Kerkes' IA5 walkthroughs, qwerty Options

[Kerkes]

Well now....
Finally got some free time to actually write something down.
I didn't yet try a f/m/c in IA. Actually, I never even used this class in party, did for solo Ascension/Tactics etc.
Very few people use them, I saw only a couple here, and not as a protagonist (Jaheira and a custom I believe).
The class itself is very interesting, it has amazing potential, both as a fighter and a mage/cleric, with the best seq/trigger combos in game. Not to mention endless Chain Contingency possibilities.
Elven Expertise potion is also nice.
So, I decided to make one myself and go for IA glory.
Since multiclasses gain lvls very slowly I decided to go with a 5 member party, all of which are custom made.
2 points did I have in mind when makng a party:
1) no rangers - for more than one reason, I find their equipment and Contact with nature a bit too powerful over any other fighter class, which is not my taste (I believe that a berserker should be able to mop the floor with any ranger, which they cannot in IA, but that's just my opinion. If you like them, play 'em. I don't.)
2) no f/t multiclass - I played them quite a few times, they're killers like no other. Too strong for my liking, UAI makes them monsters.
Therefore, nobody will be running with permanent imp.haste.

The game is already practically finished (I'm on EDE now. my my.... do I miss JD ), but I haven't written down everything I wanted to yet, so I'll be posting fore a few days now. I'll also submit some toughts/questions/suggestions here.
I won't be posting possible exploits. Those I find, I report to Sikret, since I'm not a fan of cheating myself.

One other thing:
I enjoyed going for an IA run with this party a lot but won't be going in with 5 party members any more. Faster level ups are a big advantage, if not somewhat disbalancing, but that's not really the issue, and is somewhat (not completely) counter-balanced with the fact that you have 1 less party member active, which turns in a disadvantage in some fights (1 more pure figter-type with Critical Strikes would certainly be good here. You can't go wrong with Valygar or a barbarian in IA). The real problem is that many of the mod's more interesting battles simply had to be postponed to a later date (after Spellhold) due to the fact that I hate harder Spellhold versions (killing Golems for no exp? No tnx...)


Note:
I have a blade in party. But I dunno use traps. It ruins game. Even if powerful monsters are immune to them, not all are (won't say which) and I believe they are cheese extraordinaire. They can give you a big advantage, are completely bugged, and using them is for chickens IMO. Real heroes use no traps! "Traps? Traps!? We're not hunting rabbits!!! We're here to kick some dragon butt!" So, blade will have imp.bard song, UAI, avoid death and Greater Evasion HLA's. He'll also have one single Spike trap, which will be used to kill Demogorgon (don't ask me why...)
I won't use cheese tactics like scroll casting on inv.creatures, or hitting them with Ruby Rays in Chain Con while they're invisible.
I will use Alcatry, naturally.
I will fight some fights using some, not all party members (others will stay in the back, to cover a possible retreat !).
I don't consider making a f/m type (blade or f/m/c, to be more precise) completely invurnerable to any damage "Cheese" and killing buggers in melee, since enemies do that also, and try their best to make you vurnerable. If they cannot, well, too bad.
I will not write spoilers for pickpocketing.
I will not write spoilers for Randomized items. Players with experience will probably know where did I get a certain piece of randomized equipment by reading this journal, Cromwell visits etc. Others will, ahmm.., not, I guess.
I will not reload if someone dies. I'll raise him. I found out it's actually more fun to be playing some battles when someone is dead. (It's the devil in me, I just know it!) If someone gets chunked, I'll reload of course. I'll also not Raise Dead in battle (I sell Raise dead scrolls, and don't memorise it as a spell until needed (my protagonist is partially a cleric after all, so at least he'll always be able to Raise dead. He will stay alive, I guess..), only after, and will do battle with the members still alive. That's fair, I guess.
I will use Eternal Melody armor and Melodic Fury ring for my blade. Eternal Melody may be considered cheesy/overpowered. I agree, it is. I still think blade is crap compared to Vagrant FoDaW + JD + boots combo.
I will use "wish" spell. Will not "overwish", I hope! Maybe sometimes..
I give every party member minimum Charisma possible. Some consider this to be "powergaming". I dunno care. I rarely buy things anyway, so Charisma is quite useless to me. Sometimes I'll make blade the leader so I get what I want.
I sell every Spellstrike scroll (I also must say, unfortunately. This spell should really be made more powerful. Is the "unfixable Spell Shield bug" the only single reason why this is to be used? It won't work against SI:abj, if something has SI:div you cannot use it since it's under imp.inv. Ok, you can. But it's cheese. 9th lvl spell, in range with TS, Alcatry, Dragon's Breath etc. to be used only vs. very few dragons so that "the infamous bug" (which I have yet to see) doesn't stop you from Ruby Raying him? Ok, enemies do use it. For example, Raamilat if you use SI:necromancy for his FoDs or whatever. But since there is not one single enemy who uses any other SI than abj or div, what good is it?! I never regreted selling those.).
I will not use what are, IMO, cheese methods of gaining money and exp such as leaving an Elemental golem alive so that he summons big amount of Coin and Gem golems, which can be killed easily once you get to somewhat decent levels, even more so with my party composition. I will eliminate Elemental golem as soon as possible, with the resources I have available, and will deal with Gem and Coins he summoned after him (as I do when playing with more pure fighter-types).
Same goes for all inf.money/exp exploits still possible in game, won't use any such "strategy". Gold will be scarce.
For some battles, I won't write everything, just a bit, general strategy, report on how it went, or something else.
Some will be described in detail, especially those which are my favourites.
Some, like Cat 9 Lives, few Liches, etc. will not be described at all, since there's not much to say about them. If you have trouble with them, feel free to ask. Just don't ask "how did you do Shadow thieves?" and such (kensai killed them all solo!!!! Mwhahaha...).
And please, don't comment things such as:
"In IA6 this wont work because...." such as for my use of "spirit armor" (no, I don't cast it more than once per member. I like it cause it lasts for 10 turns, and has great effects.) spell etc.
This is f/m/c and the gang in IA5.
Come IA6, I may (and probably will, for that matter) write something different.
I also have no "moral" issues with killing Valygar (and opening planar sphere door using his body) or Aerie. (I don't take anybody else in my party, come hell or high water. I like my party the way it is. Scram, buggers, away!!!).
Nor killing Edwin, Mazzy (ok, she's a nice lass. She'll live.) or anybody else, for that matter. I won't use their loot, only Aerie's robe. It's crappy anyway, and it's not a unique item.

IMPORTANT!!!
I consider the writings I made full of spoilers.
So, if you haven't played through the whole game (a few times), I strongly advise you not to read it. Play the mod yourself at least once (several times would be better) and read it later. It won't go anywhere, I believe. If you have, feedback/comments/critics are always highly appreciated.
Other mods installed are EoU (suggested components + multiple strongholds), Baldurdash and The Four (1st time ever to try it!).
The journal is somewhat made like Sikret's, which gave me the idea to write one myself.
Any similarities with it are coincidential and were not part my original intent. There are some, because I've read his prior to writing mine (and after playing IA5 more than a few times!). Of course, Sikret and myself have a different writing style, so you'll probably notice quite a few differences as well.
Tnx for reading through all this crap I wrote thus far.


So, without further ado:
Let's get ready to rummmble!
(all party members are custom made)



protagonist - f/m/c - half-elf chaotic neutral male
18/83
18
18
18
11
3 (we know who won't be wishing for anything!)
two wpn style, 2*flails. later, warhammers, maces, staffs

blade - half-elf chaotic neutral male
11
18
16
18
10
15
2* two wpn style, flail, short sword. Eventually, scimitars, bastard, warhammer, long sword, axe...anything. bastard, axe is important here, warhammer also. Simitar for scarlett ninja-to only, since I don't even go for Belm. Also will not be making wishes.

kensai - dwarf, male, lawful evil
18/97
17
19
17
17
2 (yes, it was a killer dice roll!)
2*two-handed, 2*sword, 2*staff. at 9th, another on 2h-sword. After that, max out halberds. Neat little guy.

berserker to be dualed to cleric - female, true neutral (I made a stupid mistake and dualed her at 8th lvl, and she was 15000exp short of reaching 9. Ah well, doesn't matter anyway. If you can't win a battle with 2 "Enrages" you can't win it with 3 either). Another stupid mistake was making a B-C instead of taking Cernd, who would fit sooo good in this party. Ah well.
18/67
18
18
10
18
3
maxed out clubs, two weapon style. Later, maces, flails, hammers, whatever. Clubs are good enough for the entire game.

sorerer, female, human
12
18
16
11
18
10
staff, dagger. Doesn't matter, really, she won't be hitting anything (in melee, that is).

These are the 5 heroes, each one of them will (eventually) become an avatar of destruction.
Onwards then, to victory and spoil(er)s!




P.S.
There are some letters/expressions I often used while writing this. This is their summary, if you have problems decoding something out.

RR stands for "Ruby ray of Reversal"
SI - Spell Immunity spell (usually Abjuration, if not mentioned othervise)
prot, protag - protagonist, f/m/c multiclass
B-C, B-Cler, B-Cleric, ber-cler - berserker-cleric dual-class
sorc, sorcerer - sorceress
FoA - Flail of Ages
AoP - Amulet of Power
TS - True sight spell, or Time Stop. You'll see the difference.
pfmw - Protection from magic weapons
pfme - Protection from magic energy
ADHW - ahm..
wilting - ADHW (ahmmmm..)
DB - Dragon's Breath
globe - Globe of invurnerability, 6th lvl spell
deflection - Spell Deflection, 6th lvl spell
turning - Spell Turning, 7th lvl spell
Archons - Shield of Archons
HP - hit points
mirrors - Mirror image
PW - Power Word spell, either Kill or Stun, you'll see the difference since I'll write down which
DW - Death Ward
Bastard +4 (or any other mention of "bastard", if not mentioned othervise) - Death of a Thousand Cuts, 2nd best weapon available to my party (sometimes the best)
Poseidon - Poseidon's Wrath Halberd, THE BEST weapon available to my party
FoD - Finger of Death spell
MoD, MoD+2 - Mace of Disruption +2
lightning - Chain Lightning, 6th lvl spell
prot energy, energy - Protection from Energy, 8th lvl spell
malison - Greater Malison, 4th lvl spell
CC - Copper Coronet, or Chain Contingency, you'll see the difference
Chain C, Chain Con - Chain Contingency, NOT Copper Coronet
Coins, Gems - Coin and Gem Golems
mordy - Mordenkainen Sword (or something, a floating sword, 7th lvl mage spell)
dmg - damage
PP - Pocket Plane
Restoration - Greater Restoration spell, if not specifically mentioned otherwise
breached - somebody just got hit by a succesful "Breach" spell. Probably dead soon.
nailed - killed, got the killing blow in, Coup de Grace
painful - a lot of reloading included and/or got hurt very badly, taxing on potions, a difficult battle, or a battle badly played if not mentioned otherwise
trigger - Spell Trigger
seq, sequencer - Spell Sequencer
MR - magic resistance
magic resistance (spell) - sometimes used by Dragons when you have a trigger-happy sorcerer to boost up their now decreased inborn magic resistance
gone ballistic, went ballistic - sorcerer at their best, casting mass destruction spells like Wiltings, Chain lightnings or DB spells, wasting and killing everything (or almost everything) not magic resistant (or not fire-resistant!), usually used under Improved Alcatry
won without problems, a walkover, easy, walk in the park, spells "doom" - battle was won with no reloads, by taking minimum or no damage, either due to the fact I played it well, my party composition is good for the particular battle, party levels are high, or my sorceress is angry
stripped, naked - a mage after Ruby rays and Breach or a succesful "remove magic". It's a wonderful sight, if it's not my own mage I'm talking about
opened, open - ready for either "Breach" or "remove magic" or something else, you'll notice what (Imprisonment, magic missile, melee attack for example)
ruby raying - Casting of several Ruby Rays on an oponnent who uses SI:abj (or not, if it's a Dragon who is being Ruby rayed) in conjuction with other spell protections like Spell Turning, Globe of Invurnerability, Spell Shield etc. until SI is finally removed. Prequisite for "breaching".
Thax, Firk, Nizi, Sal - you'll know who they are, sorc kills them solo
crap, crappy - not good, bad, useless, of no use to my party
asap - "as soon as possible", top priority
Spider, Genie - improved versions of the original figurines (I don't use non-improved versions)
running - keep something on, activated, unless mentioned otherwise (usually keep DW running, SI, stoneskins, pfmw etc.)
refreshed - either re-casting of SI and other protective spells like Globe, or sorcerer's wish "make if rested.." You'll see the difference
opened with- 1st spell cast in a battle
res - resistance
chunked - blown to pieces. A bad thing which can happen if somebody gets hurt really bad, so you cannot ressurect him.
Rod - Rod of Ressurection, an important healing device, sometimes consdered cheesy. Looking at it's price, I don't.
other buffs, buffed, usuall buffs - usually imp.haste, haste, prot evil, SI:abj etc. If something out of the ordinary, I'll write it down
gone wild, went wild - castings of a particular spell in a rapid sucession
shines, shining - a party member who is very useful
out of battle - a party member kept away from enemies
doomed - will be/can be killed easily
WK - Watcher's Keep
does wonders - works really good, highly recommended

