Demon Lord vs Judgement Day (Spoilers) Options

[rbeverjr]

I just installed IA at the end of SoA. It's been nice for the most part. Irenicus at the Tree seemed to be Unbreechable - that's not fair. I did kill him with Dragon's Breath, no characters died, and no reload, but still. Irenicus in hell was a nice improvement over the stock game without being totally overboard like Tactics Improved Irenicus. I then went through Saradush and Watcher's Keep (through level 4). I have no major complaints there either. The game has become more challenging. However, when I received Angurvadal and left the Watcher's Keep to face the demon lord (upper right area at Watcher's Keep's exterior), I was VERY disappointed.

This is the cheesiest encounter that I've ever had the misfortune to see. Please spoil me. How do you defeat this crew? Specifically, I am talking about the demon lord and his 2 buddies.

As near as I can tell, the demon lord is immune to high level traps as well as time stop. If you normally do 30 HP damage/strike, you may do 8 - provided that you can strip his protections. A level 30 inquisitor's dispel magic (that'd be level 60 spell power) wasn't keeping things under control - I'm not sure it was working at all! Does everyone always have immunity to abjuration and divination (vs True Seeing)? Both his buddies wield Soul Reavers. I started with a -20 THACO or so and ended up with a +50 THACO or so. Isn't that sweet... I've tried many things and none seemed to work. He seems to have an inexhaustible spell supply. So, I doubt hit and come back later cheese would help. Mord's swords are only distractions. Planetars and elementals are lunch. Of course, dragon's breath is useless. So, what's the solution?

I hope the author tones this encounter down a lot.... If he thinks the weapon you may get some day from this encounter is too powerful - then dump the weapon. As it is, this encounter is STUPIDLY difficult. (Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and that's mine!)

I have been playing DnD from the first version until the latest. I am also a very experienced BG2 player. I generally/usually avoid using spells and tactics that would not be allowed/couldn't succeed while a human judge was running a DnD 3.5 table. That alone makes the game MUCH, MUCH harder. But for the game's replay value, I like new mods. Unfortunately, some tactical mods go far overboard, such as this encounter and Tactics Improved Irenicus (to name 2). Some people like tactical puzzles, but I play for enjoyment when I'm really too tired to solve some tough puzzles. If I have to reload more than 3 times on Core difficulty to beat and encounter, I consider it too much. Tactics Pontifex is one I had to reload more than 3x to succeed with all my team intact; although, I did luck out and kill him in 2 rounds on Insane once. I say this only to indicate that I am an experienced player to hopefully convince the author that this encounter is a little too difficult for the general player population.

I'm sure there's something my tired brain overlooked. So, please tell me how to defeat these guys. If someone can't help me, then this encounter will receive the ultimate rebuff, CTRL-Y the baddies and leave the treasure on the ground except for the component.

[Romulas]

Ah, if you think that was tough wait till you go back to watchers keep and face the real bad guy. I tend to agree with you on some of the difficulty of these "improvements".

As had been said before this mod pretty much makes the mage or sorcerer useless as everyone has a barage of spells that fire at the beginning of the encounter and everyone has high magic resistence. In fact if I remember right lower resistance would not work on the demon lord and his boss, not sure on that one though as it seemed that no spells worked on either of them.

In my current game if my best fighter gets waxed (and often does), then it is nearly an immediate reload as the monster tears through the rest of the weaker party. Note, during the first part of the game there is not enough items to equip a party with more than one, maybe two good effective fighters. Many of the encounters are a fight or nothing encounter, meaning due to sikrets great hatred of hit and retreat tactics (cheese as he calls it) you either fight with every party member (aka you must gather your party before proceeding), or avoid the encounter. I particularly think it is "bad form" to require your entire party to enter a small room and battle a monster that casts area spells and everyone dies, but thats just my opinion.

Now, to answer your original question. I think the great sikret missed one of these tactics at watchers keep. It would seem that you can take your character one at a time (or group) to the top of the keep and the bad guys won't follow. So this is what I did. I kept my strongest fighters (two) down near the rune statue and sent my weaker ones to the top of the keep. I drew the demon lord to near the entrance of the keep and tried to battle him and his buddies there, that way I could bring down some people to fire spells (mainly summoning like mords sword) and retreat. Due to the reduction in THAC0 that you mentioned I concentrated on the death lords first and if it got too bad I ran around the map until the extreme negatives wore off then hit them again. Sometimes if I got lucky the mords sword would keep either the demon lord or the death lords busy long enough for my fighter(s) to draw away and single out a bad guy and kill him.

I forgot one important thing, everyone (did not use AI at this time) fired everything they had at the elemental golem, after all if he starts gateing in the gem and coin golems its pretty much over. So, in progression of death I tried to kill the elemental golem, death lords, and demon lord in this order.

If the reload button was a physical button it would have been worn out for certain on this battle. So far I have found this game much more fustrating than it should be.

Hope this helps.

Romulas