IA 5.0 experiences by saros, [Topic split by Baronius] Options

[saros]

Editor's foreword (by Sikret):

Since we have thoroughly tested most of the things saros reports in this thread and have found most of them totally false and misleading, we would like to emphasize that the content of this thread is not reliable and can even be misleading for new players. It's worth noting however that none of the things he has written (not even one single word) has been deleted. We could of course delete the entire topic, because we are not supposed to publish false and forged reports about Improved Anvil, but we decided to keep it as an evidence to show how the game should NOT be played for future reference.

saros is playing the game in an illegitimate way with lots of cheats. Many of the things he reports are totally false and can be misleading for other players. So, those who want to read reliable information about IA, should not waste their time reading this thread, because it can affect their mentality about the mod in an invalid and misleading way. As he has admitted in one of his own posts, he is just playing the mod in order to prove that he can win it with a solo character even if it means using cheap methods and cheats.

Even worse than his cheats are his lies. He has reported several nonexistent bugs; for example, each time he fails to win a battle, he retorts by saying that the battle was bugged and such things. Improved Anvil's testing team has thoroughly examined all of his alleged bug reports and has found all of them to be false and fake. Some of them can be interpreted as mistakes of an unskilled player who doesn't observe the events carefully, but some others are so obvious that they can only be interpreted as deliberate and intentional lies.

The best way to tell a lie and make it believable is to tell a big lie and then say "everyone is welcome to test it for himself". This is exactly what saros does. Of course, everyone is indeed welcome to test what he reports and see that he is lying (as we did), but saros is counting on psychological effect of his words and knows that most players won't actually test what he says. I don't really understand what motivates him and what is his purpose of writing so many lies. As I said, most of the lies he writes can't really be interpreted as simple mistakes; they are so obvious that can only be intentional. To see a concrete example of his lies click here. Examples of his lies and false reports are really numerous, but I don't have any extra time to waste on composing a complete list of them.

Of course, at first, we decided to help saros play the mod in a legitimate way in a friendly tone, but he kept refusing to listen.

Cheaters never prosper. True winners never cheat. Liars are even worse than cheaters.

As a newer and recent discovery, saros had actually more than one nickname(s) here at BWL and had cross-posted some of his lies with another nickname as well. When someone is not honest, he is not honest in many ways.

==============================================


Hi again.

I'd also like to share my experience so far with the fifth version of the IA mod and I will describe some methods which may prove helpful to all. This is my intention. Some of the methods are pure cheese by certain player's standard, but none of them is cheating. And I have an absolutely official installation of the required only components in the right order, with the exception of an added Happy tweak from the EoU mod. According to Sikret, it's no big deal.

My personal opinion is that everyone is welcome to play the mod as he/she wants. With this I mean with or without cheesy methods. I personally do not like cheating.

The experience I've collected so far concerns primarily the first hard steps in Athkatla, and some methods to create a higher level party.

In Chateau Irenicus, it is good for the PC to play solo through the dungeon. It would be immensely helpful if the PC is some sort of wizard or thief, because these classes offer an additional xp boost (from traps, locks and scrolls).
If the PC is not a thief, then he/she may consider joining Yoshimo, but only for the traps and locks in the dungeon, meaning that Yoshi should be avoided until everything else is cleared. Avoiding him is easily done via Invisibility, Hide In Shadows or Sanctuary.
After the PC has cleared the way to the exit, he then may start to collect NPCs: first Minsc, then(after temporarily disbanding Minsc) Jaheira, and finally Yoshimo. This way, the joining NPCs will be with a starting xp of 161 000. If an NPC is joined right away after the start of the game, his or her xp will be only 90 000.
This way, not only your PC will get more overall xp in chapter 1, but also the joined NPCs will have 71 000 free xp points gained.

SPOILER!

If you want to gain some extra xp, leave one Mephit portal active and kill spawning mephits. Sure, they offer only 420 xp points, but their spawning is endless if the portal is alive.
If your PC is a Cleric/Wizard of some kind, then combining Animate Dead and Invisibility cast on the Ice Mephit Portal will provide you with some free time to read a book or watch a movie while your PC gains xp. Skeletons are immune to cold damage, they stay 8 hours, and if they do not see the Invisible mephit portal, then they don't attack it, but instead attack only spawning Ice Mephits

After going out, and collecting the quest xp reward for chapter 1, it would be wise to kick everyone out of the party and temporarily play solo. The logic in this is, that most of the new NPCs will join a high level character also at higher levels(up to 1.2 million xp for a joining NPC).

I suggest completing the Circus tent for the xp and spell scrolls, and afterwards, sleeping over in order to wait for the first two night encounters. As we all know, these contain gems, gold and several spell scrolls, namely Find Familiar, Spell Thrust, Stoneskin, Minor Spell Turning, Disintegrate and Contingency. All of these are useful, most are qute rare and hard to come by.

The most dangerous part of the solo starting strategy are the first two random city encounters, and especially the first one, Suna Seni. I've had experience with her party with a low level solo F/M/T and F/M/C. It's easy for a F/M/C to win this battle with the proper domination/disabling spells. It's harder for a F/M/T since the two actually active classes in the battle are the fighter and mage, the thief does absolutely nothing. Here is my experience:

SPOILER!