Will start posting walkthrough (actually, a journal would be a more appropriate word to call it) tomorrow morning.

Exited dungeon, left the tree-hugging duo (Minsc and Jaheira) to rot in their cells and went to Circus. Killed Aerie (my sorc wants a robe!), bought a robe in Adventurer's mart with +1save vs.death for my prot, along with some nifty scrolls. Gov district, Delon, City gates, Umar Hills, standard stuff to avoid Suna Seni for now (I wanted some spell slots). Got Ilbratha for kensai, killed Valygar and took his body (ooops..) . Went to Trademeet, Druid Grove. Used melf's meteors and sorcerer to kill trolls, fireballed the spiders. For druids, enchantment spells worked great , "slow" also. Droped down the druid bunch near grove with malison + emotion. Only the spellcaster remained on his feet, and sorcerer was throwing magic missiles at him so he couldn't cast anything. Challenged Faldorn to a duel, which was easy to win with magic missiles and flame arrows. Accepted first Druid Grove quest, got a nice club to finish it with. Immediately challenged for leadership, killed druid without problems, got a +3 staff and a +2 ring, both for my kensai. Killed Ihtafeer with berserker and kensai before he summoned his helpers, didn't buy anything from him, I attacked him immediately.
Got back to Trademeet, got gold and Harmony shield. Dualed Berserker to Cleric.
Went back to Alkathla, finished non-improved graveyard quests. Went to Slums, payed 15000 to thieves. Next stop, docks. Took Aran's first quest, got a +2 ring and Amulet of Power, both for my protag. Took Shadow thives quest for killing Mae'var. Finished Aran's first quest, reported back to him, and went to Temple to steal amulet from Talos temple. Got "ambushed" by Suna Seni. SPOILER!

The fight is very easy, actually, since you can pre-buff. 2 spells work very good here for defence - imp.invisibility and spirit armor (spirit armor is a wonderful spell,my favourite 4th lvl pick for sorcs) givin you a total of +7 to save vs.spells, and boosting your AC a lot. Just be sure to kill the cleric before he casts True Sight, or at least interrupt his casting (TS has a looong casting time). Slow, Chaos, emotion etc. all work here. My favourite - hold person + slow.

FInished the thieves quests (killed Edwin, got his robe also. It's a crap robe, unfortunately). Got a +3 short sword for my blade, who now dual wields Arbane's and Short swd of backstabbing. He's cool, but needs to cast "Strenght" before going melee.
Went to CC to kill Beastmaster. SPOILER!

Emptied first 4 cells first. Kensai and blade (both under Spirit Armor) went to kill Tabitha, protag tanked Minotaur (buffed to max), cleric doomed Tabitha and sorc kept throwing magic missiles at Beastmaster who never got a single spell off.
After Tabitha dies, kensai and blade go for minotaur, and prot casts missiles at Beastmaster. Sorc is now to Breach him. After that, either kill him in melee or with Flame arrows/magic missiles, anything will work. Minotaur is also vulnerable to Emotion, but I didn't bother. Main thing was to kill Tabitha while not allowing Beastmaster to fire a spell (his Creeping doom will kill every arcane spellcaster), which was done succesfully.

Got some loot, finished minor quests in Alkathla. Sold stuff, and had about 50000 GP. Bought Blackblood club in Trademeet. My B-Cleric now dual-wields 2 +3 clubs.
Went to sewers below CC to get Liracor sword for kensai.
SPOILER!

For Crawler, I used "free action", for Lover summons, free action and strenght buffs. Rats were easy with several criticals (kensai ruuules!) + malison, slow, emotion.

Finished 2nd ambush (easier than than the first. No prebuffs were needed, both my sorc and prot fell down to Greater Command but it didn't help those goons much) and Harper's quest for Montaron.
Now it was time to go for Temple Ruins. A bit early, but doable. The big fight here was the Jailor with his skellies. SPOILER!

Summons worked really good here (used scrolls, 2x inv.stalker and fire elemental.) as well as fireshields. Jailor has the ability to slow an enemy on his melee hit, be sure to interrupt his True sight casting. B-Cleric was the big winner here, wasting both Skeleton Lords. Kensai did a good job also, protag and blade were tanking with mirror/stoneskin/fireshield.

Sorc died in this battle. Finished all 1st lvl without more troubles (no liches spawned ). Left Thax for a later date. (Turned out, much later.)
I needed money for Treefolk, so off we went for mr.Tazok. The fight was very easy, he was killed while trying to punch through my blade's stonskin/mirrors. No harm done. There were a lot of golems there with some decent loot, but mostly Coin Golems, which was bad since I didn't have any piercing wpns, only +3 short sword. Sorc played a good part here, prot and blade also used Vampiric touch to get rid of them fast.
Sold stuff in Trademeet, bought some scrolls and went to De'Arnise keep.
SPOILER!

Keep Viper was never easier. She couldn't poison neither prot or blade (stoneskin/mirror) while kensai (had 3 critical hits) and B-C wasted her to beyond oblivion. Spiders were also easy, again, they can't harm us. Glacias fell down like a leaf when my sorc breached him. In all these battles, nobody lost a single HP.

Greater Yuan-ti
SPOILER!

aaaah... first big problem. 7 reloads, no less. The problem was, I was trying to kill him melee. Did no good, we had poor THAC0, he was wasting us with spells. So, I went to buy some scrolls of "Secret word". Just be sure to kill Whisper Spider fast. As soon as Yuan-ti appeared, prot, blade and sorc threw "secret words" at him (he takes 3). B-Cler summoned some skellies to keep him busy beforehand, and went to tackle his own summons. Sorc started drilling down his MR. After 3x Lower Resistance, he was wide open for protag, blade and sorc for target practice with magic missiles. Kensai also waded in melee with Lirarcor. B-Cler finally nailed him. Unfortunatelly, he used quite a bit of healing potions. The good thing is, he can't cast anything if he drinks a potion. He did leave some scrolls behind instead of potions, most importantly Chain Lightnings.

party levels:
prot 9/10/9, blade 13, kensai 11, B-C 8-10, sorc 11
Torgal
SPOILER!

This party spells nothing short of "doom" for Torgal. Didn't use a single healing potion in this battle. Basic buffs, sorc "breached" him and lured the Gem Golem to attack her. Blade fired a "secret word" at him, sorcerer 2x lower resistance, others attack melee. This was crucial not to kill him, but to interrupt his spellcasting with magic missiles (he has high MR, but some mms wil get through after 2 lower resistances, which was enough) since I cannot always rely on melee hits due to rather poor THAC0 (only kensai hits him often, B-C was also good for dmg dealing). He was gone before he could cast anything but True Sight, we managed to disrupt all of his spells. Went really good. Torgal wasted most of his time on trying to cast something, allowing us to hurt him badly. Next to kill were trolls (they are not dangerous, but Golem hastes them, so drill through stoneskins/mirrors fast, so my sorc has to re-cast them.). Finally, Gem golem, who is harmless when alone with my sorc.

Sorc hit lvl 12 after we reported back to Nalia.
Sold some loot, did some very handy pickpocketing with blade and forged Treefolk's +4 for my B-C.
Sorcerer picked imp.haste for her first 6th lvl spell. I went for guild contact. Prot tanked the bride with Harmony shield, and imp.hasted B-C, blade and kensai made short work of contact. Reported back to Aran and went for slavers compound.
SPOILER!

Again, this party spells doom for slavers. We went in through the sewers. Blade had a pickpocketed a "PW:stun" scroll, and this was perfect for wounded Haegan. Being stunned while an imp.hasted kensai whacks you with Liracor means being dead, regardless of hid dmg resistance. Prot and B-C were hitting cleric, blade was busy with asassins near Haegan. Sorc was casting flame arrows, all going for Haegan. As soon as the wizard appeared, B-C went into "rage" and went melee on him, since he cannot be breached due to his use of SI. He still managed to fire a "Breach" on my prot (prot got very severely wounded and poisoned. I had to keep a close eye on him for the rest of the battle, no more stoneskins he had). Another good thing to do in this battle is summon skeletons. They really tend to last for a while as meatshields. The rest of the goons are easy.

Sold their loot, and forged a +3 morning star.
Party overview:
prot - 9/10/9 - 18% kills, most powerful Bone golem. He's good as a tank, with some extra abilities. Fights decently well in melee with clerical buffs
blade- 13 - 6% kills, Vampire Bride. Still waiting to shine...
kensai - 11 - 46%, Torgal. Main killer here. Liracor goes nice with him
B-C - 8-10 - 27%, Tazok. Very good with her clubs, when buffed unstoppable melee-wise.
sorc- 12 - she's good. Area of expertise - single tough oponnents, she has not yet mass destruction spells. Coin golem.

Bought 2x "Death Fog" scrolls in Trademeet, and went to Graveyard to kill some vampires. Tanova was easy (mirror img is a wonderful spell!). Fight with Pai-na SPOILER!

was finished with a double shot of Chain Lighning from blade and prot, Breach from sorc and kensai + B-C meleeing on Pai-na.

