Started a v5 game, Will play slowly Options

[Shadan]

May I ask Sikret, what spells do you have now with your sorcerer?

[Sikret]

May I ask Sikret, what spells do you have now with your sorcerer?

The sorceress has been replaced with Imoen. So, the spells are those of Imoen plus Spell Immunity, Improved Haste and Hand of Undoing which I added when Imoen levelled up. She is level 15 now.

[Olbas]

Is there any way to beat the Shade Lich in Spellhold without using spells to interupt him? I can never get the timing right and he seems to cast even high level spells faster than I can cast low level ones. I buff up and cast summons and then kill the Skeletal Lords and Greater Mummies and the Summons he casts as soon as possbile because if he casts Remove Magic before they are dead then I die. After that I have to get Protection from Electricity on all my party as fast as possible to stop his Contingency Chain Lightnings from killing me. Then I go for the Lich but I can never damage him or remove his protections and his offensive spells like Comet kill me very fast. According to SK his Saves and Magic Resistance are bad but all the spells I've tried can't disable him. Please help.

[Shadan]

What was the reason to change your custom sorceress to Imoen, Sikret? I am ever curious guy.

[Sikret]

What was the reason to change your custom sorceress to Imoen, Sikret? I am ever curious guy.

What was the point of changing Imoen's class if I would want to play a custom sorceress till the end of the game? When I made my custom sorceress at the start of the game I had the intention to replace her with Imoen.

[Shadan]

Well, I mostly followed Sikret's way in quest order, but I am not able to kill Faldorn in dual with my lvl 8 vagrant. I have only 1 lvl 1 spell, 1 Larloch M Dr. and 2 DUHM innate abilities.

SPOILER!

She casts Ironskin immidately, I tried to interrupt her with Larloch several time, but was not enough fast to press pause after duel started. I have 4 charm animals, and tried to charm her mountain bears. Interrupted 1st summon with Larloch, than tried to charm 2 from 2nd summon. Well, they interrupt and roll succesfull save many times. When I managed to charm 1, Faldorn dispelled my charm later, or she killed charmed bear, and 2nd charm was not succesfull. I think I give up, and I will go back to the city for other quests. I hope I can do this duel later, but I am dubious. 1 or 2 more lvl 1 spell, better THACO won't help against Ironskin... So I am a bit clueless now.

[Sikret]

@shadan:

SPOILER!

I suggest that you keep trying, sahdan! Without winning this duel,you won't become hero of Trademeet and won't gain the xp and reward. You didn't say anything about Faldorn's Creeping Doom which means that every time you have successfully interrupted the spell with the your Minor Drain. This is good news. Try to charm the first bear but don't order him to attack Faldorn. Faldorn has Iron skin and the second bear will kill your charmed one. Help your bear and together kill Faldorn's other summons. If you can charm a second bears it will be excellent but don't try it on the bear which is now attacked by your charmed bear. Try it next time Faldorn summons animals. Kill her nymphs quickly before they cast spells. With DUHM, you will regenerate as well. What first level spell have you picked?

This battle is not easy and requires patience. As you can see in my report, it was (so far) the only battle I had to reload three times before winning.

[Shadan]

Sikret, I choose Shillelagh, since I have * in clubs. Other valid choice could be Armor of Faith.

[Gorwath]

@Sikret
Since I didn't notice anyone asking this question:

On what difficulty setting are you playing IA?

[lroumen]

@shadan

Here's how my battle with Faldorn went. I hope you can get use this in finishing your battle.
SPOILER!

The first battle I rushed in with the quarterstaff and was killed by the first 2 bears (stupid).

The second battle I tried to charm only 2 bears and then kill her with my quarterstaff, but the damage was too little. After 1 charm failed and 1 charm succeeded, the remaining 2 bears killed me before I was able to remove the Ironskins from Faldorn.


The third battle I had learnt enough and I was victorious. It went like this.

