My experiences with IA 5.0, Continue Shadan's topics with similar name Options

[Ryel ril Ers]

My walkthrough updated with part 3 and one more wonderful battle. See the second post.

[Sikret]

Without the multiple strognhold component of EoU installed, you missed the joy of the fantastic duel between your vagrant protagonist and Faldorn. I will add the multiple strongholds to the list of recommended component of EoU in the next readme.

[Ryel ril Ers]

Somebody ask how to use blades. Here it is:

-Generally you want to use they as a fighter/mage:
Put on your protections (armor - mirror image - stoneskin - improved invisible - PfMW - SI:Divination) buff yourself (improved haste - tenser transformation - offensive spin) and go to the front. You will be indestructable until your SI and PfMW is on, so be carefull with the enemies dispel magic. (you have hight caster level so you have chance generally)
Their offensive spin is the best non HLA fighter ability.
- They are good support caster:
Their caster level is highter than your mages, and significant highter than the multiclass mages. There are some spell what need good caster level, the stoneskin and mirror image works better on blade, the tenser transformation make you a warrior 2-4 level above your pure class warriors. The bard's spell hurt the enemy more than the mage's. And the ultimate wepon is their dispel magic almost as good than the inquisitor's.
They have lower level spells than the mages but that are stonger.
- They are good support in non battle situation:
they have high charisma
they have incredible lore
they have 100+ pickpocket so you raraly must drink potion of master thief

But they hava many drawback:
-Low hp
-Weakness against criticals (they don't use helmets)
-In the beginning they are extremly weaks (under level 12/15)
-Worse AC (you need good bracers or spirit armor)

[Ryel ril Ers]

I only was concerned that he read the text of quests.
Thank you for delete my hint. You are right that was too big spoiler.
In the future i don't write similar hints, sorry.

k7abcd:
if you pick anybody in your team anytime that not solo game. This game not only contains battles, the money also important. I you solo with f/m you miss the experience from disarm trap and open lock and you cannot pick pocket.

I think not possible play through the Anvil in solo without cheating or cheese.
I try it first time too with a sorcerer but the first killer spider was impossible.
The f/m type characters has more chance until an enemy mage crush their protections.

[Sikret]

I think not possible play through the Anvil in solo without cheating or cheese.

Yes, this is true and the main point here.

Those who try soloing IA, will eventually have to cheat or use very cheap methods during the game, because some of the battles are too hard even for a 40th level solo character. They will obviously deny that they have cheated, but it won't change the fact.

The mod is created to be played with a party of 5 or 6. If anyone wants to try it in an "unintended" way, he can try it for himself, but I'm not interested in reading any reports from such solo-gamers in this forum, because I'm pretty sure that they can't remain honest and truthful in what they write for long.

This post has been edited by Sikret: Jan 9 2008, 08:52 AM

[lroumen]

Interesting read so far.

I'm busy with a 5-6 party run using a Vagrant Protagonist and when finished (or largely finished) I was wondering whether I could take the knowledge I had gathered into a solo game. See how far you can get. I would have taken a Blade as Protagonist or a Fighter/Mage/Thief. From what I've read so far, the problem with the Blade is threefold.
1. Bad items (bad combat protection)
2. No high level spells (hard to fight certain battles)
3. Bad saving throws (hard to resist emotion, confusion and hold spells unless you have the right gear)

The problem with a solo game would be to do everything in a proper order, so that the difficulty of the battles does not increase too much. You're pretty much forced to complete the simpler quests first to build levels and gain spells, not to mention good items. Additionally, you do not get the items gained through normal play and NPC quests, but you need to go on killing sprees. I forsee that going the evil path (siding with Bodhi) will be more profitable than playing the good way. You get to kill Aran which means that you will get his Elven Chainmail fairly early on and that will be good for your FMT or Bard.
Hmmm..... I'll muse on this some more before attempting to get anywhere. IA will be impossible and in my current game I haven't even cleared most of the starting dungeons yet, let alone come across the late game challenges... Soloing will be pure masochism and I can foresee only death before finishing chapter 3 (getting 15k gold isn't hard, hehehe).