Reported to Aran for experience. Now, I needed some Ruby rays. Went for mr.Peeblecrusher, Amon, Pooky and the gang. SPOILER!

The thing here was, I couldn't use SI, or Amon will waste his precious scrolls. So, another tactic was to be used. Remove magic from blade, malison from prot and a scroll of "slow" did great vs.fighers.Imp.hasted (had to refresh it) B-C crushed Amon with Treefolk, since it bashes through his imp.matle. Funny thing happened, first everybody in my party got malisoned, after that a "remove magic" was cast on them, therefore removing malison.
Sorcerous Amon got held by "Hold Monster", and was put out of his misery before he could spend his scrolls.

Sold most of their their loot, bought 6 Oils of Resurgence and went for Conster, the wizard.
A glorious battle emerged...4 reloads, before I figured it out for this party.SPOILER!

I gave +3 morning star to my blade, prot used FoA. Blade, B-C, and kensai are all under imp.haste, blade is also in offensive spin. prot and sorc are hasted. B-C and kensai drank 3x Resurgence each. Blade is under mirror/stoneskin (no SI), prot has SI:abj running, sorc has stoneskin and mirrors (she doesn't know SI yet, I picked Breach as 1st and Lower Res as 2nd 5th lvl spell).
Prot and sorc ran for Conster, other 3 members were waiting at the stairs for skellies to appear.
Conster triggers his buffs, starts ruby ray on prot. Both prot and sorc start ruby on him. Skellies rise from the ground.
Blade, B-C and kensai must all attack one skeleton at the time, and (if possible) skeletons should be attacking blade. Did't work quite that way..aaah.
Conster started remove magic, prot final ruby ray sroll. Sorc does nothing, stands ready for "breach".
Both kensai and B-C drank a big healing potion (Mencar's gang has some nice loot, if killed quickly!)
Sorc casts "Breach". Protag stoneskins, attacks Conster in melee.
Conster "apsolute immunity".
Both kensai and B-C are badly injured. Potions again. Blade goes spinning again.
Sorc "breach", with a slight delay - I want Conster to remove my stoneskin first, which he does. Breach is cast, prot hits Conster and slows him. Weee-hooo!
Next round, pretty much the same. AI from Conster, "breach" scroll from sorc.
Dead-end, for a while, since Conster is quite dmg-resistant.
Kensai is near death, 2 more Skeletons to go. Conster turns to kensai. Sorc starts magic missile, hoping to interrupt what I tought was PW:kill on kensai (or B-C, she was around 50HP and standing close to kensai). One Skeleton is near death, other is uninjured. One is attacking blade, other B-C. What can I do? Decided not to cast "death ward" on kensai. He will die to skellies anyway, and I can't waste time here. B-C drank healing potion, kensai also. Now he had 32 HP.
Conster, luckily (and surprisingly!), fires a "breach" on blade, who's HP decreased to 30 very soon. He still managed to cast stoneskin.
Prot is whacking at Conster with FoA, sorc is casting magic missile.
Kensai dies, last skeleton killed him.
Last skeleton died to my B-C, she has 13HP left.
B-C casts "death ward" on herself and goes for Conster. Prot "mirror img", for safety reasons. Conster "apsolute immunity". Sorc is ready for breaching him, and he falls to my protagonist.

Phew!

With him gone, I went to Temple District to finish Unseeing Eye.SPOILER!

Nothing much to say here, B-C really shined (kensai also,he's a dwarf with great saves). Used mirror img to avoid Unseeing's ADHW, kensai wasted him.

Accepted Cleric stronghold, and finished quests there.
Did the "Fallen Paldins" and payed 5000GP for Licence to use magic in city.
Forged MoD+2, and went to Planar Prison with 4 Ruby ray srolls.
SPOILER!

In the first battle, be sure to kill the thief with Pixie dagger first, and to interrupt that Yuan-ti's Greater Command casting. Kensai and protag went to tackle the Planar hounds while the rest of the party killed the bards.
Since I wanted to save Rubys, I had to wait out for Elite B.H.'s SI to wear off. It doesn't last long, but she is dangerous still. She managed to affect my prot with emotion and my blade with "Hold person", but died as soon as her SI wanished to my kensai. Harmony shield and Liracor were both very good vs.Planar Hounds, but they don't stop "Emotion", so be sure to use Chaotic Commands and re-cast them if needed. Any dwarf or halfling needs not to worry, since they have such good saves.
Poor Warden lasted 3 rounds, no more. Didn't want to use SI on anybody, so Warden doesn't spend his RR scrolls. 2x ruby ray from my blade and sorc, a breach from prot and he's gone, before he could do anything but activate his "hardiness" which was breached again immediately.
Planar hounds were easy without Warden. Basically, the faster you kill him, the better, forget about fighting Hounds while Warden is alive and near you. He must go down asap. If he was to go wild with his FoDs, Comets, pfmws etc., I could as well reload.Kill only first two Planar Hounds which spawn when you destroy the orb, leave the others. Chaotic commands will be dispelled if a Hound hits you, but they have a rather poor THAC0 and attack somewhat slowly.

Sold loot I got there (not Ruby scrolls! I always save those.), forged another +3 Morningstar.
Went to Planar Sphere, Blade died in battle vs.halflings there. SPOILER!

The good thing in this battle is that they don't use "remove magic", so buff up, and kill the teleporting archer first.

Lavok
SPOILER!

Din't loose a single HP here. Fighter-heavy parties will have trouble here, even more so if you have only one mage, since there are 2 things to do: Ruby raying him and keeping SI:abj active for DW, which is a must for all mages. For my party, very easy. 3xruby ray in a single round, and his defences are broken. He did cast another PFMW , but sorc breached him and we attacked him melee before he could refresh his protections or cast Breach at anybody. Golems dissapeared once he hit the dirt. It's always a good idea to cast mirrors in pre-buff, since it gives you one round of safety, until TS is cast.

Demon Plane
SPOILER!

Lost Blade again to Demon there (he got stunned when his "free action" got removed), used a lot of summons in this battle. Wasn't too hard, but my prot almost got killed by a Maurhezi (or whatever, a blurred creature). Should have been more careful, they hit hard. Important thing was to use summons and kill skellies first, next the Demon.

Tolgerias
SPOILER!

uuuuuh...9 reloads. I still had Ruby srolls, but decided not to waste them here. All 5th lvl slots for prot and blade were SI, and they both went in. Other party members were out of his sight (near door). In addition, we were also buffed with prot magic energy, free action,imp. haste, Chaotic Commands, fire prot). Killed Planetar first, used "Death" spell from scroll to get rid of summons, killed the 2nd mage in melee without dispelling her (only mirrors got dispelled). Survived until his SI expired by refreshing our own SI:abj and using mirrors for ADHW after he finally breached my prot. Lost my sorc to his FoD, but she still managed to fire a "breach" on Tolgerias when his SI wore off, which was enough for 3 of us to kill him. (Blade got held from "Hold Monster", turning himself into easy target for a floating mordy. Luckily, he didn't get chunked)

Engine room
SPOILER!

2 reloads. This battle really lasted for a long while. + babysitting my sorc and blade was a must, they got stunned a lot.
It was easier than going in with 3 pure-class fighters, or at least, much more profitable in terms of healing potions usage. Big problem was utter lack of piercing weapons.
Doable, regardless. Kensai rules the battlefield even with a +3 staff vs.Coins

Sold a lot of loot from there, forged Phosphorous for my F/M/C. He now dual wieds FoA and Phosphorous, which is a huge boost for him.
Went for Pirate's Hideout.
SPOILER!

Used SI:abj, imp.haste to kill Captain fast, before he acivates "hardiness". If this is done succesfully, this battle is easy. If not, troubles are ahead, since I'll loose 1 round of casting casting on breachin him. Also, don't just stand still near entrance. Coordinator's first move would then be "remove magic", removing imp.haste on B-C (kensai was under haste), which is bad. If he sees a mage under SI, chances are, he'll fire a RR in first round, allowing ou to kill the captain fast. I had to wait out on Coordinator, since "remove magic" from blade couldn't touch him. Used a lot of mirror images to avoid his ADHWs. He also wastes time casting TS when he sees an illusion, so it can buy valuable time until his SI expires. No party members died. Went very good, all things considered. It's a good idea to give AoP to a cleric here, so you can cast DW very fast after Coordinator fires his FoDs. Just keep an eye out for HP. If anybody's below 59, DW must be cast. Or, drink a potion, anything will do. Pirates have some nice healing potions, if you kill the quickly.

Party:
prot - 10/11/10 - 20%kills, Gem golem. Has a THAC0 of 0 now, with 24 sthenght. Still, not too powerful.
blade - 16 - 9% kills, Coin golem. THAC0 is 6 without spin with Ogre strenght Gauntlets. He's ok.
kensai - 14 - 35% kills, Torgal. He gets slaughtered if golems get near him, but does great damage on a critical hit on them.
Not likely to fail a saving throw, unlike everybody else in party. Reliable little guy.
B-C - 8-13 - 30%, Gem golem. Even more vulnerable to golems than kensai (he has at least Ilbratha). Does big damage.
sorc - 14 - 6%, Coin Golem. Just got Ruby. Killed 5 golems total, all Coin.
Badly in need of money for Ancient Elven Expertise, we went for Temple sewers party.SPOILER!

Not too hard (killed clerics first while sorc ruby rays the mage, fighters go down second, imp.haste does wonders in this battle, since their mage prioritises removing defences from mages, instead of casting "remove magic" on buffed fighters), but blade died to chain lightings. (everybody was protected, but he got breached. As I mentioned before, getting breached means getting dead soon).

Did Borinall also, very easy.SPOILER!

Summoned bears were great here. Also pre-buff with prot lightning.

Finished non-improved mage stronghold Quests, got Ring of Wizardy for my prot. An interesting thing happened here anyway. I played a mage protagonist for quite a few times. Once, the fabled necromancer. I was never succesful in making that "Memory of Apprenti robe". This time, I saved the game, told them to make the robe. And they were succesful! I reloaded anyway, since Crom can't do the upgrade if protagonist isn't a single class mage.
Forged Elven Expertise (not use it yet, I dunno like V2 spellhold), and sailed for Brynlaw. SPOILER!

The wizard there were both easy, altough some hasted guards with halberds spawned in Galvenna's festhall.

Still easy.
Spellhold wasn't tough either. SPOILER!

Had to reload on those pesky Guardians of Crystal shard, got hit by wilting I believe . Sorc summoned few hasted mordy swords next time, and we killed (bash through his protections with imp.haste, "remove magic" from blade didn't work) the wizard before his spells were fired (this is good way of killing many oponnents, not all mages use pfmws.), which made this battle doable. Guardians are more dangerous than golems, but fall quickly, so kill them first). My prot used "phantom blade" spell for Amber golems, blade was now dual wielding axes (Stonefire and Frostreaver).

Underdark (I didn't fight Underwater City Prince snake battle, since I don't need monk bracers. I killed him after the King)

1.st Drow ambush
SPOILER!

