Problem with Watcher's Keep? Options

[Aslyn]

Hey all,

I recently DLed the IA mod looking for a real challenge, and it's good fun, but I've started doing Watcher's Keep, and had this Fanatic Spirit pop up and steal the Bell needed to complete the ritual. So, I figure fine, I'll just kill it and retrieve the Bell. The problem is, I CAN'T. I'm not sure whether it's a tactical error on my part, or a bug, but I've got characters all in Epic Level, with Level 9 Mage spells and Maxed out Cleric spells throwing everything they've got at this thing - magical weapons, spells. I can't even scratch it.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?

Regards,

Aslyn

[Raven]

Are you using +4 weapons?

[Aslyn]

Only in one case. I'm set up thusly:

Fighter: Daystar and +3 Longsword
Paladin: Sword of Chaos +2
Thief: Arbane Sword +2, Sword Sword +1
Archer: Crossbow +4 (but I switched this to Composite Longbow +1 to use normal arrows)
Mage: Quarterstaff +1
Aerie: Warhammer +2

[Raven]

Are you in Chapter 2/3? If so you'll almost certainly have to just postpone progressing further in WK until Chapter 6 when you have more +4 weapons.

[Aslyn]

Well, that's the thing - it's 100% magic resistant (such that I can cast a Level 9 on it and not even phase it), and the one +4 weapon I DO have won't hit either (it's that +4 Crossbow that shoots fire bolts), which leads me to consider the simple possibility that other +4s won't do the job either. I can't remove any magical defenses, even with Spell Strike, I couldn't smack it with a Comet or Dragon's Breath, and every spell I've cast to remove magical protections fails. My fighters can't hit it, so I'm wondering how you can even cause damage to it. Makes no sense.

Oh, and I did cast Lower Resistance on it several times to see if the tried and trusty MM would work - it didn't have any effect, despite a successful casting.

This post has been edited by Aslyn: Apr 27 2008, 09:01 PM

[Raven]

Well, that's the thing - it's 100% magic resistant (such that I can cast a Level 9 on it and not even phase it), and the one +4 weapon I DO have won't hit either (it's that +4 Crossbow that shoots fire bolts), which leads me to consider the simple possibility that other +4s won't do the job either.

No, +4 weapons are effective, it's just the Fanatic Spirit is immune to missile damage. There's nothing wrong, the thing's just very very hard to kill. When you hit it with the crossbow, the dialogue box should say 'Fanatic Spirit was immune to any damage'. That's different from 'Weapon Ineffective'.

This post has been edited by Raven: Apr 27 2008, 09:31 PM

[Aslyn]

Ah, how very typical. Thanks. I've gotta say, some of the monsters on this are ridiculously hard. Tried fighting off the Troll King and Queen - two Spell Strikes on the Queen, plus a goodly number of Ruby Rays, and it STILL had protection that my characters were unable to penetrate. There's a point at which the mod gets ridiculous. Difficult doesn't equal "impossible for everyone to kill unless you have +5 weapons or above, regardless". I mean, come on, I can throw every Level 7, 8 and 9 spell in my book and do NOTHING. Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?

[Raven]

Ah, how very typical. Thanks. I've gotta say, some of the monsters on this are ridiculously hard. Tried fighting off the Troll King and Queen - two Spell Strikes on the Queen, plus a goodly number of Ruby Rays, and it STILL had protection that my characters were unable to penetrate.

The Troll Queen is vulnerable to +2 weapons IIRC. Are you sure you're using enough Ruby Rays to remove her Spell Immunity: Abjuration? You need one plus one for every spell protection of higher level than SI (since the Rays remove the highest level protections first). So, for the Troll Queen, that's three Ruby Rays in total. After the SI is removed she is then vulnerable to Breach. If SI:A is active there's no point using Spellstrike or Breach because it will have no effect.

There's a point at which the mod gets ridiculous. Difficult doesn't equal "impossible for everyone to kill unless you have +5 weapons or above, regardless".