I started with Draw Upon Holy Might.
Faldorn starts out with Ironskins and Flameblade (if I recall correctly). Then she calls forth 2 bears and then again 2 bears. When the first 2 appear you'll have Drawn Upon your Holy Might and you may have been able to pick up the quarterstaff. I circled a little bit around the first 2 bears and tried to charm the one closest to Faldorn. I got lucky and set it to attack her while she finished calling the 3rd and 4th bear. I failed to charm the second bear, but continued to try and my 3rd and 4th attempts were lucky.
I now had 3 of the 4 bears, but Faldorn still had her Ironskins and she was out to get me. Each time I charmed a bear I set it to attack Faldorn. She was now moving around trying to get to me but she was blocked by all those bears. Since I had a quarterstaff I was able to hit her from afar whilst she still tried to get to me. After a bit she stopped and called her Nymph.
By now the bears and my Quarterstaff had been able to remove her Ironskins and we were able to damage her. Unlucky as I was, the Nymph was called before the damage went through (I should have used Larloch I think), but the bears did nice damage and even without any points in quarterstaff you can do good damage if you're enchanted with Draw Upon Holy Might. The Nymph called forth her Animals, but by then the deed was almost done. Faldorn was about to die!
She was Near Death when the Nymph set out to heal her and I critically missed... but my bears were with me and with 2 hits they killed Faldorn.

@Sikret.

How many times (roughly) have you rested so far? What is your current date?
I'm asking because I feel as if I'm playing IA very slowly. I've finished Nalia's Keep, but I had to do it in about 6 stages (see spoilertags). I think it's a bit much. Perhaps it is because you know IA better you can use the proper tactics and know which spells you need when?
SPOILER!

Nalia's Keep stages by me.
1. Entry through the sneak passage. Clear the first level and outside. I want to open the Bridge, but I cannot beat the Spider and the Greater Yuan Ti Mage. I return later.
2. Opening of the Keep, I killed the Spider and the Yuan Ti and move to the second level. I'm blocked by the normal Yuan Ti Mage due to a lack of spells. I need to rest.
3. I clear the second level, but I need rest before tackling the Golems.
4. I clear the Golems and clear the extra summons (btw, I only got 2 spawns, not 3. I got 2 spiders from 1 statue and 1 Keep viper from 1 statue, but the center statue spawns nothing extra. Is this supposed to be so?). I need to rest before going down.
5. I cleared everything around Torgal only today

My party is a 5 man though that has slightly more than 5.5M XP in total.
Vagrant, Anomen, Jaheira (Avenger), Nalia, Cernd... waiting for Mazzy or Haer'Dalis whom I both haven't rescued yet because I fear those battles are as tough as the Keep... I haven't been to the Windspear Hills yet nor the Umar Hills Dungeon, nor the Planar Sphere, nor the Planar Prison... but I have finished the Druid, Cleric and Thief Strongholds, and Anomen's Romance and Jaheira's Romance have progressed far (and thus the added quest rewards). Maybe I'll go get Valygar... I think I'm at 40 days or something from all the traveling and resting. I'm about to step up to the Slavership now.... tough going so far. Much more difficult than IA v2 last year (or was it 2 years ago)...

Edit: The things I have not done are still plenty and I wonder how I can compare this to your accomplishments.
SPOILER!

Windspear Hills, Umar Hills Dungeon, Planar Sphere, Planar Prison, Sewers Encounter, Den of Seven Veils Party, Borinall, Guarded compound, the protectors of Gaxx's Body parts, Twisted Rune in the Bridge District, Graveyard District, the whole of Watcher's Keep... and I'm still in chapter 2 currently.

This post has been edited by lroumen: Jan 7 2008, 09:25 AM

[Shadan]

Weee, I defeated Faldorn in duel. Took appr. 7-8 reloads after Sikret's advice.

SPOILER!

Key was to kill the 2nd bear with my PC and first charmed bear very fast . Charm 1st bear from 2nd summon and maybe the 2nd bear from 2nd summon. I had 2 very promising attempt, killed all summons with charmed bears, but Faldorn killed my last charmed bear and killed me also.

I don't know if this is a bug or not, but I didn't see any message in text window when Faldorn started to cast any spells. It was announced only when she finished it. So basically I didn't know which spell is coming, so only tries and reloads helped to be able to bet what spell is next. I interrupted one of his spell, maybe that was what Sikret mentioned in his spoiler tag.

[Sikret]

Weee, I defeated Faldorn in duel.

Congratulations!

I don't know if this is a bug or not, but I didn't see any message in text window when Faldorn started to cast any spells. It was announced only when she finished it.

This is how the game works with every enemy spellcaster. It's not a bug and it has all along been the same even in the vanilla game.

@Gorwath:

I'm playing on "Core".