Painful, to say the least, even with prebuffs. Should have done Beholders and Mind Flayers before this. 11 reloads, even more than usual. Used a lot of important potions here instead of protection spells, otherwise completely un-doable. Fighter heavy parties work better here, since Sorc had to cast damaging spells + summoning + "death spell" (both prot and blade were involved in heavy-duty melee). B-C also had problems with summoning skellies, since Drow know "Death spell" very well. Another problem was our pathetic saving throws (as I mentioned, I used a lot of potions. Mostly to boost saving throws), only kensai was decent, and he also had to drink an Invulnerability Potion, due to malison. Important thing is to kill Whisper spiders first, they've got "dispel per hit" ability, much like Planar Hounds. Luckily, they die much easier to magic than Hounds. Don't bother with attacking summoned bears and mordys, use "Death spell", otherwise it will take too long to finish this. Lost both B-C and blade here. Devas should be first targets after getting rid of spiders. Next, clerics. Finally, mages, since it takes too long to kill their protections.

Beholder Cavern
SPOILER!

Another badly played battle, but only 1 reload. Lost both kensai and B-C to wiltings barrage, my protagonist and blade had to kill the beast, since sorcerer got held. However, she managed to Ruby ray the beholder. 1st time my prot failed a save vs.Hold at the start of the battle so I reloaded. Tip: do not use any spell protections here, but do use prot mag energy.

Mind flayers
SPOILER!

This fight was easy for my party, we had plenty of stoneskins and summons to keep us alive with Elemental Golem. Kensai didn't even need Chaotic Commands, exellent saving throws. Just be sure to kill Mind Flayers and Ulitharids before any golems. After that, it's pretty standard. Vampiric touch was the main offensive spell here.

Baalor
SPOILER!

Blade was the winner here, was succesful 2 out of 3 times with his "remove magic", so I din't have to waste time on breaching him. Used "Greater restoration" since my prot was affected by fear and had SI running. Kensai nailed him.

2nd drow ambush
SPOILER!

3 reloads. Painful, but doable.
Several important things here:
1)those gnomes near Underdark entrance sell "Spell Sequencer" scrolls.
2)positioning. No matter where protagonist is, some spiders and drow appear next to him. Keep everybody far away.
I used 1 sequencer for my prot, one for blade. Blade - blur, haste, stoneskin. Protag-stoneskin, free action, spirit armor
Summoned 2 bears, 2 skeletons + 1 mordy sword. B-C is enraged. Protag is behind the bridge (approx 1 screen away), rest of the party south of him. Kensai goes to the bridge. (has Cat Figurine). As soon as we get dispelled, both he and protag use Invulnerability potions (last 2 I had, due to 1st ambush). If I use my seq in 1st round, I'm dead, since it will all be removed. Kensai holds the bridge now, and prot uses his sequencer in 2nd round. Sorc casts imp.haste on B-C, and she casts "free action" on herself. Blade uses sequener with haste, and all summons, blade and B-C go north to help my prot. Sorc goes near the bridge and goes ballistic with ADHWs on those pesky spiders.
Kensai held on for 2 rounds and used figurine. Spiders and drow near my prot are soon history, and we all attack the drow at the bridge. Sorc is out of wiltings, so imp.hastes kensai, and used "Death spell" scroll for those drow summons.Blade goes into spin. B-C fires Restoration (kensai was near death, but he killed spiders - wiltings are great here). Drow clerics go down first. Used blade's remove magic to dispel their invisibility. No one died. It was a good fight.

Boz & the gang
SPOILER!

This fight was very easy. Boz was killed first, after him thief. Cleric was the target for my kensai and B-C, prot refreshed his own protections, while sorc Ruby rayed their mage. After he got breached, he was dead. Just use pfme before you engage in melee vs.him. Mirror img will also do. Kensai finally got a +3 (+4 actually) piercing wpn.

Deirex the Lich
SPOILER!

Blade dispelled his PFMW before he could Ruby ray everybody. End of story.

Noble Efreet
SPOILER!

5 reloads.
Attacking this guy in melee is hardly an option for my party. He has very good AC, not to forget about his dmg resistance and fast regeneration rate.
Did a big mistake before. Sorc had a trigger 3x lower resistance, but I couldn't do enough damage to him fast enough. I did succeed once, but his summon killed my prot with a fireball or something. So, I rested and prepared a different trigger of 3x Chain Lighning. All 6th lvl slots for my blade and prot (prot has Ring of Wizardy) are also Lightning. 2nd lvl slots are Melf's acid arrow. Blade has a sequencer (he can cast 7th lvl spells now) with 3x melf's acid. Kensai has all fire protections possible on him, along with ring of Fire control. Also summoned some skeletons and 2 bears.
Sorc casts "lower resistance" 3 times, blade fired a ruby ray. Kensai used Cat figurine after he got burned - he didn't attack melee, it hurts badly. Cleric had to cast Restoration to keep him alive (kensai and summons were standing right next to Genie, everybody else took some distance). After sorc is finished with killing Genie's MR, we all went wild with lightnings. Prot also cast 1 lightning from scroll. For the finishing move, blade released his sequencer, killing the Genie.

Demons with Soul Reaver
SPOILER!

12 reloads (Fighter-heavy groups are much better here, there's no time for ruby rays to be able to breach them. They're also very high lvl, SI:div is deadly just as much as SI:abj with them. Under imp.inv, they're hard to hit at all.) Spells do little good vs.them.
Sorc hit lvl 18 after we gave the eggs back to Adalon. 1st pick - Wish. Got "make if rested" 2 times, 1x "hardiness". Perfect for surviving. B-C's job was to cast "Greater Restoration" as soon as someone was near death, if not - summon skellies. "Heal" is useless here. Mirror img was good for avoiding ADHWs, of course. Summoned skeletons are good, bears are useless. Used up all of the potions (magic shielding, resistance) I bought in
Ust Natha. Whatever you do, just be sure to kill one at a time. Spreading out your party is bad, due to Bigby spells which hold you. Keeping them together is even worse, due to wiltings and fireballs. Blade died quite early in the battle, regardless. I made a mistake and used SI:div on him in conjuction with imp.invisibility. Didn't go well at all. I believe 4 of them used SI:abj so "remove magic" would be useless. My prot also had no sequencer scrolls anymore. Potions which give you 50 MR are good here, magic shielding were not so good, since it's the fireballs that hurt even more than wiltings. Good thing to do is to boost up with all kind of fire protections, so it doesn't get lowered to beyond 0.
I dunno wether you can play this battle in a "fair" way without some use of "out-of-the-ordinary" tactics, it's insanely hard if all 5 Demons attack together. Kensai also got himself killed (he took a heavy beating. my my...dunno how he wasn't chunked), and I was left with only 4 big healing potions.

Not good at all, but I raised the dead and saved the game regardless.

Dracolich
SPOILER!

Had no luck with Wish, but killed him without reloads (1st time ever! Wooo-hoo!). No one died, despite the fact that my B-C got level-drained (prot had Restoration memorized to bring back missing levels, but I had no Greater Restoration castings anymore). The fight is actually quite easy, I overwhelmed him with hasted summons (skelies and mordys from my sorc and blade, they are very useful in this fight) after he finished his Fogs and Death spells. Kensai finally killed him when his PFMWs expired. My protag's job was to keep sorcerer under DW, not kensai because he had great saves. Despite the lvl drain, B-C still had some decent spells to cast (zone of air, few DWs, some skellies). Good idea was not to use Stoneskins here, since "breach" also removes DW. This was very important for my prot to use (actually, not to use. He never attacked Draco in melee.). Dracolich isn't all that great in melee fighting and had much problems with skellies and mordys, they worked really good (Thax is much worse in melee, I believe) so use that to your advantage.

Exited Underdark, killed Drizzt and sold loot in Trademeet. Didn't want to go to Alkathla yet. Kruin is....ahm.
Finished Trademeet Tomb without trouble SPOILER!

with a sequencer with a simple haste, stoneskin and spirit armor

, reputation is now 20.

Party:
prot - 13/13/13 - 24%kills, Mithril golem. Still a bit weak. Fighter lvl13 is very good, however.
blade - 23 - 11% kills, elemental golem. Just got UAI
kensai - 20 - 37%, Dracolich. I never regreted taking him instead of usual berserker, barbarian etc. Really shines here.
B-Cleric - 8-20 - 24%, Cat 9 lives. Invaluable. My favourite party member!
sorc - 18- 2%, Amber Golem. A few more lvls...

Went to Windspear Hills to kill Samia. I had a lot of gold, but also had a lot of items I wanted to forge, so their loot would help me much. The fight is also easier than Kruin for sure. SPOILER!

Used SI:conj with sorc who stayed a bit in the back (room where those vampires appear), blade and prot were under SI:abj, along with other buffs and went to tell Samia that the loot is mine, than ran back. Blade managed to dispel Kaol's invisibility on 2nd try. Kensai and B-C both went for him immediately and killed him before he did anything but removed protag's Globe. The worst here was their druid, since he targeted my prot with creeping doom. This is deadly, since Akae was after me, and she can kill my prot with only a few hits. I immediately ran away from others, so no one else gets affected by insects. My SI:abj was still running (globe was off, Kaol's work), so I couldn't swith to SI:con. Answer to that was that my own sorc Ruby Rays me, to remove my SI:abj. It seemed like the best choice, due to the current situation (since Kaol is dead, I have no more use of si:abj anyway). I had stoneskins on, so fired SI:conj (takes time for Creeping Doom to get to you) as Akae followed me, and died to my B-C after sorc breached her (him?). Without their nasty wizard, the fighters were easy, much like fighting golems actually. Blade did an exellent job here with mirrors/stoneskins and a casting of malison + slow.

Got a lot of useful loot from them, some of which I won't be selling. He he. For my sorc and blade especially.
Went for the Red Dragon Firkraag, who would also give me money. The battle was was won solo by my sorc, despite the mistake I've done.
This how it went:
SPOILER!

Sorc - alcatry, magic missile to upset him
Firk - stoneskin, turning, globe of invul, prot mag energy, spell shield
Sorc - ruby ray - off goes shield
ruby ray - off goes turning
breach - bye bye for prot energy
Firk - ruby ray - off goes turning. She still has SI:abj on.
stoneskin
Ruby ray - off goes SI
Sorc - Alcatry
Trigger - 3xLower res
5x magic missile, 8x acid arrow. Did nothing, I completely forgot about his Globe of Invulnerability. Doesn't matter anyway.
mirror image
Chain lightning 4x
Firk - True sight
Sorc - Alcatry
Chain lightning
Firk - Breach
Sorc - stoneskin
ADHW, ADHW
Firk - attacks melee with no effect, contingency with stoneskin triggers on him
Sorc - ADHW
Firk - dead

I was quite encouraged by this battle, and went to kill Thax.
This how it went:
SPOILER!

sorc- alcatry, magic missile to upset him (yes, again)
Thax- turning, stoneskin, spell shield
sorc- ruby ray
ruby ray
magic missile
trigger-3x lower res
4x magic missile
7x flame arrow
Thax - dead

(This battles, along with Shade lord battle, should really be done in chpt3 if you want a challenge. My sorc could kill Firkraag and Thax together without taking any dmg by now. But I had too much experience already, so I left them for later. Nobody uses Leather Armors in my party anyway, and Red Dragon Scale is a bit useless for Spellhold and Underdark). I immediately went for mr.Shade.
SPOILER!

