(Nearly) Invincible A-F Journal Options

[leozoroaster]

Back to school after a 2-year visa delay, finally, I have plenty of time to start another IA run and write a journal, which in fact I did a few times before but not in EN. Hope the readers may find it valuable (or fun), despite my poor writing XD. My high-level heuristic for playing IA is ‘prepare for long, fight fast’. To be specific, find the weakness of enemies, make full preparation then finish the fight as quick as possible.

This run is devoted to building a nearly invincible character, a dual class assassin21-fighter (abbreviated as AF) who can use ANY item and fight like any warrior at the same time (K13-T could do a similar job). In particular, this monster will have 90 MR, 85 PR, -24 AC, 10 APR, -20 Thac0 and -6 saving throws ultimately without any temporary buff, stronger than most bosses in IA.

Other members in the party serve to survive the early game, then simply enjoy the performance of A-F as audience in the late game. This journal will omit easy stuffs and focus on ‘big fights’ and tactics, for ease of presentation. Let’s briefly introduce the basic settings first.

Setup:
BG2EE 2.5
IA 6.52
Core difficulty
IAtweaks: Minsc being Berseker
CDtweaks: multiple strongholds, bag of holding, true grandmastery, e.t.c.

Party:
PC: Necro
Custom: RB
Custom: AF
Aerie: C/M
Minsc: Berseker
Valygar: Protector

The road to 500k xp is trivial. Finished thief/cleric quest, suna fight, fallen paladin, circus, mithril quest, xzar quest and some small ones. Suna fight is carried by Minsc, with the help of emotion from PC and haste from Aerie. The elder eye is killed by flame arrow following secret word.

Finished the first stage of Aran’s task, by letting Minsc solo Lassal. Heading to Seven Vales. Summon 5 skeletons, Aerie true seeing/bless/chant/PFEvil, PC haste. Initiate the fight with doom on Amon, PC greater malison. Emotions from both PC and Aerie in the second round, Amon lies down. Take down Mencar, the others, Amon in order.

Cleared weaker enemies in graveyard, with some extra care on mutated spiders. Paina fight is a tough one: PC/Aerie minor invulnerability (doesn’t seem to work), free action on RB/Minsc. PC breaches Paina and Aerie casts emotion, Aerie got stuck by web but PC didn’t, lucky. PC casts another emotion, taking down most spiders while warriors defeat Paina at the same time. Reload several times to save healing potions.

Buy Joril’s Dagger for Minsc, defeat beast master with a single breach followed by magic missiles to interrupt the swarm. The second stage of Aran’s quest is easy by letting skeletons fight the vampire.

Heading out of town. Clear easy fights at Umar/Windspear /Trademeet/Druidcove. Magic missiles*n kills Faldorn. To harm Ihtafeer we need at least +3 weapons, therefore let RB take club+3 though she invested 0 points in its efficiency. Hit Ihtafeer until it reads IA, take down its pets then itself. The party reaches 800k xp.

Now that RB has improved haste, things become easier. Caught skinner, and finished all EE NPC’s tasks but Dorn’s. Time to obtain the improved haste scroll at the slave stockade. We plan to enter from the sewer so cleared the mists first. Web+free action+true sight and we are done.

[leozoroaster]

Fights in Ust Natha are all easy ones. We are going to challenge the master of the maze: dracolich! (One of) the best battles in IA!

Dracolich: it’s very very dangerous, and even more dangerous than its normal version (PC xp below 3.4m). It’s a shadow dragon immune to all 1-5 level spells, carrying some highly dangerous spells including

Lethal:
Wail of the dracolich*n (full screen!), easily kills party members without protection. Counter: death ward, immunity necro, magic shield potion.
Acid fog*n, kills summons quickly. Counter: zone of sweet air.

Debuff:
Greater doom, makes wail of the dracolich way more dangerous, and lowers dps of warriors.
Greater silence. Counter: amulet of hades, hiding casters.
Dragon’s breath, causes level drain. Counter: restoration.

Disruptive:
Wing buffet*n
Rm*2

Protective:
PFMW*n

It’s impossible to raid this bastard and finish in a few rounds, we can only fight a protracted battle. The very first thing is to ensure the safety of all party members. Then we need to hold on until the dracolich runs out of all PFMWs, which also involves division of the battlefield. The final step is buffing warriors and assault.

For constant protection from the wail of the dracolich, PC/Aerie uses immunity necro, RB drinks magic shield potions while others are protected by death wards from Aerie. Let RB carry enough potions to tangle with the dracolich, and PC/Aerie summons to hamper it (planetars are extremely helpful). In particular, RB should have magic shield potion and invulnerability potion active all the time, and keep the dracolich at the center of the battlefield, away from other members. We choose RB because she has -21 AC after drinking the invulnerability potion, and risk decrement for emergency.

Upon entering, use item summons and RB drinks potions which won’t trigger the fight. All hide by the exit except RB. PC/Aerie immunity and RB improved haste to start the fight, the dracolich approaches. PC then keeps summoning while Aerie casts death wards, RB hits the dracolich until it gets hurt and drinks potions meanwhile, all 2 rms are used up here.

Then comes the long wait for all PFMWs to expire. PC/Aerie keeps summoning, replenish protections once halfway. Aerie/Valygar casts zone of sweet air when necessary. RB circles and drinks healing potions from time to time. Control planetars to use restoration and healing spells. Magic swords can endure a lot of physical damages from the dracolich.

When all summon spells run out, the dracolich uses up all PFMWs too at the same time. Improved hast on warriors and charge, the dracolich won’t use greater silence since no casters show up, so warriors can drink healing potions freely. Aerie has a greater restoration spell in hand so we end this fight smoothly. Such strategy costs 3 magic shield potions, but is much safer than letting PC face the dracolich alone.