[lroumen]

Why did you not pay the Cowled Wizards? Do they drop anything of use?

@Borinall buffing. There is an alternative option.... probably a minor option
SPOILER!

I found that you can buff in Borinall's house. He started his chat with "I told you I have nothing to sell" or something of the sort and the banter ends. Then you can buff and talk to him to confront him about the Dawn ring.

My problem was that I didn't have the gear to fight his golem well enough so I have not actually faught him succesfully yet (or is Borinall a her?)

[Shadan]

They didn't drop anything improtant. Most of them had nothing, some of them had a few scrolls. Maybe named ones in last fight dropped some high lvl scrolls, but I am not sure. I fought against them just for fun, intertesting fights and because my PC in 4.2 was a chaotic good gnome F/I and some puny human don't tell him where should he cast and where shouldn't. He was practicing the magic since more time than those humans. Now I have some chaotic half-elven and and elven arcane magic users, and they can think same...
Thanks for the tip at Borinall. I am not sure if she or he is...

[Ryel ril Ers]

I update my walkthrough with the part 4 read the second post.

Sikret or Baronius:
Is it possible to put shadan post (#52) to the third place?
I would like to the walkthrough is on the beginning of the topics, so he can update it, and the result is a walkthrough in one post.

[Baronius]

Is it possible to put shadan post (#52) to the third place?

In the world of heros and dragons, everything is possible.

[Ryel ril Ers]

Thank you very much, Baronius! If you see we (shadan, trufa, me) complately move here from rpg.hu with the Anvil topics.

Shadan, if you have time, please continue your post!

[Shadan]

Ryel, while I have some times from my work for some forum browsing, I don't really have too much time to play. I think I can continue my game mostly on next weekend.

[Ryel ril Ers]

PART5 added.

I find two cheasy method:
Tazok don't react if you cast spell when he don't see you. You can cast lots of emotion to the room with several loads and you have ~5% chance to go through his magiic resistent and his saves, after that you easily kille he and you get his potions.
Suggestion:
when you open the door Tazok attack the nearest enemy (who opened the door).

You can easily kill Conster, when you see him stop and after that you only must cast offensive spells with good range (lighting bolt, magic missile). He don't attack you.
Suggention:
put back him so when he see him you see Firkraag too, and the dialog started.

EDIT:
I have 75k gold and i don't know what to do with it:
Improved Dragon helm 40k
Long sword +3 15k
Halberd+3 15k
Vhailor's Helm ~17k
Fortress shield ~ 15k
Ring/Cloak of prot +2 30k
Upgrade the horn of valhalla ?k gold
Potions and scrolls for the harder battles

I don't know what will the next target:
Beholder sect
Waukeen party
Rakhasha in the sewers
Belm's guardian
The drow spider druid in the graveyard

we are have 10-13 level. (I only have 3 slot for free action but i can do good saves /~4-5/ for two character).


This post has been edited by Ryel ril Ers: Jan 10 2008, 06:36 PM

[Baronius]

New location of shadan's Improved Anvil journal:

http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?showtopic=3369

(The one in the third post of this topic won't be updated.)

This post has been edited by Baronius: Jan 14 2008, 09:31 PM

[lroumen]

I think you can do the Beholder Sect (Unseeing Eye quest) as well as the Waukeen party in the Den of Seven Veils pub. I haven't done the other three encounters you named so I cannot judge those.

As for the gold. It really depends on what party you currently have and whether you find them all equipped well enough.

[Sikret]

I find two cheasy method:
Tazok don't react if you cast spell when he don't see you. You can cast lots of emotion to the room with several loads and you have ~5% chance to go through his magiic resistent and his saves, after that you easily kille he and you get his potions.

In my game, Tazok reacts properly even if attacked from offscreen. I don't know how it has happened in your game.