No IA enemies require +5 weapons to hit. By the end of SOA your party has access to plenty of +4 weapons to hurt the Fanatic Spirit. I find it strange that you say your party has high level spells yet you have no powerful weapons .

I mean, come on, I can throw every Level 7, 8 and 9 spell in my book and do NOTHING. Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?

Why should it? In the vanilla game there are enemies who are immune to magic (e.g. demiliches).

[Arkain]

Well, IA requires a different approach to master the harder battles. Many monsters are resistant or immune to certain spells and/or damage types. Therefore you need to try to debuff them and find other ways than your typical Dragon's Breath spell to defeat an enemy. Trying different spells out might be the way to do it. Maybe the monster's not immune to electricity or acid?

[Aslyn]

No IA enemies require +5 weapons to hit. By the end of SOA your party has access to plenty of +4 weapons to hurt the Fanatic Spirit. I find it strange that you say your party has high level spells yet you have no powerful weapons.

I'd agree, if I wasn't testing the mod out with maxed-out imported characters. I just don't bring the items over, because then there'd be no point doing half the quests, right?

The Troll Queen is vulnerable to +2 weapons IIRC. Are you sure you're using enough Ruby Rays to remove her Spell Immunity: Abjuration? You need one plus one for every spell protection of higher level than SI (since the Rays remove the highest level protections first). So, for the Troll Queen, that's three Ruby Rays in total. After the SI is removed she is then vulnerable to Breach. If SI:A is active there's no point using Spellstrike or Breach because it will have no effect.

That explains a lot. I'll give that a try, then see if it works. Any idea as to the Troll King? That dude just simply won't DIE, even if I throw a Deva at it. I can cause it damage (gets to Barely Injured and then regenerates all of two seconds later), but I can't do enough to really injure it. Any thoughts as to where I'm going wrong?

And, again, I appreciate the help. I'm not used to fighting creatures with so many protections on them.

[Raven]

No IA enemies require +5 weapons to hit. By the end of SOA your party has access to plenty of +4 weapons to hurt the Fanatic Spirit. I find it strange that you say your party has high level spells yet you have no powerful weapons.

I'd agree, if I wasn't testing the mod out with maxed-out imported characters. I just don't bring the items over, because then there'd be no point doing half the quests, right?

I suspected this was what you were doing. As you've found, this is a bad idea. You're trying to take on a couple of the harder battles in the whole of SOA. The fact that your party has lots of xp is irrelevant without the corresponding equipment. You can't expect to beat any battle in the mod just because your characters are high level. There's a reason the mod contains a ton of powerful magic item recipes...

If you really want to play the mod then start a new game and play it through in order. Otherwise you're just going to find yourself getting more frustrated.

This post has been edited by Raven: Apr 27 2008, 10:32 PM

[Aslyn]

Well, I AM playing it through in order, but finding a whole lot of changes made to the battles that dictate that the lower-end characters can't do them. The Slaver's Compound obliterated my party to start off with, thanks to the number of attackers, not to mention the pesky assassins. I've just moved on to doing the Trademeet/Druid Scenario, which you'd expect level 10-11 characters to be able to do in standard SOA, and finding it impossible without much higher-level abilities.

[Sikret]

There's a reason the mod contains a ton of powerful magic item recipes...

Well, actually, the Fanatic Spirits can be beaten with any normal post-underdark party even without any need to any of the mod's powerful items. Having a couple of +3 weapons (even those of the vanilla game) is enough. No +4 weapons are needed.

If you really want to play the mod then start a new game and play it through in order.

Yes, and without cheating (whether it's cheated xp or any other kind of cheat); otherwise, you will be on your own. This mod is not for cheaters.

Not to mention that with cheating xp, the player has actually made things more difficult for himself, because the types and numbers of enemies in various areas change and vary depending on the party's xp. The player will keep encountering the hardest possible enemies in every area in this way and will keep failing to defeat them, not only because he doesn't have decent equipment but also (and more importantly) because he has not played the mod normally and gradually to improve his tactical skills through the game.