Buffed up, SI are running on all my spellcasters, along with other buffs. Every fighter is imp.hasted, and protected from Magic Energy.
- sorc summoned an Air elemental from her staff
- B-C summoned 2 bears
- prot, kensai, and blade went for 1st skeleton
- sorc started Ruby raying
- Blade got strengh drained to 16, kensai to 18/97 (he had girdle of Frost Giant)
- Skeleton soon died along with Air elemental and 1 bear. we all attacked the second one.
- Shade lord is trying to remove our protections, also does a good job in melee vs.blade, killing his strenght. Doesn't matter anyway.
- sorc finished her last (3rd) Ruby ray
- blade cast "remove magic" to dispel Shade's mirror images
- B-C cast Restoration, both her and kensai were badly injured
- skeleton died, kensai, prot and B-C attacked Patrick. Blade refreshed stoneskins, but he cannot move (encumbered)
- Sorc started Alcatry
- B-C starts turning undead to blast those shadows
- Shade breached my prot. Crap. Note, nobody attacked Shade in melee. If he manages to fire his ADHW barrage, I'm dead, so I cast mirror image with my protag. Others have prot mag energy still running
- Sorc - trigger - 3x lower res
- breach
- magic missile 5x
- flame arrow 7x
- acid arrow 4x
- Shade Lord - dead

Went back to Umar Hills, sold stuff. Didn't report to mayor yet.
Next battle really deserves a special mention. It was to be fought at Docks district (nice, big, clean area. No hiding, no running.) I spent about 4 hours real-time on finishing it (reloads included, of course).

KRUIN the Githyanki mage

SPOILER!

The thing was, I don't really need Vorpal sword. Anything not immune to Vorpals can be easilly killed regardless. Upgrading it is too expensive for it's worth in combat. Enemies can also save against it. Besides, Poseidon's Halberd is so much better, and is to be my kensai's main weapon. However, I do not take kindly to threats, nor will I give up my loot to anybody. I also wanted more gold (yes, I'm greedy). So, decided to do battle with him.
This is one of the hardest battles in SoA. A barbarian would surely be good here, not to mention a 2nd sorcerer with a different spellbook than mine had. It was the hardest for my party for sure. 17 reloads, till it worked.
I entered Docks, buffed up. Summoned 3 skeletons and 2 mordy swords. All 5th lvl slots are SI, 4th stoneskin, 3rd are mostly vampiric touch, 2nd mirrors.
Saved game.
Died over and over again.
The original idea was to live long enough by summoning mordys and skeletons, refreshing SI:abj as soon as it gets removed (if protagonist gets breached, I may as well reload), mop the floor with Githyanki, kill at least one Elemental golem before Kruin's SI runs out, Breach him when his SI runs out, kill him fast, and worry about the golems running about later. Didn't work quite well. I kept B-Cler and sorc away from golems to summon skellies, and prot, kensai and blade went for Elemental golem. I could use Wish "make if rested.." if I got lucky, but it doesn't help much. Why? I cannot use PFMW if I want my kensai to stay alive. And eventually, my spellcasting will get disrupted, since Elemental golem does elemental damage. Everybody must be over 59Hp at all times, if I loose a single party member I cannot deal enough dmg to kill Elemental golems, before they kill me. Casting DW will probably provoke "remove magic" removing the buffs on kensai. I outlived his SI 6 times (out of 13 I tried this tactic), but failed regardless when he started casting "Death spell" on my summons. Without them, stoneskins don't last long, and my prot and blade get slaughtered by golems. Taking on 3 or 4 golems is easy by now. Taking 10 at the same time is not, while you have to keep both stoneskins and SI running + bashing an Elemental golem.
I honestly tought about giving him the cursed sword.
But, I don't take threats.
So, another tactic was in order.
Kruin uses SI:div, which makes him un-breachable by normal means. He's fairly high-lvl, and cannot be dispelled easily. If I use wish "breach everyone", every Alkathla citizen in Docks will turn hostile.
My blade is lvl23.
"remove magic" was my one and only chance. Took 4 reloads until it was succesful.
This time, I buffed up my B-Cler to beyond belief (Righteous magic, DUHM, Enrage, imp.haste, chant,bless.. everything, really) and she came along also.
Sorc stayed in the back, prepared a trigger with skeletons.
Kensai activated "kai" for the first time ever.
Prot used "Righteous magic" also, blade is spinning. (note: Everybody in party now do max dmg possible!)
The 4 of us approached Kruin, he starts his dialogue. "Yes, my worst can be pretty bad..."
Wait till you see our worst, Gith.
Kruin starts an unknown spell after his buffs kicked in. Ruby? True sight? Remove magic? Dunno, really. Forgot what it was.
Blade - remove magic
Fireshield is off, a visible sign that remove magic was sucessful.
CHAAAAARGE!
He died before he did anything.
Finally..
No comets will be cast, nor do I have to worry about getting breached.
The battle was still hard, with 2 Elemental golems running amok in Docks, summoning more Golems.
Sorc was crucial. Had no luck with "Wish", but crucial regardless, for tanking golems and summoning meatshields.
Eventually, we won the battle without casualties.

Picked up the loot and sold most of it. Dear Kruin was very kind to leave me quite a few nice srolls.
Safe, at last!
Visited Cromwell. Boy, was I glad to see him. Forged:
Eternal melody for my blade
A +3 halberd
Indigo Ioun stone for kensai
Equilizer long sword (nobody uses it, but it can be useful)
Wave Halberd
Shadow and Red Dragon Armor for my B-C
1 pair Boots of speed for my dwarf kensai

Am now off to eat my lunch. Will post again in 12 hours.

Bah... italian pasta for lunch.

back to writing.


Was off to get the hammer part for Crom Fayer. This battle was like a walk in the park for my party. SPOILER!

The first party was really easy, sorc opened with Alcatry and stripped the f/m guy bare naked (he's the one and only danger here, others are weak without him). My kensai killed him, blade was quick to breach his "Hardiness". As always, golems are to be killed last. We killed Alhoon before he did anything but cast "remove magic" which affected kensai only (has Boots of speed now, and Blade imp.hasted again him asap), didn't even bother removing his protections. He doesn't use PFMW, so he's doomed, to say the least. The golems spawning there were a joke after Kruin battle. As always, be sure to kill Ulitharids first. Blade was very useful here with his fast "remove magics" to get rid of their illusionary spells. A big danger is if a coin or gem golem is spawned, since he hastes Ulitharids also. If you're lucky, you can kill them even before they start casting their illusions. Summons were good here, as always.

Also did Teshal (2 rounds he lived. This is also to be done in chpt3, when your fighters get to lvl13 and you have a mage who knows imp.haste. At my levels, party crushed them before they could blink.) and Ashideena, killed the Lich for Gaxx bones. This concluded my business in sewers.
Forged Crom Fayer for my blade, finished Bodhi and returned Lanthorn.
Next stop, troll family.
SPOILER!

This battle took 4 reloads, not because it was hard, but because I was overconfident and tought about soloing them with my blade.
With some teamwork (and a lot of breach spells ), we won the battle easily. Kill Queen first. Takes 4 RR and quite a few breaches to do it. Treefolk is a very nice wpn vs.her. Keep an eye out for your HPs, she knows both PW:kill and PW:stun. I kept my prot near my sorc for the whole time (sorc was wide open for PW:stun, she used SI:abj to keep her DW running) so he can cast "remove paralysis" if she gets stunned, and her SI removed. Luckily, mrs.Troll Queen had some more impotant issues to worry about than casting PW:stun. (stayin' alive, that is. Kensai was on her.)
King isn't hard, but really lasts for a while. He's very dangerous for his "smite" HLA. Elemental damage won't help much, forget about flame arrows and the like. Magic dmg is also a no-no. I used my enraged B-C to take his Smite, since being stunned while Queen is alive and King is attacking you is a bad idea. Be sure to have a lot of "Breach" spells or scrolls for this battle, attacking them without 10+ of those is useless.

Forged Girdle of Lordly Might for my kensai. He is now a monster.
Visited the Underdark again to finish the imprisonmented mage quest for some exp and loot.
I got very short on money. Decided to finish Temple Compound party. (e.g.filthy slavers).
"A challenge? Let's have it, then!"
"Ho, ho..How bold! Ketta, shall we?"
SPOILER!

What this wizard didn't know was that he would be dead as soon as we killed the beasts below ("Death spell" for summons, kill Skeletons first, leave Golems for last). Buffed up, went upstairs.
B-C and protag immediately went for Ketta, killed her asap, before she goes invisible.
Sorc opened with Dragon's Breath.
Blade (has Alcatry from armor) remove magic, malison, emotion, slow, slow (did nothing much, but slowed Koshi and Maferan I think), 1st ruby ray on mage (Sion? forgot his name.), went for Koshi.
Kensai triggered a trap, went for Koshi
Sorc started ruby ray on Sion
Prot went for skeletons, kensai and blade joined after Koshi died (didn't bother with breaching poor guy, it's his destiny to die regardless)
B-Cleric went for their Cleric (my B-C is amazing under imp.haste, btw.)
Sion was a bit confused, I believe. He did cast something, perhaps a ruby on my prot (prot had SI, deflection, Globe of inv and Shield of Archons active.) Who cares about 1 ruby ray? He won't live to cast 4 of them.
Sorc fired her 2nd ruby at Sion
blade fired a breach at him
Game over, wizard. (this is my favourite part of battles. My kensai is drooling at this sight.)
The rest of the buggers died fast, due to our imp.haste and my sorcerer with Chain Lightnings and ADHWs.

Sold most of the loot.
Rested, went to kill Greater Elemental Golem.
SPOILER!

Summoned 2 skeletons to hold the golems for a while.
Took his first Purge without any buffs, survived under haste until second. Cast stoneskins, Kensai used Cat figurine since an Amber was attacking him.
Golem survived long enough to cast his 3rd Purge, and died 2 round afterwards.
With him gone, imp.haste was enough to kill the rest of the golems. 5th lvl slots from blade and prot were "prot lightning" which were to be cast after Greater Elemental Golem is slain, and before Ambers were to be attacked in melee.
Sorc got "make if rested" after the battle, so I went for Melodic Fury ring immediately.
Blade was quite succesful (about 50% of time) at removing Lich's protections, sorc refreshed his spellbook once via Wish. Not too hard, really.

Forged 2nd pair Boots of speed for my protagonist. Bought 2 scrolls Protection from poison, 1 was for my prot and the other for blade. Kensai has Amulet of poison prot.
Went for Vanya's first quest (Rune Asassins).
SPOILER!

