(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]

Twisted rune: full buffs on, wish rest then summon greater djinni and noble spider again. When the fight starts, summons draw the lich’s attention, warriors attack the vampire, PC/Aerie hide away from the beholder. PC casts IA, breach on vampire, RR*2+breach+LR*3+acid arrow*8 on Layene hitting her to near death, breach on Revanek followed by magic missiles and fire arrows. Layene rests after several immunity and PFMW spells, PC breach again then warriors kill her. All summons remain alive, let them play with Shangalar while warriors attack Vaxall. Those whose PFME has been removed go back to PC and get another one. After the death of Vaxall, let summons kill Shangalar for safety.

Orcus: normal buffs+PFFire one everyone, then wish rest. After warriors taking down 4 grandlords PC starts casting IA. One more grandlord was defeated then vampires spawn. PC CC: ADHW*3+sunfire*n clears all eminent ones and leave master vampires for warriors. After regenerations expire PC casts multiple RVEs again for healing. Finally when silence expires. PC IA again and throws rms on Orcus, warriors CS and kill it within two rounds.

Nec final quest: unexpected rms from balors, they didn’t cast rms in previous versions as I remember. Anyway, rms make this fight more difficult than lesser force itself. PC can use lightning bolts to kill 2 balors and use RR*2+breach to kill 2 more with melee attack from warriors. However, we are in short of improved haste and breach and can only play war of attrition with the remaining 2 balors. A lot of healing potions were consumed for finally taking down them. Skeleton grandlords are easy to del with.

Lesser force: get enough regenerations from RVE*7 and before the second wave of bone golems it was easy. Then regenerations expire and Valygar was feared unexpectedly (he wields age flail instead of his own katana to deal more damage to golems). AF attracts most attention from enemies and others reorganize. Finally warriors defeat the lesser force with many healing potions and GR^2 from Aerie.

This journal is on AF but we haven’t talked about him yet. He is now close to his ultimate form: what’s left are judgement day, D&W flail, improved gaxx ring, lum’s machine and lv24 fighter. Currently, he has 50 PR, 75 MR, -22 ac, -16 Thac0 and 10 APR. AF is better than average warriors once we get access to Cromwell in Chapter 6, therefore he is very useful in most late-game fights in SoA.