Spike's questions Options

[LZJ]

To Sikret:

Hi, I've started on IA v5 not so long ago, and I must say, great job Sikret!



Spoiler! (regarding Spike's question on the Warden)

I think what Spike meant was the group that spawns right beside the Warden, slightly on his left side... after destroying the orb, they will follow the Warden in confronting your party. I haven't found a way (yet) of drawing them out first without the Warden spotting me.

2nd Spoiler on the same issue

I found a way to exploit the infinite planar hounds appearing next to my party. If I hide most of my party in a fleshy trap and use one party member to 'activate' the Warden, following which I bring that member back to the rest of my party in the trap, I get to kill 2 planar hounds every few rounds. Assuming my fighters are competent enough to manage them (e.g. Lilarcor ), I get to harvest unlimited xp and sapphires without the Warden's interference! But of course, I reloaded afeter finding this cheesy bug.

On a separate note, perhaps you should include in the readme certain pre-requisites a party should have before attempting a modified quest?

Spoiler!

In the Planar Sphere quest, I encountered a Skeleton Grandlord next to the chief tana'ri, and I did not have any +4 weapons, as they are extremely rare in IA. Even though it was more or less optional, I chose to reload.

UPDATE!

This is in response to Spike's question regarding the Warden.

I managed to draw the group of Greater Yuantis and mages (and the lone minotaur) out by casting a summons and moving it to where they could see it, but not my party. The Warden (whose defences would be raised, btw) and the group would attack it, but from my experience, only that group (and not the Warden) would come looking for your party after killing the summons. Hope this helps, as I could not finish the Warden off either with that group supporting the Warden. My party level is about level 13 on average with ~1.7 million xp, Vagrant protaganist, Valygar, Nalia, Jaheira (for the quests, dumping her for Imoen), Cernd and Anomen (knighthood quest not taken).

This post has been edited by LZJ: Dec 9 2007, 11:05 AM

[Spike]

@LZJ

SPOILER!

A skeleton grandlord wasnt there in my game, but 3 lords and 3 marutsi(? ). This was a tough fight and i couldnt win it without using the entrance bridge as battleground.
I will try to seperate the warden's spawns as you proposed, but maybe my party is now strong enough to beat him straightforward. My biggest problem so far is to bring down mage's defences, because i dont have the ruby ray yet and i found only 1 scroll.

@Sikret
If i remember correctly the best moment to travel to spellhold is when your party is between lvl 13-14. Does this count only for the main char?

This post has been edited by Spike: Dec 9 2007, 02:40 PM

[Raven]

@Sikret
If i remember correctly the best moment to travel to spellhold is when your party is between lvl 13-14. Does this count only for the main char?

This recommendation was made for the protagonist, yes, assuming the party consists of 5-6 members and the PC is a single-class character.

[Spike]

Thx, are there any musthaves to survive the spellhold?

[Sikret]

@LZJ

SPOILER!

The Skeleton Grandlord will be there only if your protagonist has more than a specific amount of xp; otherwise, as Spike noted, there will be 3 Skeleton Lords only.

This post has been edited by Sikret: Dec 9 2007, 04:43 PM

[LZJ]

To spike:

Thanks for telling me that. I encountered the above problem with a different party, where my protaganist was a F/M/C who had used the Elven Expertise potion, and my party only had 4 members (protaganist + 3 NPCs). Hence, my experience level was rather high. Perhaps that affected the type of monsters spawned:

SPOILER!

I encountered 2 Lords and 1 Grandlord along with the maurezhis.

Update:
Thanks for telling me that Sikret. My vagrant party is actually my 2nd party. Haven't gone through the Planar Sphere with it yet.

This post has been edited by LZJ: Dec 9 2007, 04:44 PM

[lroumen]

If I may....

The ****** will be there only if your protagonist has more than a specific amount of xp; otherwise, as Spike noted, there will be ****** only.

I have a question concerning that...

In deciding when to add those extra creatures, did you factor in the protagonist XP, or the total party XP, or each individual NPCs XP?

I'm asking because I'm currently running a party of 5 and my mage Nalia cannot even cast level 6 spells yet and I already see many mages around me cast things like Mordenkainen's Swords, Spell Immunity Divination, Globe of Invulnerability and other high level stuff. I would hate to see some encounter with added creatures that requires even higher level spells to finish them off, let alone remove their spell protections.

[Spike]

Finally i've beaten the warden. This one was really hard.

SPOILER!

did one/two levelups and came back to the planar prison. it should be easier, but there were even more yuan-ti mages . I manged to kill him by using LZJ's tactics seperating his minions. I'm really sry Sikret, but i hadn't a chance otherwise.

Forged Greater Entropy, Improved Dragon Helm and Master of the High Forest.
Will give Conster and the Shade Lord another try tonight.