Suna Seni and her goons have various immunities and protection spells running. The most effective strategy so far was casting a Greater Malinson, followed by a couple of Web spells. The big problem here is the lack of spell slots at lower levels. My F/M/T entered this fight equipped with two +3 long swords, Stoneskined, Improved Invisible, with two Rings of Protection equipped, with Spirit Armor, Shield, Blur, Pro Evil, Mirror Image, with Frost Giant strength potion consumed, with Draw Upon Holy Might and also Hasted. This can be done the following way:

Creating two +3 swords, memorizing Stoneskin, rest.
Casting Stoneskin, memorizing Spirit Armor and Greater Malinson, rest.
Casting Spirit Armor, consuming an Oil of Speed, a Potion of Frost Giant Strength(from Ribald), casting the rest of the buffs in proper order. An Improved Invisibility should be activated from a scroll on top of all of this.

When the battle started, my PC disrupted the cleric's True Sight spell by engaging him in melee. Afterwards, I began to circle around in order to avoid the melee fighters. My AC was -14 anyway due to buffs. Afterwards I activated Web. Web has a chance to catch everyone, including Suna Seni, but the cleric and the mage are immune to its effects. No matter. The cleric falls in a couple of rounds. The mage cannot survive long in melee, even with his Mirror Image and Stoneskin. But I found it more convenient to carry two additional scrolls of Web and one of Improved Invisibility, just in case anything goes wrong. And furthermore, it is good to focus on Suna Seni while she's webbed, since she dies in a couple of rounds, and afterwards to concentrate on the enemy wizard.

The PC can save without failure vs the web effects while his Improved Invisibility is still active.

When the cleric, mage and Suna Seni are dead, the rest of the fight is relatively easy.

My third level slots were filled with Fireball spells, which work great on malinsoned webbed enemies: they're like sitting ducks.

The second random city encounter is much easier thanx to the Breach spell obtained from the corpse of the first encounter's enemy wizard, and fewer enemy fighters.

There are a few unmodded quests in Athkatla. No need to rush to Trademeet.

The relatively free xp which may be collected(apart from spell scrolls for an arcane caster):

Copper Coronet: fight with Amalas
Outside Copper Coronet: fight with Corvale
Find out what happened to Montaron: catching the bird without completing the quest(yet). Xzar may be looted for his scrolls and gems. Spectral Harpists may be killed for extra xp.
The Graveyard quests plus all of the monsters in the crypts, except for the Spider Lair.
The kidnappers who buried Tirdir(bridge)
Mae'var's quest, without getting the quest xp reward from Renal.
The illithium ore quest.
(revised)
The skinner murders.

Note: It is not necessary to collect the Reputation rewards from such quests. Remember that by donating gold to a temple you can raise your reputation up to 16, and afterwards collect reputation reward from both this and the Circus Tent quest.

SPOILER!

There are other ways to gain a lot of xp and gold, and spell scrolls, and green protection scrolls, and potions, ammo or even some enchanted items:

Looting amnish guards who interrupt the party's rest on the streets of Athkatla: a decent hasted thief can do it. These guards carry sometimes valuable spell scrolls.

Dropping your reputation to 3 or lower(despised) and starting to kill Amnish patrols which appear. Those come with a standard equipment and some random item slots. The standard equipment includes five full plate mails per patrol, which are worth from six to nine thousand gp when sold on the market.
The random item slots may contain one of the following:

1. A random magical item. Those are occasionally of +1 enchantment, but there are exceptions, like Short Bow +2 or even a Spear +3.
2. A potion. The potions may be: of Healing, Oil of Resurgence, Potion of Vitality, Potion of Strength, Potion of Invisibility, Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Agility, Elixir of Health.
3. A random jewel or a small sum of gold. The most valuable gem that may be obtained this way is the Black Opal, while the most valuable necklace is the laeral's tear.
4. A spell scroll. Here is the (almost) full list:

Magic Missile
Shield
Burning Hands
Protection from Evil
Shocking Grasp
Color Spray
Minor Spell Turning
Monster Summoning III
(these low level scrolls can be dropped far more seldom than the higher level scrolls)

Summon Nishruu
Carrion Summons
Prot from Magic Energy
Globe of Invulnerability
True Sight(very seldom)
Mislead(very seldom)
Death Spell
Tenser's Transformation
Spell Sequencer
Spell Turning
Sphere of Chaos
Summon Harkeashar/Djinni/Efreeti
Mordenkainen's sword
Protection from Elements
Ruby Ray of Reversal
Khelben's Warding Whip
Control Undead
Cacofiend
Spell Trigger
Protection from Energy
Pierce Shield
ADHW
Incendiary Cloud
Tenser's partial
Summon Fiend
Spell Trap

Green scrolls:
Cursed scroll of Petrification
Prot from Cold
Prot from Fire
Prot from Poison
Prot from Level Drain

Killing Amnish guards may continue as much as one wants. This way may be collected free xp, gold and scrolls.

There is a price, however. After the first few won battles with such patrols, a bug appears, and arcane spellcasting on the streets does not trigger the appearance of Cowled wizard patrols. I've tested it. So no fight is possible with the Cowled wizards after this exploit is deployed. And since they carry some valuable scrolls like Improved haste, this is a waste somehow.

[saros]

Well, I am unfamiliar with the Multiple Strongholds Ease of Use tweak, but that only is what I'm currently using.

Back to the main topic, PC was able to find the Viper Queen inside the Windspear Hills dungeon (no, I'm not going to reveal her location). What PC also found out, was the Viper Queen total immunity to Fire, Cold and Magical damage. PC didn't have a nice weapon dealing a lot of Electrical damage to try that, nor risked to try Acidic damage(the Queen was immune to poison naturally). The Queen was also highly magic resistant, immune to Lower Resistance spell effects, immune to backstab, immune to missile fire, highly resistant to slashing and piercing damage, and somewhat resistant to crushing damage. Also, the Queen regenerated at an average speed.

