. The vorpal effect can be resisted by saving throws, but if successful, it will trigger the instant death of the target. This is particularly useful in Legacy of Bhaal difficulty, as very few enemies are immune to this effect, and the high hit points of enemies mean we get a lot of value out of this weapon. With the Silver Sword added to Keldorn’s arsenal, we are ready to defeat Irenicus, which we’ll cover in the next video.

0:00 Mind Flayers
0:45 Kuo-Toa
1:58 Githyanki