It's also important to read the mod's documents and be mastered with the new rules. A player throwing SpellStrike spells on a mage who is protected by SI:abjuration only proves that he has not read the mod's documents. SI;abjuration is tweaked/fixed to grant immunity to all abjuration spells (I called this change a tweak in the mod's readme file, but thetruth and many other players convinced me that it is actually a fix and should be listed as a fix rather than a tweak in the mod's documents for v6).

Interestingly, this particular hint (about SI;abjuration) is even added to the list of hints the game automatically shows each time the player loads the game or enters a new area.

<sigh>, I don't usually send even one single reply in such threads.

[Aslyn]

Well, I appreciate that you did, Sikret. I knew about the SI:Abjuration spell, I just didn't think every mage would end up using it. But now I know more about it, I'm finding the battles a little easier (casting Invisibility Purge first to get rid of whatever Sanctuary/Invisibility spell it is these mages tend to use) and following it up with Ruby Rays and THEN Spell Strike. Works like a charm

And I normally wouldn;t use the import system for a game, but experience with some of these mods tends to lead me to feel that it's a better approach, because the chances of a random insta-kill are far less. Still, I'll take your advice and try it with starter characters, see how it goes. Thank you again

[Ymarsakar]

Aslyn, turn on the feedback options for your game that include spell states and actions. This lets you know what protections are auto cast on mages.

CTRL-Q will allow you to see a monster's invulnerabilities, thaco, ac, etc. Very useful if you are stuck. You will need to reload your game afterwards, of course.

Also you should use Raven's quest order stickie or Sikret's IA 5.0 walkthrough. Doing the quests in a particular order is very important for getting the least amount of frustration out of IA. Once you hit certain battles, it is far wiser to simply let it go and go somewhere. As opposed to other tactical mods that you might be able to get past hard battles because of luck or superior items, IA is too well planned for that unless you import mega powerful items.

I play tactical mods because spamming comet or dragon's breath wasn't fun anymore since I it felt a waste to have so many spells and never use them. My custom modified scripts can already cast any number of spells automatically, so just having them auto cast spells for me doesn't feel like me using up the entire spellbook of a sorcerer, for example.



This post has been edited by Ymarsakar: Apr 28 2008, 03:25 PM

[Sikret]

Just for testing purposes, I made custom party of 6 high level sorcerers with no warriors and no +4 weapons (neither vanilla weapons nor mod's own items) and tested the battle with one of the Fanatic Spirits. I defeated him very easily. So, even forging or finding +4 weapons is not necessary to win this battle. It's all about tactical skills and knowing which tactics to use under each given situation.

EDIT:

@Raven

Are you sure that Fnatic Spirits are immune to +3 weapons? I defeated them without any weapons at all during my test with the party of sorcerers, but as far as I can see in their files, they are vulnerable to +3 weapons.

EDIT 2:

@Ymarsakar

CTRL-Q will allow you to see a monster's invulnerabilities, thaco, ac, etc. Very useful if you are stuck. You will need to reload your game afterwards, of course.

This is plain cheat! Don't do such things.

A tactical expert should be able to figure out enemies' abilities while playing the game normally and while engaged in battle with the enemy. Winning a battle after using such cheats has no value.

This post has been edited by Sikret: May 27 2008, 01:35 PM

[Aslyn]

Hmm...okay. Now you've got me. I'll just spend half an hour testing out tactics, rinse and repeat. I DO know that MM won't work, though. Spoiling my favourite lame tactic. Dang

Seriously, thanks, though. That particular test narrows down the possibilities quite significantly, and I appreciate it. I assure you, I won't bother you any further with this. I shall simply go forth with my head hung in shame at how terrible I am at the IA mod.

[Raven]

I assure you, I won't bother you any further with this. I shall simply go forth with my head hung in shame at how terrible I am at the IA mod.

It's not a case of being 'terrible', IA just forces you to think far more than the vanilla game and this takes a lot of getting used to. When I first played the mod (as I have mentioned several times before) I struggled greatly with even the easier improved battles and was forced to restart the game several times (because I had made poor party composition choices). It's a learning experience that does not happen overnight.