PC was unable to lay time traps, because of the random spawning Cobras in the whole dungeon. Besides, Time Traps do little good when the PC was surrounded by several lines of snakes and thus unable to move.

Fortunately, random spawning Giant Cobras and Mutated Cobras didn't have the ability to detect invisible units. Under the cover of Invisibility spell, PC quickly rushed to the place where the Queen hides, and buffed(again, under invisibility) with long lasting buffs. PC also cast Blur, Mirror Image and Spell Immunity Evocation on top of that, plus a potion of Frost Giant Str imbibed, then summoned the Viper Queen, and while the queen teleported in the zone of action, PC cast Improved Alacrity.
Then PC activated:
ProMW
FireShields(red and blue): they didn't help much BTW.
ProEvil
ImprHaste
DUHM
Critical Strike
GWW
and armed with the Staff of Rynn, started pounding the Queen, dealing roughly 5 points of damage per strike.
Before IA ended, PC was able to refresh his GWW, Critical Strike and ProMW, and.
SI: E was essential for this tactic to work, because Queen starts with Cloudkill, and after it ends, continues with Death fog. These spells may easily break PC's concentration when casting Improved Alacrity.

This tactic was applied 3 more times(4 total Improved Alacrities, 10 Critical Strikes and 10 GWW attacks, and 5 total proMW spells wasted in the fight). BTW, Improved Alacrity gives time for 3 GWW and 3 Criticals, if the last GWW + critical are activated before the second ones had ended: goes something like: IA, Critical, GWW, 10 attacks, Critical, GWW, 8 attacks, Critical, GWW, proMW, IA ends, 10 attacks, recast IA, all over anew.
Once in the whole combo, a Mirror Image was also recast(the giant cobra attacks are considered to be normal weapons apparently, and also DUHM+ Impr haste had been refreshed.
The last 20 strikes were dealt by a Staff of Striking(recharged with sell/rebuy previously in order to have 25 charges). With it, the average damage per strike was 6.
PC had 2 more staves of striking in his inventory, so maybe the whole battle could've been won faster with using only them.

When the queen finally fell, her minions were easily slain.

The newest adventures of Saros.

Saros gained 31 wizard level, which surprised him with a bonus spell slot for each spell level! From 1 to 9.
Saros cleared the Planar Prison.
The only modded fight here was the fight with the Warden. With an Improved alacrity, and afterwards ProMW, Mirror Image, ImprHaste, Ruby Ray on Warden, repeat, repeat, remove magic, repeat, critical activated, melee, Saros slayed the Warden in a single round.
Before this particular fight, Saros focused on clearing all of the Planar prison's pits, which triggered the Warden's conversation, and thus several planar hounds appeared in the pits. They were slain.

Note: BTW, a single Planar Prison pit may be used in order to avoid the Warden's spells(or magic lasso) in any game. In order to do so, one must not destroy the Command Orb, else will close the pits. The planar hounds will still follow the party.
The Warden's original thralls had been only slightly modded(mages have better starting contingencies, that's all), so they're no big problem. Which is good, because the Warden and the Planar hounds are scary enough for a relatively low-level party.

After killing the Warden, his thralls, all of the living still Planar Hounds, and all of the monsters in the pits(slightly modded in comparison with the vanilla game), Saros destroyed the orb, looted everything and was rewarded with a Playhouse deed.

Afterwards, Saros forged the Amulet of Hades and tried to wear it. Unfortunately, the item stays only for a second and then immediately moves into the inventory. BTW, the original amulet of Charon also does that, so I've seen. So I reloaded in order not to waste my last Manual of Elaboration. It looks like PC will have to do with the regular amulet of power S

Saros was able to complete the last still unresolved side quests in Athkatla and its areas: the Temple District Sewer quests.

First, Saros stormed the Mind Flayer area. The first fight was fierce, but nothing new added in particular. The mage fell quickly to a Improved Alacrity-Ruby Ray-Breach-Critical strike combo, the cleric fell soon afterwards, and the rest of the enemies fell quickly without magic support. The mind flayer was laughable.

Still, the Ulitharids in the next room were well modified. They had a number of illusion spells which they used at maximum efficiency. Nothing scary, though.

The treasure room was heavily guarded. Thanx to the new treasure found in the first battle(a Wish scroll), Saros wished extensively. BTW, he had 7 Time Traps layed before the battle. 2 times he received IA + double TS and 2 times the rest option from the wishes. The Elemental golem summoned some Gem golems and fell with Critical+GWW combo under almost permanent IA and Time Stop. Then Alohoon and the Ulitharids fell under Time Stop and time traps. The Mind flayers were easy, as were the Umber Hulks. Finally, the two Gem golems were slain with FoA.

The treasures in the illithid lair were numerous and valuable.
The most notable from my point of view was the Master of Discipline, since PC could wear it.

The Unseeing eye quest was modded, but fortunately, the Beholders themselves were not. This was a good thing, since PC didn't have Spell Shield or Shield of Balduran.

PC layed some time traps before grabbing Ashideena and killed the spider group under Time trapping.

The battle in the ghoul lair was improved, but the Ghoul chief was no match for my buffed PC.

