The fight with pirates Options

[Aro]

Hi all.

I want some help with these guys in the tavern at the Docks. They are very tough. My party is:

Vagrant PC with proficiency in clubs and uses the +3 acid one from Trademeet
Valygar
Anomen
Jan Jansen
Edwin

Jan and Edwin can cast only 5 lvl spells and less.

That mage casts Remove Magic and emotion and abi-dalzim, and my characters die very quickly. The captain I cannot kill, he's scary. Help! My fighters deal very small damage to him.

I want another party member, but all NPCs are so weak. Any recommendation?

And where to find a permanency scroll or manual of elaboration or scroll of memory? I want a scroll for the club +4. It costs 50 000, is it worth it?

What weapons to buy?

[Aro]

Thank you critto.

My mages leveled to 12 and I set difficulty to easy and killed the pirates, those adventurers in the promenade and Lilalcor monsters and slavers in slums.

I read some spoilers here and also googled Improved Anvil. I found tons of spoilers on biowares forum and got some more permanency scrolls.
Maybe I should start with a different party? The vagrant looks powerful later on, but how about this:

fighter-illusionist gnome leader with wisdom 18
fighter-cleric-mage or only cleric-illusionist gnome - advice please
sorcerer with wisdom 18 because Imoen is too far away
a bard - maybe Haer'dalis? or custom

I read that arcane magic is very important and with smaller party they will level up quicker and I won't decrease difficulty with this party.

[Raven]

I read some spoilers here and also googled Improved Anvil. I found tons of spoilers on biowares forum and got some more permanency scrolls.
Maybe I should start with a different party? The vagrant looks powerful later on, but how about this:

fighter-illusionist gnome leader with wisdom 18
fighter-cleric-mage or only cleric-illusionist gnome - advice please
sorcerer with wisdom 18 because Imoen is too far away
a bard - maybe Haer'dalis? or custom

I read that arcane magic is very important and with smaller party they will level up quicker and I won't decrease difficulty with this party.

I think you should stick to your original party (or maybe make only one or two changes). Your vagrant will soon be able to summon Swanmays which are powerful allies. Single-class characters are strong in IA and things won't be easy if your only fighters are multiclass. Remember that multiclass characters gain HLAs far later in IA than in the vanilla game. Reducing the number of characters in the party so that they level up faster is also not a good idea IMO. Some parts of the game are much harder if your protagonist's xp is high and with a smaller party you may not be able to deal with the increased difficulty (this is partly why the IA readme recommends playing with a party of five or preferably six). Btw, I'm not saying your proposed party would not work, just it would not be so easy later on if you're not experienced in playing IA.

I agree with critto that you are better off with Nalia then Edwin. You need Reputation 20 to see some of the new IA quests later on (which give you lots of experience, gold and so on so it is not a good idea to skip them).

This post has been edited by Raven: Aug 1 2009, 10:53 AM