Took 5 reloads, mostly due to their PW spells. Interesting, a whole lot of them spawned, much more than usual I think. Keeping SI:abj up was crucial here, their "remove magic" will dispel prot poison scrolls we used. If anybody gets poisoned here, he's dead. Perhaps their numbers depend on party exp level. It lasted really long. Finished them regardless, sorc and blade killed over 70% of them. Fireballs worked really good here, not to mention wiltings and Dragon Breaths. Sorc also had to Wish for "make if rested.." and was lucky 2 times, which was enough to keep both our SI active and spell arsenal fully loaded. I also got "Horrid wilting on everyone". My my..just be sure you have prot mg energy on. Kensai didn't, but used Cat figurine to heal immediately. We didn't use summons, oddly enough. Previously I used blade for remove magic, malison, Emotion. Nobody got affected. Swithched to fireballs, did great.
Blade also did a good job at removing their mages' invisibility. Final rounds were very enjoyable, a mind game between my party and Coordinators. I'll probably post some interesting moments of it, but have to find the paper I wrote it down on first.

Went to Suldanesselar.
Rakshasas were easy. SPOILER!

My blade was relatively succesful at dispeling them, and all they could do was fire Dragon's Breath and ADHW at us (I used only my blade and prot to fight them, since we both had PFMWs). ADHW had no effect on us (PFME), same as Dragon's (prot fire) and SI kept us safe from remove magic, so Rakshasas were like lams to the slaughter, since they don't know RR. He he. The drow with spiders (Raamilat) was pretty much the same, I only added "free action" in conjuction with other buffs. While under pfmw, no harm can he do (he does cast ruby rays, but he's only 1. I have 3 casters, so any battle like this is easy.) I lured him to cast "Imprisonment" on my kensai, since it has such a long casting time. When he started it, I immediately cast DW on him. Bought me some time to kill him without trouble.

Nizidramyt turned out to be somewhat of an interesting battle, if only due to a mistake I made (yet again). Won't make such mistakes with Green Wyrm for sure. Still, no reloads were neccecary:
I forgot to memorize my standard trigger with 3x lower resistance (5th lvl spell, same as SI, which is crucial here)
This how it went:
Sorc has Vecna and amulet of Power, buffed with Turning, SI:conj (for insects) and prot energy (which was useless, just a cautionary measure)
SPOILER!

sorc - alcatry
ruby ray
Nizi - pfmw
Sorc - ruby ray
Nizi - wing buffet
Nizi - ruby ray (off goes turning)
Sorc - 1x lower resistance
Nizi - ruby ray (off goes SI)
Sorc - SI:conj
Nizi - insects
Sorc - Alcatry
Nizi - Ruby ray
Sorc - SI:conj
Nizi - pfmw
Sorc - 7x Vampiric Touch, 6x magic missile
Nizi - ruby ray
Sorc - Chain Lighning
Dragon's Breath (ooops..does it hurt?)
Dragon's Breath
Chain Lightning
Nizi - Dead

Finished the rest of the battles with my blade and prot, who were invulnerable to Rakshasas.
Sold the loot, went to Alkathla and forged Poseidon Halberd and Talisman of greater protection, both for kensai.
Reported back to Vanya, took 2nd quest.

Party:
prot - 14/14/15. 24% kills, Greater Elemental Golem. Not quite there yet (I can't wait for mage lvl16!)
blade - 27 - 13% kills ,Elemental Golem. Shines as a dispeller.
kensai - 23 - 34 % kills, Dracolich, he's one hell of a fighter.
B-Cleric - 8-23 - 23%kills, Bodhi (Riiight..) my favourite character! More than useful from day 1 till day 134!
Sorc - 21 - Nizidramyt - 4% kills. My special missions expert.

Went to finish exp.mage stronghold. SPOILER!

Kensai soloed Steam Elemental Prince without trouble under 2x "Regeneration" and imp.haste. Posidon is perfect, perfect weapon for so many battles

. For "Mystery of Jewel Cascet" SPOILER!

I fought with only my f/m/c and blade, who could dispel Marilyths' PFMW. We were both untouchable by them, same as with Rakshasas.

Deicided to leave "Treasure in the ice" for a later point (wanted imp. Kittix and that Noble Genie ring).
Went for Gaxx. Blade was succesful with his "remove magic" on his Lich form, and he transformed very fast, before he could strip our protections. Nobody got imprisoned. I gave Gaxx ring to my prot to wear. Nothing much to say here. One point still, on why I didn't play with raising dead but reloaded as soon as somebody died. There are many battles which can be won easily even without half of your party. Gaxx is such a matter also. For example, he fires FoD at sorcerers. If they die, they can be raised after battle + you don't have to worry about imprisonment. So, you're better of getting your sorc killed instead imprisonmented.
I was a bit worried how the battle with Viper queen will go. SPOILER!

Nobody had Critical Strike HLA or Whirlwinds.

(kensai had several hardiness and 1 Power attack). Picked up some trigger spells from magical container, set up as follows:
SPOILER!

prot - sequencer - zone of sweet air, chant, mirror img (used after her 2nd fog, cleric took care of the first. Cleric stayed away from this battle completely)
- trigger - pfmw, imp.haste, righteous magic - finishing touch
blade - trigger - imp.haste, pfmw, stoneskin
Buffed up with usual imp.haste, stoneskin, mirrors, bless etc. SI:evoc, used 2 more prot.poison scrolls (only B-C was now vulnerable), blade cast "mass invisibility". Charge! (I've read Sikret's advice to fight the lesser snakes here. I think it's better than you don't. Sorc can kill them with wiltings once they swarm more easily than fighters + there's a limited number of opponents which can attack you at the same time. Let 'em swarm!)
The battle was easily won. Even my kensai was barely hurt, he had a really low AC with Spirit Armor on him and Hardiness, and Viper queen couldn't reach him, due to all those snakes around us and the fact he was behind my invurnerable prot and blade. Both my prot and blade were under constant pfmw. For the rest of the snakes, fast ADHW barrage from my sorcerer
did the trick.

Reported my success to Vanya, forged Death of a Thousand cuts for my blade. This is his main-hand wpn for boss-type monsters.
Went to WK.
Spider queen
SPOILER!

Usual buffs, free action on top of it all. Fighting was done under pfmw, so I don't get dispelled. Kensai drank a potion of invulnerability and used his one Critical strike on her, she died fast. Sorc killed most of lesser spiders with Chain Con - 3x ADHW, + 2x DB. No harm done here, never needed Restoration to be cast.

Chromatic Demon
SPOILER!

More easy than ever. Both prot and blade were buffed up completely, used prot energy and fire and did the fight solo under SI:abj and PFMW. I still had to use 2 srolls of pfmw with my prot, since Chrom lasted for a while. Blade really fights well when dual-wielding Bastard of Wounding and Crom off-hand.

Upgraded FoA to +4, finished Chaos monster without trouble, despite the lack of a druid in my party.
Went to tackle Green wyrm. SPOILER!

As usual, trigger 3xlower resistance was set. Sorc went in alone, had prot energy, turning and SI active. I won't write this as for other dragons, since the battle isn't all that different. (to be honest, I completely forgot to write it down on paper as I do with others. AAAArrrggHHH!)
Alcatry did the job anyway. Wyrm fell when sorc ran out of magic missiles, flame arrows and Chain Lightning spells and went ballistic with Dragon's Breath spells (3x fired, I think 3rd was useless, wyrm was already dead). I usually don't use DB on him (or any dragon. ok, Nizi was for plain fun), but sorc ran out of lower lvl spells and I didn't want to reload.
Blade also fired 3x magic missile and a fireball at him (Blade usually memorizes defensive spells, and I didn't rewrite his spelbook just for this fight. That's all he had. He also saved vs. "silence", incredibly enough.). Cleric didn't even bother with Sweet Air, it was over very fast.
Another good tip is to cast "mirror img". Works really good, buys time, since dragons like to cast True sight, which has a very long casting time.

Thieflings battle wasn't easy, SPOILER!

I had not upgraded Cat figurine yet to heal effectivly here. Still doable, with a CC from my sorc 3x ruby ray to kill mage's protections. After that, she was open to breaching from wand of spell striking. Blade did singing in this one. Needed to pre-buff in the area before, she has a Contingency of ADHWs, so prot mag energy is in order. B-C buffed herself with 2x Regeneration, but still died to them. "Hardiness" is a must if you want to fight melee here with a non-spellcaster class. Prot got a Wild Surge when he cast pfmw - hit points doubled. Not bad.

Killed Aesgareth, went back to Alkathla, sold a lot of stuff. Now have 233000 gold. Forged 4x cloak of prot +2, cloak+3 and warblade with regeneration. Now I had 3000gp.
Went back to WK to do Supreme leader fight. SPOILER!

This is somewhat hard for one reason only - Supreme Leader has a very good AC, and I have no Answerer to fix that. I have a kensai, unluckily for him. Went in under imp.inv. (along with all other buffs), rushed to Mlar & Hra'cknir (They must go down first), left the Gish for later. Critical hits (both my prot and kensai had only 1, but sorc refreshed us 2 times, which was enough) do wonders in this battle. Supreme leader ran out of Ruby Rays, so keeping SI running was possible. Leader is to be killed last, after the githyanki, stone and clay golems, and finally, Coin and Gems (in this order). Bastard+4 works great vs. Supreme Leader, altough he cannot be breached and has a special ability which allows him to regenerate insanely fast (diamond body? forgot it's name. Works like Contact with nature I believe). I just waited him out under stoneskins (not pfmw, kensai was also on him), and once his regeneration and Hardiness wore off, he was bleeding like a wet sponge, tnx to my blade with bastard. He might not hit often, but under imp.haste and having 25 strenght, something's bound to hit him. Note: Bastard+4 is sooooo good. I really don't understand how this wpn can be compared to paladin's Holy Avenger.
Took the loot, finished Carlston the Magnificent (Rock and Garrock were slain under pfmw), went back to Alkathla and sold some stuff. Not much money did I gain, still, because both Mlar and Hra'cknir summoned very few golems before they died.

Back to WK!

Demilich
I love this fight a lot, I must say.
Here's how it went.
SPOILER!

Buffs are as per usual: imp.haste, turning, globe, deflection, si:abj. Protagonist has also Archons and Spell Shield active.
Sorc has only turning and si:abj (+energy)
B-C has Death Ward, she's not Enraged
Kensai is under DW.
Positioning is important now.
Blade and prot went to the left, to fight Gem golem, kensai to upper right (to take some distance from B-C) to fight coin (has 5* in halberds)
Lich- remove magic on kensai, DW goes off
B-C - DW on kensai (imprisonment attempt fails)
Lich - RR on blade (off goes turning)
RR on blade (deflection)
RR on blade (globe)
blade - trigger - imp.haste, deflection, globe
Lich - remove magic on B-C (failed, DW is still on)
Both of Golems are now dead. Prot, blade and kensai all attack the Lich
Lich - RR on sorc (off goes turning)
RR on sorc (SI is gone, she's open)
Protag - DW on sorc (imprisonment fails, wanted to keep my B-C's aura clean.)
Sorc - SI:abj
Lich - RR on protagonist (?!)
- remove magic on B-C, failed, DW still running
- lower acid resistance on sorc
- Death fog
B-C - sweet air
Lich - ADHW (hurts blade somewhat (I completely forgot about protecting him), not much. kensai has Poseidon, prot has magic energy protection on)
- remove magic on B-C (succesful)
sorc - imp.haste on B-C
Prot - DW on B-C
B-C - enrage, attacks Lich also (he's near death)
Protagonist - attacks, kills Lich.