More dangerous in fact was the random monster spawn inside. Since it was identical to the spawns in the Temple Ruins(2 lords, 2 grandlords, a shade lich), the tactic was the same.
After completing the quest, PC decided to forge some artifacts with the help of Cromwell(too many artifact pieces, 3 Manuals of Elaboration, 2 Scrolls of Mem boosting and 3 Permanency scrolls total)

After subsequent reloading and forging artifacts, here's what were the results:

The grandmaster of flowers cannot be used with UAI(reloaded after forging and trying)
The upgraded Corthala family armor cannot be used with UAI(reloaded)
The Circlet of Golden flowers can be worn by PC with UAI(reloaded). BTW, its mass cure apparently can be used by PC(seems I made a mistake in a previous post about that.
The Talisman of greater protection is nice, but after the process of its forging, 2 of the pieces were still in PC's inventory(an amulet +1 and the amulet of 5% MR - on the bottom of 2 gem bags to be precise). Anyway, PC still likes AoP better for now.
The girdle of Lordly Might is superb for my PC. So I switched the Belt of Inertial barrier with it for now. With this girdle, and DUHM, PC can have 25 str without previous potion drinking.

PC has decided to try to clear the 1st and 2nd floor of WK dungeon, in order to assemble FoA +4.

P.S. The so-called 'cheesy' tactics had given the PC a lot of Potions of Magic shielding(19 or 20 total), and a lot of valuable scrolls. If PC hadn't applied such tactics, many of the ProMW scrolls, Absolute Immunity, Spellstrike, breach scrolls, etc. etc. would be used by enemy warriors/mages in the fight. Quickly slaying mages who rely on scrolls to live had provided PC with about 40 scrolls of ProMW, 15 scrolls of Absolute Immunity and 20-25 scrolls of spellstrike. Plus, some rare scrolls(like the just looted Wish scroll) may be used by enemy in the thick of combat, and thus lost.

Unfortunately, the recent victories of Saros are neither original nor very sound. At least the clearing of the 1st and 2nd level of WK went with 2 reloads only.

Saros has hit the 40th fighter level a little before he entered WK. 40th thief level has also been reached. Current wizard level after clearing lvl 1 and 2 of WK: 33.

Major focus in HLAs has been on Critical strikes and GWW attacks.

The 1st WK level was not very hard. Fanatic spirits have been killed in melee with Critical strikes. There were no additional statues spawning except for the original in the vanilla game. The monster groups(random encounters) were also like in the vanilla game. With one exception: the Spider Queen.

PC had his spider figurine equipped on a quick-slot. When he went in the southeastern rooms(the one with the spellhaunt) the Spider Queen appeared.
PC was surprised, and without spells. I reloaded.
Second time, PC set a line of Time Traps in the next as well as in the same room. PC had buffed himself with only longer-lasting buffs in the next room(not the one with the Spellhaunt) when the Queen surprised PC again.
PC started casting IA when he saw the dimension door of the Queen.
PC completed IA. A time trap triggered.
PC casted proMW since he noticed that the queen is immune to Time Stop effects.
PC cast Wish. 5 times.
PC received both a Rest option and Double-length TS&IA from his Wishes.
PC cast shorter lasting buffs. They almost all had a casting cost 1. Except for DUHM.
During the TS, PC slew the Spider queen with the usual Staff of the Ram + GWW + Critical strike+ proMW to protect himself from Queen attacks.
The queen fell almost at the same time as the time stop ended.
PC cast ProMW. The next round, PC cast IA, a Wish(Horrid Wilting on everyone), Skull trap *3, and Horrid Wilting *2, and killed the surviving spiders in melee.

After clearing the 1st floor of the dungeon, PC assembled the Golden spider figurine with the help of Cromwell.

On the 2nd floor, there was a battle with a Steam Elemental prince. He uses Lower Fire resistance, but not very often. Now is a good time to say that if your Fire resistance has been lowered and you are under certain protective spell(say, ProFire), cast a different protective spell(Fireshield red, proElements, ProEnergy, or simply use a protective potion/scroll or item granting permanent fire res to negate the lowering effect.
Keeping your fire res to 100% or higher is essential if you wanna hurt him in melee, and I'm not 100% positive, but melee may be the only way to harm him.
He had a lot of HP, but seems like no resistance to crushing damage, so the Staff of Rynn with a couple of GWW attacks killed him.

In the opposite room, there was an Elemental Golem. Plus the additional quo-toans, who tend to dispel the so-needed anti-golem illusion spells with their innate true sight. A bad combination, but still, both type of creatures cannot pass through maximum elemental resistances and proMW or similar spell. The ellemental golem fell during a double-length TS+IA, and the gated Coin and gem golems were afterwards slain. Maybe I should learn to use that new spell, hand of undoing or Ray of fragmentation, with IA several may be released simultaneously, dealing a lot more damage than my puny melee strikes.

There were no more modifications(at least I saw none) except for some interesting items and scrolls, and the final battle with the Chromatic Demon.

I was prepared wrongly for this fight, since I expected the vanilla demon. Unfortunately, this one transforms cleverly accordingly of damage situation and spells released on him. I noticed that he's not immune to melee damage(although he's highly resistant and also regenerates somewhat). Also, I noticed that he's highly magic resistant, and I think that he's immune to lower resistance effects(I tried some Pierce Shields on him, with apparently no effect).
Plus, he gates in several types of monsters to assist him. A new mist of some sort, which is vulnerable to elemental damage, but immune to melee strikes. Some Salamander princes which come with permanent Fireshields around them, and Amber golems too.
Also, the golem has some spells. I didn't see breach, but he had a remove magic(at least in his Air elemental form), and also had the ability to lower elemental resistances(fire and acid in particular), and afterwards he releases a death fog or incendiary clouds.

