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.

[critto]

2 Raven, matti:
Thanks for your input. I did try melee fight with Djinni, but here's a few problems I have encountered:
SPOILER!

I attack the Djinni with two my best warriors (cavalier prot and Minsc). I equip them with items, which grant protection from fire, and buff with the same spell and Improved Haste, of course. As Djinni appears they both attack him, while sorc and f/m dispel his protections with Ruby Rays and Breach (funny thing is, f/m doesn't have access to 7th level spells yet, so he casts the spell from the very same RR scroll located in that cave). At first, my fighters are beating Djinni quite effectively. But this is where the problems begin. More precisely:
1. He lowers fire resistance, and I don't have any means to increase it once again, since I don't have any potions of fire resistance.
2. As the fire resistance drops, they start to take damage from the fire shield. The funny thing is, even when they hit Djinni, he doesn't take any damage, I get only "successful hit roll" and "damage from fire shield taken" messages in my log. I thought it was some kind of magical protection, but it doesn't make any sense. If it was stoneskin, it should be gone quite fast with that amount of hits, if it's PfMW, I should get "weapon ineffective" messages, which I don't. Breaching the Djinni also doesn't seem to work. Maybe I missed something in message log, but I examined it pretty thoroughly.
3. Djinni hits my fighters quite hard (with their AC being around -10). And I don't have Greater Restoration to heal them both quickly. And they don't have any Hardiness yet, being one or two levels away from HLAs.

This post has been edited by critto: Apr 23 2009, 07:55 AM

[Raven]

2 Raven, matti:
Thanks for your input. I did try melee fight with Djinni, but here's a few problems I have encountered:
SPOILER!

I attack the Djinni with two my best warriors (cavalier prot and Minsc). I equip them with items, which grant protection from fire, and buff with the same spell and Improved Haste, of course. As Djinni appears they both attack him, while sorc and f/m dispel his protections with Ruby Rays and Breach (funny thing is, f/m doesn't have access to 7th level spells yet, so he casts the spell from the very same RR scroll located in that cave). At first, my fighters are beating Djinni quite effectively. But this is where the problems begin. More precisely:
1. He lowers fire resistance, and I don't have any means to increase it once again, since I don't have any potions of fire resistance.
2. As the fire resistance drops, they start to take damage from the fire shield. The funny thing is, even when they hit Djinni, he doesn't take any damage, I get only "successful hit roll" and "damage from fire shield taken" messages in my log. I thought it was some kind of magical protection, but it doesn't make any sense. If it was stoneskin, it should be gone quite fast with that amount of hits, if it's PfMW, I should get "weapon ineffective" messages, which I don't. Breaching the Djinni also doesn't seem to work. Maybe I missed something in message log, but I examined it pretty thoroughly.
3. Djinni hits my fighters quite hard (with their AC being around -10). And I don't have Greater Restoration to heal them both quickly. And they don't have any Hardiness yet, being one or two levels away from HLAs.

OK here is some info/tips, hopefully some of it will be useful:

SPOILER!

The Noble Efreet is immune to Breach, as you suggested. He isn't immune to normal weapons though, so you can still hit him while he is using PfMW. I imagine it was stoneskin that was preventing you seeing any damage appearing in the log box.

I took a look at your party and I can understand why you could be having trouble. I agree that your main problem is probably the lack of 7th level divine spells (for Regeneration or Greater Restoration). Additionally your multiclass characters will probably have some difficulty scoring hits consistently.

Despite what I said about it being possible to win with fighters/melee, I think it's better you use a combined arms approach and make sure your magic users contribute to damage-dealing as well. The Efreet does not have very high Magic Resistance (a couple of Lower Resistances and it'll be gone), nor does it have good resistances to elements other than fire. Because your fighters will take more damage from the Fire Shield the longer they have to attack you should concentrate your offensive spells on the Efreet at the same time. Throw a Doom and Greater Malison then pretty much any non-fire attack spells (ADHW if you have it, Chain Lightning, Melf's Acid Arrow, Magic Missile etc.).

As far as the Efreet's damage-dealing goes, iirc its main offensive powers besides its own attacks and the Fire Shield are Fireball and Incendiary Cloud. Both of these spells can be avoided even without fire resistance, using Zone of Sweet Air to clear Incendiary Cloud and using the Limited Wish option 'I wish to make my party invulnerable', which gives your characters Minor Globes of Invulnerability for a short time, to block Fireball.