Saladrex
To make this somewhat challenging, Sorc was to go solo under her own buffs, without any scrolls and Chain Con usage. Spellstrike scrolls included, of course, since they're useless. No ADHWs also (she has it, but won't use it. Takes long to cast anyway).
Sorc is buffed with stonskin, haste, prot energy, spirit armor, remove fear, spell turning and SI:abj, all of which are in her spellbook.
Also has trigger 3xlower resistance and a sequencer (she knows both spells, didn't pick Hand of undoing) loaded with magic missiles.
Took 4 reloads.
Sorc took no dmg in the last attempt. If she did, or Sal managed to disrupt her casting, she'd be dead.
SPOILER!

Sorc -alcatry, triggers dialogue. "I just want to fight, Dragon!"
Saladrex - stoneskin, imp.haste, turning, globe, prot mag energy, spell shield
Sorc - Ruby ray
Sal - ruby ray
Sorc - ruby ray
Sal - ruby ray (Si is off)
Sorc - mirror img, Ruby ray (this is Ruby raying!!!!)
Sal - True Sight
Sorc - breach, trigger - 3x lower resistance trigger fired, mirror img
Sal - magic resistance (spell)
Sorc - magic missile
Sal - remove magic (everything that can be dispelled on sorc is gone)
Sorc - stoneskin, 5x magic missile, mirror img
Sal - True Sight
Sorc - Alcatry
Sorc - lower resistance, sequencer 3x magic missile fired, 5xacid arrow
Sal is attacking melee bashing stoneskins. He did roll for one critical miss
Sorc - vampiric touch x8
- Chain Lightning x2
- PFMW
Sal - Breach
Sorc - PFMW
- chain lightning
Sal - Breach
Sal - magic resistance (spell)
Sorc - stoneskin
Sal attacks melee
Sorc - chain lightning
Sorc - lower resistance
Sorc - chain lightning
Sal - dead

Took the loot, went back to Alkathla.
party:
prot - 16/15/16 - 25% kills, Greater Elemental golem. proved to be a very good choice indeed.
blade - 31 - 14% kills, Elemental Golem. Rules now.
kensai - 27 - 34% kills, Dracolich. Try making one and activating "Critical Strike" on Mlar or Hra'cknir. -22 Thac0 with Poseidon .
B-C - 8-28 - 22%kills, Bodhi. Doesn't kill as much as before, lack of Hardiness. Needs to cast "Regeneration" on self before going melee
sorc - 23 - 3%kills, Green Wyrm.

Didn't forge anything. Went back to WK lvl4. Finished globe machine (not liches yet). In battle against Ultra Golem SPOILER!

be sure to kill G.Elemental first, after that it's easy. Blade did a great job with Bastard+4 vs. both Ultra golem and Greater Elemental golem. (again, just how can you compare bastard and Holy Avenger!!?? bastard is perfect for golems) Sorc scorched that big chunk of spiders with Chain 3x ADHW, Alcatry, 3 Dragon Breaths, trigger 3xlightning. (this is "gone ballistic"!) Prot used free action in conjuction with PFMW in this battle, blade did singing. Kensai has -7 save vs.spell, so decided to go in under "Hardiness", "regeneration" and imp.haste only.
Protagonist and blade soloed Skeleton Lords and Granlords under PFMW. Vampires were done under buffs (Chaotic Commands, imp.haste, fireshields.etc.) Blade used PFMW, prot had Amulet of Power.

No harm done, same as in most of the battles here.
Now I wanted to do some stronghold quests (Umar Witch, Turmish fanatics, Roenall) but no messangers spawned, they probably got lost or stuck somewhere. No matter, went to finish "Treasure in Ice". Also forged Genie ring and Spider Figurine.
SPOILER!

Had some trouble with Ice due to very bad luck with Wish (best opt - miscast magic. AAArgh!. Be sure to boost up your ice resistance to far and beyond here. Those ice golems can kill you very fast

) , did the final quest too. SPOILER!

Used 2x Regeneration on Pasha to keep him alive, used triggers to activate my defences and imp.haste. Sorc succesfuly dispelled mariliths, blade Rakshasas. My new summons were great here, since they gave us time to prepare ourselves for the battle. Took 1 reload, since my protag got killed before.

Gone to WK again, did the Orc Horde. SPOILER!

Blade was really good here with singing, since it protects from normal weapons (only arows are enchanted). Lost my sorc so the final few rounds were fought without her. B-C failed a save vs.emotion at the beginning, so sorc was crucial with Wish spells (basically, I was "overwishing"). Kensai draw most of the orcs onto himself and ran up north, to take the blows, he drank 6x Resurgence + a lot of big healing potions, but survived. I attacked no one in this battle, defence and healing were a priority here.

Went back to Alkathla to finish City Gates lich. SPOILER!

Blade got the Amulet of Power for this battle, and was quite succesful at dispeling him. Lich couldn't remove all of our spell protections before he got killed.

Needed to decide, wether will I go for Twisted Rune goons or Orcus. Orcus's loot is far from useful (I dunno forge that sword, too expensive for what it does) but fight him for the challenge.
Forged Rimed Club +4. It is a good weapon, better than Hespherus anyway.
Went for Orcus. SPOILER!

Kensai drank 3x barbarian essence for 100% dmg resistance, the only way he can survive this. Used "Wish" hardiness on everyone so that my B-C can survive 2 rounds. I usually don't save and reload until I get the right option, but here I did.
The battle is very long, numerous Granlords spawned. Does it depend on party exp? My prot was to fight along with blade, under constant pfmw. Sorc and B-C were to run to the other side of battleground as soon as the 1st Granlord is killed (the one which appears to the left side of screen, to survive him my B-C had a tripple Regeneration running. Still barely survived.) The others were to do fight with Granlords. Triggers were Globe, Deflection, pfmw. Sequencers (used after Orcus was dead) mirrors, stoneskins, fireshield red. Everybody applied "prot lvl drain" scroll (not protagonist, he had AoP).Took 6 reloads, due to 1 single mistake: my protag used SI:abj too early in his buffs. Dear mr.Orcus knows Spellstrike and killed all my protections very fast, as soon as SI expired (2 or 3 rounds after battle started). I didn't even notice this mistake before, so many things must be considered in this battle. Also, keep an eye open for spell protections. As soon as both Globe and Deflection are gone, trigger is to be used. If Orcus managed to fire a breach or remove magic at my prot, I may as well reload. Blade used (clean aura) Greater Evasion a lot (saving throw bonus), and was succesful at dispelling Orcus' pfmw most of the time. Wielded Crom and Bastard +4, Orcus bled to death. Kensai got the final blow in.
Sorc was to keep wishing, + cast Dragons Breath when Vamps swarmed. All 6th lvl slots for my prot were pfmw, 4th stoneskin and 2nd mirrors. Refreshed spellbooks via Wish 3 times, which was enough. Blade had enough spell slots, so he memorized imp.haste also, to be cast on kensai.
Kill Granlords first, after that ignore Vampires and focus on Orcus. Don't use any other SI than Abjuration, forget about SI:Enchantment. Orcus will Spellstrike you asap. Even after he died, the battle was very tough. Prot lvl drain on kensai was to be expired soon, so I din't activate his hardiness, and let him get hurt. Why? my sorc was to kill him with PW:kill scroll. This is the only way he would not get level-drained to oblivion (my B-C also entered battle as soon as Orcus and Granlords died, she had Mod+2 and under a nice 2x Regeneration dosage). I could apply 1 more scroll of lvl drain prot, but had only a couple left, which were to be used in Twisted Rune battle. My prot ran out of pfmws, and I decided it is better to loose my kensai than use scrolls. Blade had 4 pfmws, which were enough. Sorc ran out of 9th lvl spells.

Took some Raise dead and other scrolls there to sell, bought Rod of Resurrection, rented a room at inn and rested.
Decided to go for the Grave Liches in WK.
The battle was won in this way:
SPOILER!

sorc - alcatry, time stop, ruby ray x2 on every lich, cast TS again when 1st is near end
blade was alone there, firing remove magics and attacking them, fighting solo with Spider and Genie like a caged monkey until he finally got himself killed.
Everyone in my party died after him, only prot and sorc survived. B-C died to wiltings from the last lich.
Had no particular luck with Wish (wanted TS+Alcatry!!!), but got "make if rested.." several times so my blade never ran out of mirrors, remove magics and spins. He still died to Comet or Bigby's I think.
They did waste a lot of potentially useful loot, which is bad.
The good thing is that my prot survived a lot of FoDs thrown at him, despite the fact he din't have DW on. His saving throws are very good now.

Went for Twisted Rune party
SPOILER!