This post has been edited by Spike: Dec 10 2007, 01:40 PM

[Sikret]

@Spike

No problem. Perhaps, Planar Prison was a bit too difficult for your party. I will test it in my own run-through and will see if I need to tone it down or not.

Cheers

[Spike]

I'm really looking forward to seeing your report.

[Spike]

A question related to the fight with Conster.

SPOILER!

When do the Skeleton Lords stop spawning? Conster is already dead and there are more and more lords (4th wave). Currently two of them are alive and i want to free Iltha, the prisoner, but the dialogue options doesnt change and i'm stuck.

This post has been edited by Spike: Dec 11 2007, 12:44 PM

[Sikret]

@Spike

SPOILER!

Kill them. They are not infinite.

[Spike]

Thx, did it. Nice fight. I should be a bit more patient .

Just for the records.

Vagrant - lvlup to 13 (Swanmay-> i'm excited)
Nalia - 13
Cernd - 13
Anomen - 14
Hear'Dalis - 14
Valygar - 12

Finished the following quests/improved fights:
Mencar Pebblecrusher
Copper Coronet/Slavery ship
Lilarcor
Borinall
Planar Sphere
Planar Prison
Anarg
Mekrath and the Imp
Shadow Jailor
Tazok
Conster
Belm
Dalok
Faldorn
De'Arnise Keep

There's still a lot to do .

[Sikret]

Great job, Spike!

Did you go for Mekrath without fighting with the sewer's party?

Also, I can see why Planar Prison was difficult for you. Your party had been low level for that battle. I guess the levels were even lower at that time.

[Spike]

Yes, the sewer party is still alive
and yes my levels were even lower when fighting the Warden. I've noticed your proposed time/lvl for this fight and now i know why he was such a pain in the a**.

Gave the Founder of Trademeet a try. Hehe, very nice, but i think i will skip him for now.

/edit
SPOILER!

He and all his summoned skeleton warriors don't attack unconscious chars. Don't know if this is intended behaviour?

This post has been edited by Spike: Dec 11 2007, 11:35 PM

[Sikret]

While what you wrote in spoiler tags are indeed spoilers (because they give information about a specific battle) and you rightly put them in spoiler tags, my reply to it is general; so, I will write it normally:

It's an engine problem. It's not related to IA. Most of the times (though not always), enemies simply ignore (don't see) unconscious characters.

[Spike]

Surprisingly, i could beat the Shadow Dragon at this stage.

SPOILER!

Killed him before he could cast his healing spell. 2 Ruby Rays (scrolls), some breaches and brute force attacks from 4 imp. hasted chars were sufficient.
A suggestion to improve him: He should cast his remove magic very early, still before death fogs and breaches.

This post has been edited by Spike: Dec 12 2007, 10:37 AM

[LZJ]

To Spike

Some friendly advice about the Shadow Dragon, as resources and money are rather scarce in IA:


SPOILER!

I think Breach is sufficient, as the Dragon does not seem to cast Immunity:Abjuration, only Spell shield. There isn't any need to use Ruby Ray of Reversal iirc, if you're relying on brute force attacks. I agree with you on the remove magic, but I would further add that to improve the shadow dragon further, perhaps he/it should use its breath attack earlier in the battle. Blindness + Level Drain would wreak havoc on those pesky melee fighters.

This post has been edited by LZJ: Dec 12 2007, 11:43 AM

[Spike]

@LZJ

SPOILER!

He/it uses Spell Turning. Does Breach dispel this spell? Currently i dont have access to my game to check. If yes, you are totally right.

[Sikret]

SPOILER!

Casting Remove Magic earlier may sound a good tactics for the dragon under certain conditions and scenarios (such as the conditions of the way you did the battle), but it's not always a good choice under every scenario. If the dragon hurries to cast Remove Magic too early, the player can send one single character forth to take it. It's actually the difference between a human mind and a machine. The human mind can find a workaround most of the times. I have tried to give him a general intelligent tactics to follow. Not to mention that your method will not work so easily against the more powerful dragons of the game. They will eventually cast their Remove Magic spells intime and before taking much damage (but still, you will eventually defeat them ) and I'm sure it hasn't worked against the Shadow dragon the very first time and with no reloads (otherwise, you wouldn't know that he has a heal spell ). In addition to having a human mind, you have another important advantage to those creatures in the game: You can reload the game, but they can't!

In general, my own experience and tests have proven to me that enemies are much more effective if they do not hurry to cast Remove Magic too early. It's much better to remove the characters buffs in the heat of the fight (rather than at the beginning), because then they will have much more issues to worry about (such as wounds as well). Of course, the delay is not the same for every enemy. The delay is not always the same even for the same enemy (which makes meta-gaming very difficult)

@Spike

No, Breach doesn't bring down Spell Turning.

This post has been edited by Sikret: Dec 13 2007, 06:59 AM