So PC reloaded. The preparations for the 2nd fight were:
More ProMW. The demon is not immune to Time Stop btw.
7 pre-laid Time traps
PC casts IA and summons chromatic demon. A time trap triggers.
During IA pc casts:
a ProElements and ProMagicEnergy in addition to normal elemental buffing with long-lasting spells, plus of course fireshields.
All other shorter lasting buffs plus DUHM. ProMW too
3 Wishes

PC wished for Double length TS+ IA.
afterwards PC cast 6 Sunfire spells(Demon was in Ice Golem Form)
Demon switched to Fire beast form while still Timestopped.

To make a long story short, PC wished extensively and used 3 of his 7 time traps to kill the demon with...Guildmaster's dream main ,scarlet off, and critical strikes...
PC had the luck of yet another double length TS + IA.
The demon managed to release several spells in the intervals between the Wishes and trap triggering. An incendiary cloud and a Lower fire resistance.
The demon's minions were nothing in particular. Not to mention the fact that he summoned another Mist, which, as the first one, fell from the Sunfire spells and Horrid Wiltings released by Wishes.

With this battle won, PC was afraid to rest inside, because due to high levels he may've been disturbed by high-level enemies while resting. But PC made a mistake: went downstairs and tried to exit the dungeon the normal way(following yakman). Unfortunately, here he met with a Supreme Elemental Golem. Ugh...

Having met a greater elemental golem, and barely surviving to tell the tale, PC was more than frightened. Fortunately, the beast only wanted for Saros to prove himself. To face a beast...well, anything's better than a Supreme Elemental Golem...

Unfortunately, PC was still exausted from the previous battles. Having too few HLAs and spell protections available/running, PC saw the lair he was teleported in and knew...there will be dragons.
So PC paused and rested.
PC cast IA and started buffing immediately. Besides, PC set 5 Time Traps(with IA, they can be set without delay). PC cast SI: A and was trying to cast his protections from Acid, Lightning and magical damage, when the wurm approached. PC saw it and cast only the instantaneous buffs like Imprhaste, blur, proevil, mirror image, proMW, and in this moment, the dialog triggered...well, the wyrm wanted a fight.
PC cast Ruby Ray, and Breach, before starting wishing.

No time trap triggered. Until almost the end of the fight. With IA still running, PC Wished several times. One of the wishes was Double length TS+IA. PC cast his remaining wishes (3) and, casting all other protective buffs, like Spell turning, Spell Defl, GoI, proAcid, proLightning, ProME, DUHM, critical, and attacked the beast. Somehow, under Time Stop, the beast fired a Spell Trigger loaded with more than 3 spells(no cheating monsters, right), and one of the spells was Spell turning(again, no cheating, right), and another was, of course, ProMW. So PC released another breach,6 Sunfire spells, 2 Pierce shield spells and his IA ended.
Almost at the time of the end of TS, the wyrm's proMW faded. So the breach removed only a stoneskin.
from the rest of the Wishes, PC got a rest option. The beast released his storm of vengeance on PC and started ruby raying. Suffice to say, I forgot to don the Ring of Gaxx and the effect of his breath was catastrophic...almost 200 damage on Insane...Still PC survived(DUHM running, 260 HP). Afterwards, PC wished and got another double-length TS + IA. Again, some sort of contingency fired with ProMW, so the only rounds the PC could harm the beast were the last 2 rounds of the TS. The Wyrm was at near-death, when TS ended. Here finally began time trap triggering, and the beast fell.

On its body, and on the body of the Chromatic demon were several valuable artifacts. With them, PC forged the FoA +4, and also tried to forge the Truth sword, and also the boots of the ranger lord, only to find out that they are unusable with UAI(cannot even keep the sword in place to use its True Sight ability).

So far, PC is satisfied from his artifacts and is storming SpellHold, Sahuagin City and Underdark. With a nice 1-handed +4 crushing weapon, 1-handed +4 piercing weapon, many many spells and a good +3 slashing weapon(Celestial fury), with ** in katanas, flails and daggers, I think that PC will not meet any real challenge in chapter 4 and 5.

P.S. I have saved games at most vital points(before a crucial fight). So, if anyone wants an exact information about a certain fight, I would gladly replay it, and then write it down, round by round. The fact that I don't do so is because these fights seem to be doable(even in a no-reload game) yet. I will concentrate on the description of the really challenging fights(If I'm actually to win them at all).

PC had won the twisted rune fight, but since the battles were 3:2 for the rune(after 4 reloads and replays), and PC won only if the Wishes were right(Double TS + IA), this battle will be re-done in chapter 6. I guess that when PC has Time Stop, Spell Shield and Chain Contingency, the battle will be much easier.

BTW, PC has an excellent slashing weapon, since he had found a scroll of Black Blade of Disaster(in WK 2nd floor to be exact).

PC is now headed for Spellhold.

Before heading off for Spellhold, PC forged the Phosphorous and the Circlet of Golden Flowers(for the Cha and Wis bonuses and also, the Mass cure might come in handy)

PC has heard rumors about the Spellhold asylum: mainly, that it is very hard to comlete at higher levels of experience. Something like 'a hell', as far as I remember Sikret's description.

To me, it was more like a walk in the park.
In Brynnlaw my PC obtained a certain named magical weapon.
The Spellhold asylum began normally, with little improvements. The main improvements were on Dace's level, where(due to high level of exp) PC had to fight the normal undead spawn(Shade Lich, 2 Skeleton Lords and 2 Grandlords). In addition to this, 3 more skeleton lords appeared from somewhere(later, I understood that these are Asylum guards which spawn at some interval, and the group may be either 3 Skeleton lords, or 3 Wraith spiders, or 2 Asylum golems, besides, these groups don't give items or xp when slain).

