Yet another new guy at IA Options

[(Ø=M)^42]

Hello everyone.
I've finally managed to outsmart my evil email spamfilter, and thus completed my registration here. I'm very interested in IA, but I'm not sure I'm fit for it yet. I've never modded bg more than using tutu, so I don't have any experience of improved encounters. When I fight mages, I throw on some Breach and other similar spells, send fighters on and hope I kill them. From what I've read, IA mages will be just a tidbit harder to kill, using SI:abjuration and massive protections. I'm mostly wondering if there's any point in trying if I'm not sufficiently skilled in tactical bg fighting. Reloading a few times to polish a way to do a battle is of course ok, but really banging my head on a wall would drain the fun quite fast.

Due to that concern, I've also tried to get some ideas to help me out. I'd consider playing on a quite easy difficulty setting, and possibly using multiplayer, to get more powerful characters like kensai, ranger/cleric, swashbuckler, sorcerer and so on. I do view myself as a skilled gamer, but I'm just not fully attuned to bg. Hmm.. getting messy. Well, what I'm asking for is mostly tips for a newbie at IA, stuff like suggested group setup, anything similar to smart moves like having lots of Ruby Rays memorized. Maybe even a suggestion for good starting quests.

Big hugs and love goes out to everyone for helping me get into IA <3

Øystein

Edit: For what it's worth, I used Marvin^42 on SP, since that forum didn't allow for one or more of the characters in this name

This post has been edited by (Ø=M)^42: Jun 21 2007, 05:49 PM

[Arkain]

Well... yeah. In SoA AC is very useful at times. But imho the really hard battles are the ones where you would want AC to help but it doesn't really.
The question is whether it helps that you aren't hit by enemies that are a threat *sometimes* or not.
I get what you mean though (in terms of the kensai being useful) and agree with you. As a high level kensai easily has something like -20 as his THAC0 he can hit quite often even without Critical Strikes and the like. Useful indeed. If you want a pure fighter he might be the best choice. Didn't think about it. In combination with Judgement Day he gets quite formidable as those spells trigger more often than you would think.
On the other hand it's quite hard to run out of Critical Strikes o.O. I found out I can have 19 at most. Well, that's 19 rounds of hitting the bad guy. When you don't face a mob in which every one and his brother uses PfMW after he got hit (I DO remember one such very... special battle... ) you can do quite some damage. Let's say you have 7 attacks with I.H. -> 7*19 = 133 hits o.O. You can have one Smite -> 140. You can have several characters with those abilities... o.O. Quite a lot. I actually never ran out of Critical Strike. Weird... Oh and maybe I didn't notice it but imho there weren't that many enemies I missed like 90% of the time later on. No, I didn't use the Answerer 100% of the time after I got it and yes I did use Critical Strike on the harder enemies

This post has been edited by Arkain: Jun 22 2007, 09:36 PM