My experiences with IA and Auramaster Options

[Shadan]

Well I have played 2 days with IA now. It seems very cool to me, just I feel it is a bit hard yet. My party still weak for most of the IA fights.
Here is my party: gnome fighter/illusionist lvl 9/10, Keldorn lvl 9, Haer'Dalis lvl 11, Anomen lvl 10 clr, Cernd lvl 12, Nalia lvl 11 mage.
My PC is very good now with +3axes and Hill Giant Str. belt.
Keldorn: True Seeing very usefull, but I haven't seen any success with Dispel Magic in IA battles... And he is very weak even with -5 AC in hard battles...
Haer'Dalis: When he is buffed, he is very good tank. He isn't very good damagedealer yet. I found his Offensive Spin + Melf's Minute Meteor bugged, since when he press O. Spin, his attack lowered to 2 with meteors. I haven't tried more time yet btw. Without buffs he is like a chicken in fights. I like him.
Anomen: Very good and strong char with his buffs, melee etc. DUHM overshine even Holy Power and Champion's Strength, and you have alot lvl 2 free slots...
Nalia: I dislike her low thieving skills, when I cannot disram a trap or open a lock. But he will do all what a mage should do in IA.
Cernd: He is very good in this early stage. He was at least 2 lvl higher than rest of the party, and it helped a lot.
His spells:
lvl 1: Doom very good spell. Burning Hands: Not the best, but good to kill trolls.
lvl 2: There are not really good spells here. Invis: good only for scouting. Mirror Image, Barskin: good defensive spells, but Cernd usually sit at back, so he don't need this too many times. Charm: sometimes good to get cannon fodder for a short time.
lvl 3: Flame Arrow shines here. Summon Insects: Not so usefull now with nerfed save. Stregnth of One: I used this often till I found a strength belt. Usually I mem FA all but 1 Dispel Magic.
lvl 4: Call Woodland being: not so good as was berfore. Defensive Harmony: good, but he lefts this for Anomen. Greater Malison and Emotion shine here. I like them. Fire Shild useless on him.
lvl 5: Sadly Chaotic Command demands lower usefullnes of other spells here. Iron Skin, Insect Plague good when don't need CC. Also Prot from Acid will be good in certain fights.
lvl 6: Unleash Enetgy is great. Conjure Animlas would be good but most of the enemies Death Spell all summoned ones immiditaely... Conjure Fire Elem would be good also. I use Heal also. Chain Lightning and Death Spell is unused atm.
All in all, Cernd is very good char yet, especially cause he can cast high lvl spells which aren't blocked by (Minor) Globe of Inv. and with a lot of FLame Arrows he can deal good damage also.

[Shadan]

Minions were not problem imho. Incendiary Cloud and Firestorm killed giant cobras continously, and I was able to handle mutated ones. I had some Zone of Sweet Air also. So only problem was that I was not able to kill that queen. Well, maybe I could try Sunfire also with Vampiric Touch... Nvm, I will come back after Spellhold, since I did all quests, killed all enemies, only the main story left.
Well, Twisted Rune was my last fight yesterday before Spellhold. It was very hard. That double length Time Stop - Alacrity killed my PC almost always. I had SI: Abj., PofMW, Spell Shield, Globe of Inv, Soneskin up, and some illusions which were disapelled by True Sight. And my PC died many times.
My tactic was like this:
full buffed F/I and Haer went in, while other 4 chars stayed in the small room with the lich. F/I and Haer killed the beholder within 5 secs, and killed vampire in 3rd round also with Power Attack, Crit. Strike, Offensive Spin. Then I started to kill the melee fighter guy, while I waited for that double length Time Stop.
Meanwhile Keldorn and Anomen kept the lich in control. Nalia and Cernd casted RRoR on him after each other. When I had a time, I casted 1-1 spell on melee fighter also, 1st I lowered his MR with 3 triggered Lower Res. When my PC survived Time Stop, all of my fighters jumped on the lich, and when SI was dispelled from him, 1 Breach and he was dead. Then I killed fighter guy. After many tries I reached this point and only 3 Coin golems and the mage left. It is easy from here, thought I. But was not... That invis was undispelable even with True Sight or Keldron Dispel. Well, it was dispelable, just he went to inviws again within 1 sec. So I killed 3 golems then, while he wasted some Comet and Dragon Br. on Nalia... And then he started to shoot Melf's AA, so I thought its ok, I will kill him somehow now, he don't have anything serious left. Luckily when I went near to him, he came out from invis, and I was able to kill him. In his last sec Chain Contingency 3 Chain Lightning killed Nalia. I don't understan how, since I casted Prot from Lightning on all my chars, I am sure Nalia was not dispelled, and other perty members was not damaged by Chain L. Surely I missed sthing. It was my first character death in IA, but was too late and I was too tired to repeat this fight, was too much effort and too many tries to do it. So I decided to res Nalia, and leave that chamber. I used up 1 potion, 1 scroll, and now 1 ressurection only in my IA run till now.

This post has been edited by shadan: Aug 28 2007, 09:50 AM