The Cat'o'nine lives was nothing special nor very tough.
Dace and his master were also easily slain.
The problem was the Kobold battle since PC didn't expect it to be that modified. He started pounding everyone in melee, but when he received some Lightning damage from Guardian Spirits, he understood that his Lightning resistance had been lowered to 25 percent. Then PC ran away, and thanx to a prelaid tTime Trap, was able to activate IA, several Wishes, and Protection from Energy, bringing back his Elec res to 100 percent. One of the wishes gave double TS&IA option, which was absolutely sufficient for PC to slay enemy Guardian Spirits and spellcasters. The Amber Golems were subsequently killed with Black Blade of Disaster and critical strikes, with Phosphorous off for 25 Str(and girdle of Lordly might).
All of the monsters of the book were slain without either usual or Wish resting. 2 groups of random guards appeared during these fights. Some Time Traps were used too(for the Beholder especially).

On the next level, the Mitrhil golem proved to be a tough enemy. PC was rendered unconscious and asleep during that fight. Fortunately, he managed to awake without injuries, and activating a couple of ProMW plus criticals, was able to kill the golem without a scratch. During this fight, 3 Skeleton lords appeared, they were slain.
Unfortunately, PC was able to collect only 34 mithril tokens, which were insufficient to get all of the desired items(Jester's chain, Boots of the North, Boots of Grounding). So PC decided to pick the Chain and Boots of Grounding, with a save game in case he's not able to use the Eternal Melody(and he will most probably be unable to, but I wanna try).
The fight with Jon was easy, but only due to PCs high wizard level(34), which allowed his Remove magic to be extremely effective, since Jon runs SI: D.

Afterwards, PC cleared the Sahuagin city.
By the way, all of the treasures may be looted. My PC looted the King, and found a key and some valuable scrolls. The treasury was opened with the key, thus PC received a Rod of Lordly Might and a Scroll of Prot from Elements. When PC killed the Prince and his snakes, and the King rewarded him, PC got another Rod of LM plus Gauntlets of Crushing plus the loot from the Imp quest and from the body of the Prince.

Now PC enters Underdark...

Yipe! New areas, modified enemies, ok, I'm starting one by one:

Armament of PC in all of the described battles: Phosphorous main, Scarlet off, FoA optional.
Girdle of Lordly Might(25 str), boots of speed, ring of prot +4, cloak of prot +3, ring of Wizardry, circlet of Golden Flowers, Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill(replaced by Gauntlets of WE in the Orcus fight). In short, PC had maximum str with 9 APR under ImprHaste and six with Haste only, reduced casting speed by 4, and MR of 15.

First drow ambush: suprised me, had to reload once because I got my protections dispelled by a spider. The second time, both my physical and magical protections were up. An IA, followed by 4 ruby rays(casting time 1, 2 for each of the drow mages), followed by 2 remove magics(casting time 0) followed by 4 horrid wiltings, and afterwards wishing(really didn't matter in that case), Skull traps and melee, solved this fight quickly. Enemy Devas were almost all of the time Webbed.

Second drow ambush: having all buffs dispelled in a narrow place, surrounded by enemies is indeed bad. Yet(after reloading, they surprised me the 1st time), PC simply waited the(only) mage to start casting his Chaos spell and released a Spell Trigger: ProMW, Globe, Deflection.
Afterwards, PC resisted the Chaos spell(saving thr vs spells -4), and activated his SI:A. The next round, he cast IA and the battle was over in 2 or 3 more rounds.

From all of the other battles, PC haven't yet completed the Illithid city, and the Kuotoan prince.

The Elder orb was tough: modified with great physical resistances. PC, however, entered the Beholder lair under a Double length TS&IA wish, and thus slayed the beast without much problems(the other beholder was killed in mere seconds in melee).

The other Elder orbs inside were not modified. PC hid in a safe place and wished. Several wishes were for Horrid Wiltings, which killed everyone except the Orbs. PC killed those via another TS&IA wish.

The one thing PC did not find, was a scroll of Spell shield. Now, in the original game, the Duergar merchants do sell one, but these didn't have any, instead had 2 different types of scrolls of Spell Sequencer. Is there something wrong with my game or do I have to wait until later?

Then PC entered the Deep Maze.

It took quite some time for PC to find the way through the maze. Finally, he met with Dracolich:

This fight was not very hard. PC had his buffs removed, but activated IA immediately. He had almost fully buffed himself(and had 3 wishes already activated, one of which was for Rest) when Dracolich arrived. PC had laid some Time Traps under IA, but those proved to be ineffective since Dracolich was immune to TS effects.

Fortunately, Dracolich was of lower than my PC level, which allowed my remove magics to be always successful. With six remove magics, a sequencer of remove magic, and melee attacks, PC was able to slay Dracolich. PC used his refreshed IA(casting time five) when Dracolich had removed his SI:A, in order to buff himself with SI:A(casting time 1, almost immediately Breach was absorbed in it), Spell Turning(casting time 3), Globe of Invulnerability(casting time 2) and Spell Deflection(casting time 2), plus another spell turning because Dracolich managed to release another Ruby ray.

Dracolich released many Death fog spells on PC, in hopes to break his spellcasting concentration. Due to the reduced casting time of PC(by 4) this tactic of Dracolich was unsuccessful.

The other 'tough' fight was that with the Demon Knights:

This battle was a laugh. PC buffed with Fireshields, and prot from Elements and Energy(anti lowering Fire resistance tactic), and set 7 time traps. 4 of the Demon knights had SI: D running however, so time traps or no time traps: they survived unscratched. The fifth one was running SI: A. Bad luck. He was immediately slain in melee.
PC also released 3 Remove Magics under Time Traps.
Time traps ended. Remove magics were successful. Demon Knights started falling. One released a CC with 3 Incendiary clouds, and they tried to lower PCs fire res. Well they did, but not below 127. Some of the Demon Knights started Ruby Raying PC, but with the help of IA and Spell Trigger, PC kept all of his buffs active and killed the puny demons in melee.

