(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]

Red dragon: all buffs on, PC lures its rms and warriors attack with non-magical weapons. Demilich: use ring of ram to kick it into the upper corner, then let Minsc and Valygar attack. Sweep the rest enemies, forge improved gaxx ring D&W flail for AF and another boot of haste. We are in short of permanency scrolls now.

Ancient dragon: let Aerie attract the nishruu, PC defeats the salamander and efreeti by acid arrows, magic missiles and lightning bolts. Then warriors attack the ancient dragon and PC keeps breaching. Dragon fights are extremely easy with necro PC.

Defeat Jon twice and we head into ToB. Illasera: just as any other normal fight, PC takes off all enemies’ protections and warriors attack, then let AF tank Illasera and we reap all xp from skeleton grandlords. Karun is the only one matters among Gromnir squad, just let AF play with him after taking over the rest.