Critto's v5 journal Options

[critto]

Okay. Really, the mod is totally fun and pleasure, but in the name of all that sacred, next version should ease up on spiders a little bit.
I thought 2 drow ambushes were hard to beat with those annoying spiders being everywhere. Apparantly, I was mistaken.
Deeper underdark. Cave with an instant supply of whisper spiders (where they just keeping coming from nowhere). Really, how can I beat this thing? They dispel everything, they somehow draw characters from place to themselves, and sometimes they just kill chars instantly. Why is that? Why no info about the damage being done or save-throw being made (dwarf-kensai, instantly dead. huh?). And, finally, there are just TOO DAMN much of them, my characters can't handle them, even though I have a fighter-heavy party (vagrant, kensai, blade, berserker-cleric, sorc, thief/mage). I am doing buffs, of course, but they are being dispelled very soon and there is no point and time in refreshing them. Summons doesn't help much too (tried 5 hasted mordy swords). Tried magic (adwh, chain lightnings), but they are magic resistant, as it seems.
I am no great tactician, but how am I supposed to win that battle? :) Just keep reloading and hope for better save-throws and no instant-kills? I would be really glad to have some advices on that battle. This is the first one in the game which makes me feel annoyed, instead of being interested, having fun and searching for better tactics.

[Kerkes]

For your questions:

1.Cernd is worth while and makes early and mid-game quite easier, but I don't like him since in late game he is (IMO) just too weak. If I'd take him, however, I'd make a custom specialist mage (conjujer, but that's just me) and dual him to a cleric at lvl9. That way, you have a full-class cleric who can still cast high lvl spells via scroll. A bit low on Hp, however. He'll still have acess to SI, which is good. For more details, you should probably ask people whio have more exp with an Auramaster than me.

2. Asassin is crap. Period. You want to backstabb - fight/thief multi is the way. Or Valygar. Don't dual, since you'll loose acess to fighter HLAs. I believe f/t is one of the best classes in IA, and I had a very easy game with it. HLA Asassination + 8 APR...very quick way of killing numerous oponnents.
Big problem is that you ain't getting HLA's until late, meaning you'll have to depend on your sorcerers Wish - Hardiness to keep him alive. Once in ToB however, there's little they can't respond to.

3. As for Monks...I had Jaheira once as a monk. Nice, but not enough. Magic resistance is good, since mages prioritise Lower resistance prior to killing a Monk with ADHWs. As you already said, inability to be slowed/hasted is practically a pure disadvantage. Slow is useful, but it's easilly countered by a simple Haste. + IA brings in a lot of weapons to forge, most of which are far more powerful than monk's fist will ever be. I got up to the END of WK with monk, but I'd vote against them.

Hope this helped anyway.