@Iroumen:

I'm on day 75 in the underdark. I do rest only before major battles. However, two times it happened that I rested twice after each other just to refresh Nalia's spell sequencer and then to replace it with a different 7th level spell (one of these cases was before the fearsome drow ambush in underdark and one other time it was when the sequencer expired automatically even without using it); but I'm very coservative in using the sequencer (i.e. I don't fire it extravagantly in every battle); so, it didn't happen more than twice so far. (Edit: Figured out what had happened with the sequencer. when a character gets killed and raised, his or her sequencers dispels even without using them in practice. I guess this was the case with Nalia.)

This post has been edited by Sikret: Jan 22 2008, 11:58 AM

[Olbas]

Any chance you would have time to help me with my Shade Lich problem written above. Been stuck on him for 5 days now and so many attempts. It's incredibly frustrating knowing I can beat all the adds and wear down the most of the Lichs' defenses(except for PfMW) but his Comet and Flame Arrows at the end will kill all my characters quickly.

EDIT: Would Holy Word work against him? Spell failure of 50% might just make him fail at PfMW. Although then I have to give up Greater Restoration.

EDIT: Tried again and got him down to Injured and then he cast Chain Contingency with 3 ADHW and I was dead. Never seen him cast this before, will this happen every time because I have no chance against this? Noticed he didn't Chain Contingency with Chain Lightning, is the Contingency random? Does he have more than one?#

EDIT: Killed him. Holy Word worked very well.

This post has been edited by Olbas: Jan 8 2008, 05:27 PM

[Clown]

Hi Olbas,

SPOILER!

Unfortunately shade liches will always use the ADHW contingency as long as the characters attacking him are not protected from it and as you suggest 9 times out of 10 it will kill them you really need to get used to countering this particular trick as it turns up quite regularly. This however is reasonably easy, once you get to the stage that you can actually hurt the shade lich make sure any fighters sent in against him are protected from magic energy. I would suggest you save this buff until then as if used earlier it will likely run out or get dispelled plus as at this stage you are hitting him reliably he will find it hard to dispel it and youshould be able to kill him fairly swiftly. Also ensure all other party members are out of range of the lich. If you dont have PFMEyou'll just have to use anti-magic potions etc and a tank with high HP and take it on the chin but hey lookn on the bright side he only does it once.

A little too late I guess, good job.

This post has been edited by Clown: Jan 8 2008, 05:43 PM

[Olbas]

Thanks for the help Clown. Now I'm stuck at the group of Drow in the Underdark, not the bridge attack, please can someone give me some tactics for this. I can't even manage to kill any of the spiders before I'm dead, spells seem very useless in this battle, nothing will disable them. I tried Earthquake and that sometimes makes the Drows spells' fail but not enough. In your walkthrough Sikret you said they were tough for you which means I'm going to be stuck for days on this one.

[Sikret]

Yes, there are three very difficult battles in underdark:

- The battle against Demon Knights in Demogorgon's temple (this is the toughest among the three if the player wants to play without cheese; see my walkthrough when it is updated).

- The battle against Dracolich

- The Drow Ambush.

I'm now going to add my report of the rest of underdark to the walkthrough.

As for hints for the drow ambush, it really depends very much on your party composition and levels. Send them and someone may be able to help.

leonidas had sent me a comprehensive report of this fearsome battle via PM. I'll try to find and send it to you.

Clown also wrote to me that he enjoyed this battle very much (he even probably doesn't agree with my decision to tone it down for the next version). I'm sure that he can help as well if you send the details of your party composition.

[Olbas]

Thanks, forgot to add my party, sorry.

Necromancer 15
Jaheria 12/12
Berserker 16
Anomen 17
Valygar 14
Imoen 14

Since you've said it's one of the harder battle I think I'll try the Eastern/Southern Tunnels which I havn't done yet. My Necromancer, Jaheria and Valygar are very close to leveling so that should help. Not sure why Imoen is one level below yours at this point though, I may have missed something.

[Shadan]

What quests and fights did you postpone to chapter 6, Sikret? Have you done troll mound, Trademeet crypt. Suppose you killed Firkraag. Maybe you missed only Twisted Rune? And what about stronghold quests? It seems you haven't done any important SH quests, right?

[Sikret]

What quests and fights did you postpone to chapter 6, Sikret?

The quests I have done in chapters 2 and 3 are mentioned in my walkthrough.

[Mongerman]

Sikret, why does your sorc have 10 in intelligence?