She casts Ironskin immidately, I tried to interrupt her with Larloch several time, but was not enough fast to press pause after duel started. I have 4 charm animals, and tried to charm her mountain bears. Interrupted 1st summon with Larloch, than tried to charm 2 from 2nd summon. Well, they interrupt and roll succesfull save many times. When I managed to charm 1, Faldorn dispelled my charm later, or she killed charmed bear, and 2nd charm was not succesfull. I think I give up, and I will go back to the city for other quests. I hope I can do this duel later, but I am dubious. 1 or 2 more lvl 1 spell, better THACO won't help against Ironskin... So I am a bit clueless now.

I suggest that you keep trying, sahdan! Without winning this duel,you won't become hero of Trademeet and won't gain the xp and reward. You didn't say anything about Faldorn's Creeping Doom which means that every time you have successfully interrupted the spell with the your Minor Drain. This is good news. Try to charm the first bear but don't order him to attack Faldorn. Faldorn has Iron skin and the second bear will kill your charmed one. Help your bear and together kill Faldorn's other summons. If you can charm a second bears it will be excellent but don't try it on the bear which is now attacked by your charmed bear. Try it next time Faldorn summons animals. Kill her nymphs quickly before they cast spells. With DUHM, you will regenerate as well. What first level spell have you picked?

This battle is not easy and requires patience. As you can see in my report, it was (so far) the only battle I had to reload three times before winning.

The first battle I rushed in with the quarterstaff and was killed by the first 2 bears (stupid).

The second battle I tried to charm only 2 bears and then kill her with my quarterstaff, but the damage was too little. After 1 charm failed and 1 charm succeeded, the remaining 2 bears killed me before I was able to remove the Ironskins from Faldorn.


The third battle I had learnt enough and I was victorious. It went like this.

I started with Draw Upon Holy Might.
Faldorn starts out with Ironskins and Flameblade (if I recall correctly). Then she calls forth 2 bears and then again 2 bears. When the first 2 appear you'll have Drawn Upon your Holy Might and you may have been able to pick up the quarterstaff. I circled a little bit around the first 2 bears and tried to charm the one closest to Faldorn. I got lucky and set it to attack her while she finished calling the 3rd and 4th bear. I failed to charm the second bear, but continued to try and my 3rd and 4th attempts were lucky.
I now had 3 of the 4 bears, but Faldorn still had her Ironskins and she was out to get me. Each time I charmed a bear I set it to attack Faldorn. She was now moving around trying to get to me but she was blocked by all those bears. Since I had a quarterstaff I was able to hit her from afar whilst she still tried to get to me. After a bit she stopped and called her Nymph.
By now the bears and my Quarterstaff had been able to remove her Ironskins and we were able to damage her. Unlucky as I was, the Nymph was called before the damage went through (I should have used Larloch I think), but the bears did nice damage and even without any points in quarterstaff you can do good damage if you're enchanted with Draw Upon Holy Might. The Nymph called forth her Animals, but by then the deed was almost done. Faldorn was about to die!
She was Near Death when the Nymph set out to heal her and I critically missed... but my bears were with me and with 2 hits they killed Faldorn.

Nalia's Keep stages by me.
1. Entry through the sneak passage. Clear the first level and outside. I want to open the Bridge, but I cannot beat the Spider and the Greater Yuan Ti Mage. I return later.
2. Opening of the Keep, I killed the Spider and the Yuan Ti and move to the second level. I'm blocked by the normal Yuan Ti Mage due to a lack of spells. I need to rest.
3. I clear the second level, but I need rest before tackling the Golems.
4. I clear the Golems and clear the extra summons (btw, I only got 2 spawns, not 3. I got 2 spiders from 1 statue and 1 Keep viper from 1 statue, but the center statue spawns nothing extra. Is this supposed to be so?). I need to rest before going down.
5. I cleared everything around Torgal only today

My party is a 5 man though that has slightly more than 5.5M XP in total.
Vagrant, Anomen, Jaheira (Avenger), Nalia, Cernd... waiting for Mazzy or Haer'Dalis whom I both haven't rescued yet because I fear those battles are as tough as the Keep... I haven't been to the Windspear Hills yet nor the Umar Hills Dungeon, nor the Planar Sphere, nor the Planar Prison... but I have finished the Druid, Cleric and Thief Strongholds, and Anomen's Romance and Jaheira's Romance have progressed far (and thus the added quest rewards). Maybe I'll go get Valygar... I think I'm at 40 days or something from all the traveling and resting. I'm about to step up to the Slavership now.... tough going so far. Much more difficult than IA v2 last year (or was it 2 years ago)...

Windspear Hills, Umar Hills Dungeon, Planar Sphere, Planar Prison, Sewers Encounter, Den of Seven Veils Party, Borinall, Guarded compound, the protectors of Gaxx's Body parts, Twisted Rune in the Bridge District, Graveyard District, the whole of Watcher's Keep... and I'm still in chapter 2 currently.

Key was to kill the 2nd bear with my PC and first charmed bear very fast . Charm 1st bear from 2nd summon and maybe the 2nd bear from 2nd summon. I had 2 very promising attempt, killed all summons with charmed bears, but Faldorn killed my last charmed bear and killed me also.

Unfortunately shade liches will always use the ADHW contingency as long as the characters attacking him are not protected from it and as you suggest 9 times out of 10 it will kill them you really need to get used to countering this particular trick as it turns up quite regularly. This however is reasonably easy, once you get to the stage that you can actually hurt the shade lich make sure any fighters sent in against him are protected from magic energy. I would suggest you save this buff until then as if used earlier it will likely run out or get dispelled plus as at this stage you are hitting him reliably he will find it hard to dispel it and youshould be able to kill him fairly swiftly. Also ensure all other party members are out of range of the lich. If you dont have PFMEyou'll just have to use anti-magic potions etc and a tank with high HP and take it on the chin but hey lookn on the bright side he only does it once.