IA 5.0 experiences by saros, [Topic split by Baronius] Options

[saros]

Editor's foreword (by Sikret):

Since we have thoroughly tested most of the things saros reports in this thread and have found most of them totally false and misleading, we would like to emphasize that the content of this thread is not reliable and can even be misleading for new players. It's worth noting however that none of the things he has written (not even one single word) has been deleted. We could of course delete the entire topic, because we are not supposed to publish false and forged reports about Improved Anvil, but we decided to keep it as an evidence to show how the game should NOT be played for future reference.

saros is playing the game in an illegitimate way with lots of cheats. Many of the things he reports are totally false and can be misleading for other players. So, those who want to read reliable information about IA, should not waste their time reading this thread, because it can affect their mentality about the mod in an invalid and misleading way. As he has admitted in one of his own posts, he is just playing the mod in order to prove that he can win it with a solo character even if it means using cheap methods and cheats.

Even worse than his cheats are his lies. He has reported several nonexistent bugs; for example, each time he fails to win a battle, he retorts by saying that the battle was bugged and such things. Improved Anvil's testing team has thoroughly examined all of his alleged bug reports and has found all of them to be false and fake. Some of them can be interpreted as mistakes of an unskilled player who doesn't observe the events carefully, but some others are so obvious that they can only be interpreted as deliberate and intentional lies.

The best way to tell a lie and make it believable is to tell a big lie and then say "everyone is welcome to test it for himself". This is exactly what saros does. Of course, everyone is indeed welcome to test what he reports and see that he is lying (as we did), but saros is counting on psychological effect of his words and knows that most players won't actually test what he says. I don't really understand what motivates him and what is his purpose of writing so many lies. As I said, most of the lies he writes can't really be interpreted as simple mistakes; they are so obvious that can only be intentional. To see a concrete example of his lies click here. Examples of his lies and false reports are really numerous, but I don't have any extra time to waste on composing a complete list of them.

Of course, at first, we decided to help saros play the mod in a legitimate way in a friendly tone, but he kept refusing to listen.

Cheaters never prosper. True winners never cheat. Liars are even worse than cheaters.

As a newer and recent discovery, saros had actually more than one nickname(s) here at BWL and had cross-posted some of his lies with another nickname as well. When someone is not honest, he is not honest in many ways.

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Hi again.

I'd also like to share my experience so far with the fifth version of the IA mod and I will describe some methods which may prove helpful to all. This is my intention. Some of the methods are pure cheese by certain player's standard, but none of them is cheating. And I have an absolutely official installation of the required only components in the right order, with the exception of an added Happy tweak from the EoU mod. According to Sikret, it's no big deal.

My personal opinion is that everyone is welcome to play the mod as he/she wants. With this I mean with or without cheesy methods. I personally do not like cheating.

The experience I've collected so far concerns primarily the first hard steps in Athkatla, and some methods to create a higher level party.

In Chateau Irenicus, it is good for the PC to play solo through the dungeon. It would be immensely helpful if the PC is some sort of wizard or thief, because these classes offer an additional xp boost (from traps, locks and scrolls).
If the PC is not a thief, then he/she may consider joining Yoshimo, but only for the traps and locks in the dungeon, meaning that Yoshi should be avoided until everything else is cleared. Avoiding him is easily done via Invisibility, Hide In Shadows or Sanctuary.
After the PC has cleared the way to the exit, he then may start to collect NPCs: first Minsc, then(after temporarily disbanding Minsc) Jaheira, and finally Yoshimo. This way, the joining NPCs will be with a starting xp of 161 000. If an NPC is joined right away after the start of the game, his or her xp will be only 90 000.
This way, not only your PC will get more overall xp in chapter 1, but also the joined NPCs will have 71 000 free xp points gained.

SPOILER!

If you want to gain some extra xp, leave one Mephit portal active and kill spawning mephits. Sure, they offer only 420 xp points, but their spawning is endless if the portal is alive.
If your PC is a Cleric/Wizard of some kind, then combining Animate Dead and Invisibility cast on the Ice Mephit Portal will provide you with some free time to read a book or watch a movie while your PC gains xp. Skeletons are immune to cold damage, they stay 8 hours, and if they do not see the Invisible mephit portal, then they don't attack it, but instead attack only spawning Ice Mephits

After going out, and collecting the quest xp reward for chapter 1, it would be wise to kick everyone out of the party and temporarily play solo. The logic in this is, that most of the new NPCs will join a high level character also at higher levels(up to 1.2 million xp for a joining NPC).

I suggest completing the Circus tent for the xp and spell scrolls, and afterwards, sleeping over in order to wait for the first two night encounters. As we all know, these contain gems, gold and several spell scrolls, namely Find Familiar, Spell Thrust, Stoneskin, Minor Spell Turning, Disintegrate and Contingency. All of these are useful, most are qute rare and hard to come by.

The most dangerous part of the solo starting strategy are the first two random city encounters, and especially the first one, Suna Seni. I've had experience with her party with a low level solo F/M/T and F/M/C. It's easy for a F/M/C to win this battle with the proper domination/disabling spells. It's harder for a F/M/T since the two actually active classes in the battle are the fighter and mage, the thief does absolutely nothing. Here is my experience:

SPOILER!