The toughest, so far, fight, was with the prince of the Undead, Orcus.

This is the tactic I used, and it relies on luck somewhat:
PC enters, Orcus appears, PC casts ProMW. Orcus summons 8 Grandlords.
PC focuses on Orcus with 2 Criticals. Orcus shoots Ruby Rays and fights, and also summons more undead(Lords, master vampires, vampire brides)
PC refreshes proMW
Orcus(with the help of Dominations from vampires) lowers PC's spell protections
PC refreshes SI: A and melee on Orcus
Orcus ruby rays
PC refreses SI: A and melee on Orcus
Orcus ruby rays
Undead keep coming
PC refreshes ProMW and melee
Orcus in the meantime had wasted 2 Stoneskins. Here he casts another Stoneskin
PC refreshes SI: A and melee
Orcus ruby rays
PC refreshes SI: A and melee
Orcus activates ProMW
PC refreshes ProMW and melee a skeleton Grandlord.
Orcus fights and summons undead(didn't have more rays, but this info may be misleading: it was a hell inside and I'm unaware of the exact number of Rays that he has)
PC activates Critical and melee the grandlord
Orcus melee
PC Critical and melee grandlord
Orcus melee
PC refresh ProMW and melee grandlord
Orcus melee
In short: the tactic was this afterwards: PC had 8 total ProMW remembered before the fight started. He refreshed ProMW until the last one. PC hit Orcus when his ProMW was down, because neither Remove Magic nor Breach worked on Orcus. In the other time, while Orcus was Protected from MW, PC hit the nearest undead he could, the preferable target choice was: Skeleton Grandlord, Skeleton Lord, Vampire Bride(master vampires take too much time to kill).
When PC had only 1 ProMW left, he cast IA.
With IA, PC activated 3 Wiltings, refreshed his short lasting buffs, cast his last ProMW, activated one of the last Critical and GWW, Hardiness, Avoid Death, Evasion, Greater evasion too, and hoped for rest.
Needless to say, I reloaded here a lot. Anyway, rest from six wishes is something like fifty/fifty chance.
Rest was granted, as was a Horrid Wilting on everyone.
With Rest, PC had 9 ProMW spells(replaced one before resting), which were enough to kill Orcus and have 3 more ProMW spells available. Then PC repeated Wishing, but no rest this time. 2 of the wishes were for Horrid wiltings, which with the 3 recast Wiltings killed many Vampire Brides. Unfortunately, TS&IA activated while Brides were in Gaseous form, still surrounding PC and preventing him to reach the Skeleton Lords and Grandlords which were still alive(2 grandlords and many Lords). PC activated 3 Teleport fields to make some room around him. A second TS&IA was activated, this one helped PC to slay a Lord and a Grandlord(no more were near, PC was still surrounded by Gaseous forms. In the end PC had only 3 ProMW and too mny enemies were around, so PC hid in one of the rooms, switched the Ring of Wizardry for another protective ring +4, and the Circlet of Golden flowers was replaced by Helm of Balduran, also PC had many illusion spells which now came in handy(2 Blurs and six mirror Images, plus a minor sequencer with Blur and mirror Image). PC slew many Brides, 2 or 3 master vampires, the last grandlord and 2 skeleton lords(the lords and grandlord were slain under the last proMW). Brides couldn't punch through PC's Armor Class, only Master Vampires, Skeleton Lords, and the(already dead) Grandlords could do it. so the remaining Lords and Master vampires were killed with GWW attacks(no more Impr Haste), while PC continually refreshed Stoneskins, Mirror Images and once, Blur.

There were many undead, and it was a glorious battle.

Of course, this tactic solely relies on luck with Wishing. To remove the Luck factor, PC replayed the battle with 20 scrolls of ProMW in his inventory. This was sufficient for an honest victory.

PC assembled a lot of artifacts. As expected, most of them couldn't be used by PC. Some, however, could:

Poseidon's Wrath
Hesperus
Crom Faeyr(haven't fount Uzuno's blade yet for the upgrade)
Cutthroat +5
The new Ioun Stone
The Eternal Melody

While the Eternal Melody may be used ONLY by bards( thieves with UAI cannot use it), there is still some small benefit in assembling it. With reduced casting speed, and quickly reequipping the item, and autopause on 'spell cast', many spells can be cast before the game engine actually checks to remove the item from PC. Of course, this tactic is possible with regular thieves with UAI too, but in this case, the armor will only help them to quickly lay series of traps or activating simultaneously many thief HLAs.
The automatic unequipping of the item makes it totally useless in combat situations, however, since the armor will not be available for reequipping until the fight has ended

Some more addons.

First of all, PC replayed all of the Underdark again, with no reloads this time, and cleared each and every area(incl Illithid city, Demon Knights, Dracolich, Beholder Lair, Adalon herself, etc.)

The battle with dracolich was carried out Without any Wishes(removing thus the random element), with many IA spells, and many Remove Magics, and many ProMW too, and criticals and melee).

This time most of the Demon Knights were under SI: A and thus fell under time trapping, leaving only 1 or 2 alive for after time traps ended.