You can easily kill Conster, when you see him stop and after that you only must cast offensive spells with good range (lighting bolt, magic missile). He don't attack you.
Suggention:
put back him so when he see him you see Firkraag too, and the dialog started.

Yes, this cheesy exploit is indeed doable while Conster is standing near Firkraag in his lair. I just blocked it locally.

[Sikret]

I go down the level 3 and before conster's teleport i can steal his key, so i cast a haste and my vagrant saved the girl and my summons (nymph, skeletons, berserker warrior) distracts conster and we run out from the dungeon.

This is too cheesy. Reload the game and fight with Conster if you want his key. I will make his key unstealable for the next version of the mod.

[Clown]

As an addition to Iroumen's post you should also be quite capable of taking down the Pai'Na graveyard spider encounter and the sewer Rakshasa at this point. Belm might prove quite challenging but I dont know, might be possible depending if you have access to Lvl6 spells or not.

As for the money, it is limited in the game so I would only make upgrades that you see yourself using at the end of the game or those that are going to be used in later upgrades otherwise its a waste of a big chunk of gold. I try not to waste money on potions either as enough tend to be dropped or findable in the game if you use them wisely. Therefore I would probably upgrade dragon helm as it gives a significant resistance boost which is useful to end game and buy fortress sheild as it is useful on its own and you will want it to forge supreme shelter later.

[Sikret]

@Ryel

I just discovered Tazok's problem in your game. It's a vanilla game bug for which niether Greater Command nor Emotion were flagged as "hostile" spells. I have fixed it for "Greater Command" in v5, but Emotion's bug had escaped my notice. I just fixed it locally for the next versions. Had you tried any other hostile spell on him from offscreen, he would have shown the proper reaction, but since you cast Emotion, he didn't recognize it as a hostile action. Thanks for drawing my attention to this issue.

Also, please don't forget to reload your game to a saved game before stealing Conster's key. You have said that you wouldn't play cheesily IIRC (if you do not reload, I will sadly lose my interest in your future reports). In general, stealing any "quest related" item is a cheesy action and it's a vanilla game problem that some of those items are stealable. I have already fixed it for several other similar items in v5; and as I said, I just fixed it for this particular item locally.

[Ryel ril Ers]

@Sikret
I don't use cheese methods. I didn't use the offscreen emotion against Tazok (i instead fight with him and i enjoy it very much).
I didn't killed conster and i didn't loot him 5 absolute immunity and his 5 ruby ray, instead i trick him.
In roleplaying reasons i don't load it!
My blade was fast enough to rive his key off from his girldle so we prepared against him but i see he is too powerful and while my thief-cleric and my sorcerer hold up him my vagrant save the girl and take out her on his shoulder, my casters sacrifice their our life and while the new summons hold up him my fighters save them bodies, so i can ressurect they for 2400 gold, i get some xp but nothing else.
This also be very hard.

If you think this is cheese method i uninstall your mod because i think my party died against conster because they wanted save the girl so they sacrifice their lifes. I don't think this is cheese method i think this is roleplaying method. I will come back later and i fight with conster and firkraag.

Earnestly, if you think i am cheater i finish my write or i write down this was cheater method don't use it. I cannot download because i don't have save before our flee. I only have save in the watcher keep so i must sacrifice 8 hour game if i choose this method. My time is expensive so i don't choose this way.

The Tazok bug works with emotion, i don't try other spell. He roll his saves or the MR protect him, but he stay at the room. Maybe he is too deaf so he don't hear my sorc's voice.

It seems the random monsters in firkraag's lair are infinite so the patient players can earn infinite xp and some good random treasure i only try ~5-10 encounter because i must level up, it was very hard because all of my characters are badly injured and i must sacrifice lots of potion.

This is a role playing game.

EDIT:
As i said i don't have good save before that scenes. If you think i clua down my party xp and add it back when i can defeat conster. Is this good trade-off?
I can't try lot spell because i only have a sorcerer and a bard with small spell selection.

This post has been edited by Ryel ril Ers: Jan 11 2008, 11:10 AM