Suna Seni and her goons have various immunities and protection spells running. The most effective strategy so far was casting a Greater Malinson, followed by a couple of Web spells. The big problem here is the lack of spell slots at lower levels. My F/M/T entered this fight equipped with two +3 long swords, Stoneskined, Improved Invisible, with two Rings of Protection equipped, with Spirit Armor, Shield, Blur, Pro Evil, Mirror Image, with Frost Giant strength potion consumed, with Draw Upon Holy Might and also Hasted. This can be done the following way:

Creating two +3 swords, memorizing Stoneskin, rest.
Casting Stoneskin, memorizing Spirit Armor and Greater Malinson, rest.
Casting Spirit Armor, consuming an Oil of Speed, a Potion of Frost Giant Strength(from Ribald), casting the rest of the buffs in proper order. An Improved Invisibility should be activated from a scroll on top of all of this.

When the battle started, my PC disrupted the cleric's True Sight spell by engaging him in melee. Afterwards, I began to circle around in order to avoid the melee fighters. My AC was -14 anyway due to buffs. Afterwards I activated Web. Web has a chance to catch everyone, including Suna Seni, but the cleric and the mage are immune to its effects. No matter. The cleric falls in a couple of rounds. The mage cannot survive long in melee, even with his Mirror Image and Stoneskin. But I found it more convenient to carry two additional scrolls of Web and one of Improved Invisibility, just in case anything goes wrong. And furthermore, it is good to focus on Suna Seni while she's webbed, since she dies in a couple of rounds, and afterwards to concentrate on the enemy wizard.

The PC can save without failure vs the web effects while his Improved Invisibility is still active.

When the cleric, mage and Suna Seni are dead, the rest of the fight is relatively easy.

My third level slots were filled with Fireball spells, which work great on malinsoned webbed enemies: they're like sitting ducks.

The second random city encounter is much easier thanx to the Breach spell obtained from the corpse of the first encounter's enemy wizard, and fewer enemy fighters.

There are a few unmodded quests in Athkatla. No need to rush to Trademeet.

The relatively free xp which may be collected(apart from spell scrolls for an arcane caster):

Copper Coronet: fight with Amalas
Outside Copper Coronet: fight with Corvale
Find out what happened to Montaron: catching the bird without completing the quest(yet). Xzar may be looted for his scrolls and gems. Spectral Harpists may be killed for extra xp.
The Graveyard quests plus all of the monsters in the crypts, except for the Spider Lair.
The kidnappers who buried Tirdir(bridge)
Mae'var's quest, without getting the quest xp reward from Renal.
The illithium ore quest.
(revised)
The skinner murders.

Note: It is not necessary to collect the Reputation rewards from such quests. Remember that by donating gold to a temple you can raise your reputation up to 16, and afterwards collect reputation reward from both this and the Circus Tent quest.

SPOILER!

There are other ways to gain a lot of xp and gold, and spell scrolls, and green protection scrolls, and potions, ammo or even some enchanted items:

Looting amnish guards who interrupt the party's rest on the streets of Athkatla: a decent hasted thief can do it. These guards carry sometimes valuable spell scrolls.

Dropping your reputation to 3 or lower(despised) and starting to kill Amnish patrols which appear. Those come with a standard equipment and some random item slots. The standard equipment includes five full plate mails per patrol, which are worth from six to nine thousand gp when sold on the market.
The random item slots may contain one of the following:

1. A random magical item. Those are occasionally of +1 enchantment, but there are exceptions, like Short Bow +2 or even a Spear +3.
2. A potion. The potions may be: of Healing, Oil of Resurgence, Potion of Vitality, Potion of Strength, Potion of Invisibility, Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Agility, Elixir of Health.
3. A random jewel or a small sum of gold. The most valuable gem that may be obtained this way is the Black Opal, while the most valuable necklace is the laeral's tear.
4. A spell scroll. Here is the (almost) full list:

Magic Missile
Shield
Burning Hands
Protection from Evil
Shocking Grasp
Color Spray
Minor Spell Turning
Monster Summoning III
(these low level scrolls can be dropped far more seldom than the higher level scrolls)

Summon Nishruu
Carrion Summons
Prot from Magic Energy
Globe of Invulnerability
True Sight(very seldom)
Mislead(very seldom)
Death Spell
Tenser's Transformation
Spell Sequencer
Spell Turning
Sphere of Chaos
Summon Harkeashar/Djinni/Efreeti
Mordenkainen's sword
Protection from Elements
Ruby Ray of Reversal
Khelben's Warding Whip
Control Undead
Cacofiend
Spell Trigger
Protection from Energy
Pierce Shield
ADHW
Incendiary Cloud
Tenser's partial
Summon Fiend
Spell Trap

Green scrolls:
Cursed scroll of Petrification
Prot from Cold
Prot from Fire
Prot from Poison
Prot from Level Drain

Killing Amnish guards may continue as much as one wants. This way may be collected free xp, gold and scrolls.

There is a price, however. After the first few won battles with such patrols, a bug appears, and arcane spellcasting on the streets does not trigger the appearance of Cowled wizard patrols. I've tested it. So no fight is possible with the Cowled wizards after this exploit is deployed. And since they carry some valuable scrolls like Improved haste, this is a waste somehow.