PC hasn't yet faced Orcus again, but have devised an always working tactic versus the Twisted Rune:

PC layed 7 Time traps on the staircase
PC buffed with long lasting buffs, Blur, Mirror Image, and summoned a Greater Djinni and a Noble Spider. Greater Djinni summoned Djinni and GJ buffed well, and also hasted all summons.
PC cast Spell Turning, SI: A, 3 Farsight spells in order to light the battlefield and summoned the Rune.
Shangalar gave his speech. PC contingencies activated: ProMW, ImprHaste, GoI and Spell Deflection.
Shangalar started casting True Sight.
PC ordered his summons to close Vexal.
PC shot Remove Magic so that it could affect Vexal, but standing out of his sight(no spell shield folks).
Vexal recast Stoneskin
Shangalar attacked Greater Djinni, as did Shyressa and Ravanek.
Layene started buffing herself.
PC cast Time Stop, and started pounding Vexal.
It took PC a little more than 4 Time Stops to kill Vexal. In the meantime, a Twisted Golem appeared.
When the fifth and final memorized TS ended, the enemies started pounding the still alive Greater Djinni.
PC retreated to his prelaid traps.
Enemies approached. Shyressa was slain under 2 Time traps, 1 went for Ravanek, and the rest went for Shangalar. Under Traps was also refreshed SI: A.
Traps ended. Layene and Golem were still alive. Layene's SI: A had expired under Traps and Stops.
PC approached Layene and cast his Trigger with ProMW, GoI and Spell Deflection.
Layene cast Absolute Immunity from a scroll.
PC cast IA.
PC refreshed illusion buffs, ImprHaste, cast True Sight, activated Critical and Remove magic. True sight dispelled Layene's staff invisibility. Remove magic removed her Fireshield, Absolute Immunity and other buffs.
PC managed to hit her 4 times when she cast Stoneskin and hid under the staff.
PC cast Remove Magic(still active IA) and ProMW. After a couple of seconds, True Sight revealed her location and 2 or 3 more strikes were enough for her.
The Twisted golem, on his own, provided I had 4 more ProMW unused, and 17 Criticals, was easily slain.

This tactic was tested 3 more times with unerring success.

Note: sometimes Shangalar may have activated ProMW before the traps start activating. In this case, focus on someone else until his ProMW has expired.
Also, a fighter may have activated Hardiness. In this case, too, find a more vulnerable target.
7 Traps are enough for Shangalar's ProMW to expire and to be slain with his stoneskin removed in melee.
If fighters have Hardiness active, they'd better be left for last. With 4 promw, 4 breaches, additional Wand breaches, the warriors don't stand a chance.

No new encounters yet. PC plans to defeat Orcus(again, with no-reloads this time, even if this means sacrificing several ProMW scrolls, or maybe a new tactical approach, with lots of Absolute Immunity spells instead of Wishes), and also to clear WK lvls 3 and 4, plus completing the Bard and Clerical strongholds, and maybe even joining some NPCs in order to trigger their 'specific' quests(no more than 1 NPC at a time), and also PC will try to find out the secret of Mekrath's staircase, as well as(of course) kill Bodhi.

Several tips, however:

The Wish spell, if cast by a wise spellcaster, may prove to be a gold mine: with all of the potions and wands received, which afterwards may be sold for a fair price.
One of the random Potion reward is Potion of Absorbtion. This means, that for each fight, a character may consume six (or more) of these potions, in order to bring his Crushing AC modifier to -60(in addition to the normal person's AC). This may prove invaluable versus, say, Golems, or Vampires, or demons, in fact all enemies who rely on Crushing attacks.
Another random reward is Potion of Clarity, so no need to worry about those either.

The Ray of Fragmentation(at least in my game) seems to be totally ineffective against Elemental or Greater Elemental golems: they seem to be immune to spell level 4 and lower. Hand of Undoing works, at least vs Elemental golems(haven't found yet another Greater elemental golem to test it), but frankly, for my character, with 9 APR under Impr Haste, ProMW and Criticals, it seems to be a total waste of time casting this spell even under IA with reduced casting time. Melee and Criticals deal a lot more damage(for instance, Hand of Undoing casting time 3, deals 10-11 damage to an Elemental golem, in this time, PC will deal 17-25 points of damage in melee).
Ray of Fragmentation seems to be useful only cast via IA(releasing several simultaneously and still being able to activate Critical and ProMW), because, if PC is not under Improved alacrity, while the effective casting time of the Ray for my PC is 0, PC is way better activating Critical strike instead, thus doubling his melee damage for an entire round, rather than casting a single spell which will deal 2-16 points of damage to a Gem/Amber/Coin golem.

Certain enemies who are naturally immune to elemental/magical damage, tend to cast Protection from Energy, thus bringing their resistances to more than 100%(more like 127%). Such enemies must not be hit with elemental damaging weapons, because they will regenerate. The most obvious example: Vexaal. He is 100% naturally resistant to Elec damage, and starts the fight with ProEnergy, thus bringing his elec resistance to 127%. He has great physical resistances, meaning that my character with str 25 and ** in War hammers was able to inflict only 3 points of damage per strike with Crom Faeyr. When I tried the same strategy with Phosphorous(again str 25 and **), Vexaal died much faster. I puzzled why, and guessed: for each hit with CF, Vexaal took 3 points of Crushing damage, while at the same time healed by 1 point of damage from his 127% elec resistance and CF's elec damage, thus resulting in 2 points of effective damage per strike with CF. Phosphorous, on the other hand, has no elemental damage, and thus it dealt 3 points of dmg per strike.

The Adventurer's mart 'special stock' was once the best place to sell all of the extra equipment, because the selling prices were astounding. Now, Ribald offers the 'normal' price for an item instead, thus leaving the Swirfneblin merchant in Underdark to be the most profitable place where a character can sell some extra stuff.