Ok, here's the score:
You've got basically several big dangers here.
First one is Vaxall, and he can kill you outright. Not with his attacks, but with his anti-magic ray. The worst thing about it, is goes through everything you've got. Nothing will stop it, including Spell Shield. One more bad thing is: it causes spell failure. So, once it hits you, you cannot cast spells. Neat, ha? Answer - don't buff a lot, it will all be gone anyway.
The good thing is - sequencers and triggers may still be used without spell failure. This is important.
Another bad thing is that Layenne dishes out a mean "remove magic" very quickly, and SI:abj will hardly be an option, due to the spell failure.
Shangalar, as a Lich, uses "Grave silence" and you cannot save against it. The best way to deal with it is to send one party member near him to take it. If he catches more than one, you're probably dead. He cannot be breached. So, "remove magic" is in order to get rid of his pfmw. This was my blade's task, after the usual ruby raying done by my sorc.
Shyressa drains levels very quickly, and uses "hardiness". She can be breached, still, and killed melee before she does anything dangerous. Just make sure you've got lvl drain protection. It (he or she?) should be your first kill.
A blue fighter-guy (Revanek) should be killed second. Some powerful summons work pretty good on him, but he's not at all that dangerous. He can still do big damage if left unchecked.
Vaxall is the worst here by far. High lvl, SI:div, along with other beholder like protections. Also likes to use ADHW, and has "wondrous strike" which deals all kinds of damage to a single oponnent. He also has really high melee dmg resistance, elemental dmg has no effect on him. Wilitings will also do little good, even if you are set on killing him with magic. However, he uses imp.invisibility so targeting is impossible. The best way is melee. As long as he is alive, he will do much problems. He uses anti-magic ray rarely, but the effect is devastating. Has also "soften resistance" to decrease your physical resistances to around -25. To somewhat counter his Anti-mag ray, make sure every spellcaster has a trigger with prot mag energy in it. As soon as spell failure wears off, Si:abj should be your next move. Unfortunately, this battle is quite frentic and there's no telling what might happen, who might fail an important saving throw etc. (or get killed)
There are several ways of killing Layenne. She has no particular immunities, but she gets them via her prebuff sequence.
So, breaching/dispelling her is in order if you want to do any elemental dmg.
In her TS/Alcatry combo, she uses Bigbys, FoD, magic missile, Flame arrow, wiltings, Energy blades. All goes straight to your prot, whatever class he may be. I countered all this in the following manner:
positioning
Shangalar is nasty, if only for his Silence. For this, my sorc with AoP was to stay in the room where he appears, together with a Planetar, Noble Genie and Noble Spider. Her job was to ruby ray the hell out of him, to prepare him for my blade's remove magic.
All other party members are to get Prot lvl drain scroll (I had 3 left, B-C had MoD), and go to the right side of the battleground (below Layenne and near Shyressa), to kill Shyressa. Genie and Spider were to tackle Revanek and Shangalar until help arrives.
Shangalar will use his Silence soon, so I decided that my Planetar takes it.
My protag had sequencer:
death ward,prot electricity, free action
trigger:
deflection, Globe of Invulnerability, pfmw (not pfme, my blade is to help me with this one)
which he used after Vaxall's first Anti magic ray and after Layene's remove magic.
order of killing is very importanant here.
As soon as Layenne fired her remove magic (Vaxall fired his Ray at my prot at the start of battle) blade casts prot Energy on prot. Prot uses his sequencer with death ward, and moves up north away from others.
When Shyressa fell, all go for Revanek. Prot fires gis trigger immediatley.
Layenne failed to do much harm in her TS/Alcatry, but a Twisted Golem appeared right next to my prot. (4 Twisted golems spawned total). Kensai, blade (had 3x remove magic sequencer) and B-C were busy killing Shangalar, sorc was summoning skellies to hold the onslaught.
The problem was, Golems do big damage. My prot has to keep his pfmw or stoneskins up near Layenne, which is hard.
Still managed to survive, mostly due to Rod of resurrection. B-C also fired Restorations to keep him alive.
Shangalar wasn't too hard to kill since my blade was powerful enough to dispell him, but Vaxall is a much different matter. Even if you do dispel him, he has amazing dmg resistance. My prot also couldn't do anything but keep refreshing his protections, since he must be the target for Twisted golem (they kill Kensai very fast, even faster if Vaxall hits him with "soften resistance". Not to mention what a Twisted golem can do to my B-C, she knows no "Hardiness". Ilbratha will do no good here either, since Vaxall will remove it).
Under imp.haste, fighters were all bashing at Vaxall, who still proved deadly. Protag and Layenne were in a "dead-end" situation. She fired breaches and Chain Ligtnings, prot fired stoneskins and bashed the Golem, being healed by Rod of resurretion. No time to cast SI here, not to mention "heal".
Finally Vaxall died, still, managed to kill my blade, which is bad.
Sorc was pissed at the whole situation. 3 more golems spawned where Vaxall was standing. Kensai and B-C are in for a world of hurt now. She went into TS , next Alcatry. Protagonist was badly hurt by golem, stoneskins were breached.
In TS, sorc fired 2x mordy near protag, used 3xWish.
1. - Make if rested - great
2. - restoration on everybody
3. - breach everybody
Protag yells (I had enough problems with her already):
"Burn the bloody wench!!!"
Sorc fired Dragon's breath near Layenne as soon as TS and Wishes ended. Result:
- did 55 dmg to Layenne
- did 63 dmg to Layenne (she failed her save. If she saved, my sorc would cast another one at her. She's as good as dead anyway now)
Layenne - death (flew across the screen).
Mordys went wild (breach everybody) so she had to kill them via "death spell". Now, we had still to fight 4 golems. There are several things to use against them.
Smite (very good), stoneskin/mirrors, and critical strike. Attacking them one at the time is a good idea. I also summoned Genie and Spider again, to take the blows. We won the battle with no more casualties, but having spent 7 Rod of Ressurection charges.

Took 4 reloads.
Rented a room in Five Flaggons and rested there.
Went back to WK to kill Aurumachs and Ferumach Rilimanis (or something like that), from there back to Temple to finish Paladin Stronghold duties.
A bit for the party' lvls and important equipment:

prot - 17/16/17 - Greater Elemental Golem. Items : Vecna robe (I give it to my sorc sometimes, depending on the battle), Gaxx, Ring of Wizardy, Cloak of Prot +3, Balduran Helmet, Foa+4, Phosphorous Flail, AoP, weapon expertise gauntlets

blade - 33 - Greater Elemental Golem. Eternal melody, Circlet of Woods, Crom Fayer, Scarlett ninja, Death of thousand cuts, Girdle of Stone giant strenght, cloak and ring +2, Melodic Fury

kensai - 29 - Orcus - Poseidon, Staff of Ram, Warblade with regen, Ilbratha, Talisman of Greater prot, Girdle of might, Indigo Ioun stone, 2x ring+2, cloak +2

B-C - 8-30 - Bodhi - Rimed club, Treefolk, Helmet of Defence, Aeger's hide, Ring of Djinni, Holy Symbol

sorc - 25 - Green Wyrm - robe of neutral archmagi, Staff of Magi, Amulet of Spell Warding, Ring of acuity, ring+2, cloak +1

Sold a lot of loot, raised taxes in De'Arnise Keep, forged 2 more cloaks+3 and went to Hell.
(Irenicus at Tree was killed in 3 rounds, and deserves no special mention. Ruby rays + breach is all there is to it. And do use prot mag energy and lightning.).
In Hell, I took:
+2 Strenght and said goodbye to Phosphorous flail, switch to Storm star mace, which is better now
+2 to saving throws
+2 to Constitution and Cloak of Bravery (sorc gets it)
+10 MR
+20 resistance to Fire, Cold and Electricity
thus becoming neutral evil aligned.
SPOILER!

The battle in hell was not very hard. Blade dispelled everything not under SI:abj (Demon Knight used SI:div, unluckily for him!) and Irenicus was left last standing. With his pfmws being breached as soon as he cast it, and by using our Critical Strikes he was gone. Off to ToB.

Illasera the Quick (or, invisible.)
Not much to say, yet again. SPOILER!

Sorc set up a CC-enemy sighted-imp.invisibilty-pfmw-pfme on self, and went into TS as soon as the battle started, used a "remove magic" in the right place, and the rest is history, same as Illasera.

I completely forgot to mention my sorc's spell picks. (are written in the order of picking for lvls 4 to above)
So, here's her book:
lvl1 - shield, magic missile, prot petrification, indentify, Larloch's drain
lvl2 - blur, remove fear, mirror img, melf's acid, knock
lvl3 - haste, flame arrow, vampiric touch, skull trap, remove magic
lvl4 - stoneskin, spirit armor, ray of fragmentation, imp.invisibility, fireshield:red
lvl5 - breach, lower resistance, spell immunity, animate dead
lvl6 - imp.haste, prot magic energy, chain lightning, pfmw
lvl7 - ruby ray, mordy sword, spell turning, spell sequencer
lvl8 - ADHW, spell trigger, prot energy, Bigbys clenched fist
lvl9 - Wish (1st hla Alcatry), Time stop (Dragons Breath), Chain Contingency (summon Planetar), Bigby's crushing hand


From here, game turns quite linear, unfortunately. So, next is Gromnir.
SPOILER!

Went quite well, nobody died. Critical strike works well on ancestor, used f/m/c and blade as targets for mages' ruby rays until kensai and B-C killed minor troops.
After that all go for ancestor, when he's dead Gromnir. He uses Smite so it's a good idea to have stoneskins activated and cleric's aura clean to cast Restoration when he does. When he died, sorc went into TS and ruby rayed the mages.
After that, kensai took care of them solo, since only he was immune to wiltings (others got breached in the fight).

Forged Storm Star +5 for my prot and Foebane +5 for my blade, Ram staff for kensai, sold the most of the loot there.
As for fire giants temple, not much harm done, if any. SPOILER!

imp.haste, pfmw, a little spin, all there was to it. Fire giants, be they elite or normal, don't punch through pfmw.

Next is to be Undead Horde. Went back to pocket plane, forged Axe of Unyielding +5. Not very useful for my blade since he rarely takes dmg. Still, he might get a vorpal some day. Ended up not even using it. Foebane is a much different matter, one of the best wpns available.
Also forged Circlet of Netheril for protag, to boost his spellcasting abilities. Will have to think about using that one on him, there are very few spells actually useful to cast at lvl7 and 8th now that my sorc is so powerful. Perhaps Balduran Helm was still a better choice.
SPOILER!

Strangely enough, I had no luck with "Wish" during the long battle with Skeletons. Survived regardless, without much trouble. "Regeneration" is more useful here than "Greater Restoration".Used pfmws and kensai's mirrors from Ilbratha to kill the last bunch. Nyalee was killed without much trouble (I set everybody to "attack" AI, sorc just kept wishing for ADHW on everybody and "breach" on everybody. Lame, but worked.),

went to pocket plane and rested there. Next stop is Yaga-Sura.
Once again, I tought this would prove to be a problem, once again, I was very wrong.
SPOILER!

Sorc cast imp.haste on everybody in pocket plane, kensai got 2x shot of regeneration, 1x from protagonist (so had 3x Regeneration on him), usual spell buffs were in place.
After that, teleport to Yaga's camp.
Rush down with prot, kensai and blade
Attack Yaga under constant pfmw, so only kensai is vulnerable
Restoration if needed (sorc and B-C were on the other side of battlefield, completely out of the battle) for kensai
7x vampiric touch from blade
3x GWW from kensai wielding Poseidon, in addition with prot's and blade's attacks and blade's breach when he activated his hardiness
Yaga - dead
Kensai barely took any damage here, f/m/c and blade took none. Never bothered with Yaga's soldiers, clerics etc.

After the pocket plane dialogue, we got teleported back to camp, one Elite Fire Giant was there. Luckily, kensai got teleported up north, so only prot and blade were in his sight, and killed him under pfmw.
Picked up the loot from few of the Fire Giants slain before Yaga appeared, sold it, went for Oasis.
SPOILER!

Sorc set a Chain Con - enemy sighted- target self - pfmw, 2x mordy
blade trigger - pfmw, imp.inv, imp.haste
prot trigger - pfmw, spell shield, imp.haste
Both used at the start of the battle, once sorc finishes her TS Ruby raying + breaching. B-C summoned a Genie in front of us, so he was the first target. kensai activated hardiness and summoned his spider.
Sorc went to TS to take care of 2 mages with ruby rays, so I make sure nobody gets breached, and to be able to breach them.
The order of killing is once again very important here: mages (after that summons like mordy swords worked just good), clerics, fighters, Golems, Captain
Captain is incredibly long lasting, has Hardiness which makes him invurnerable to physical damage, Breach has no effect on him. However, spells that bypass his MR like Vampiric and Larlochs still hurt him, but very little. You can also lower his MR with usual methods, and hurt him with magic missiles, ADHWs etc. somewhat. Elemental dmg will also work, altough not all kinds. Unfortunately, his regeneration rate is insane, so you're better off waiting him out, which lasts for a while (has more than one "Hardiness"). Regeneration spell will help a lot, as always. You might also use "Heal" here. Bastard +4 works great, when his Hardiness runs out, he will be in a very bleeding situation, and will die quickly. Don't expect much help from low AC, it will go up to 10 very soon, along with MR, which will also go down.
Another way is to go into TS and kill him before he does anything. Since I wanted to save those scrolls (God knows what for..), I choose not to.
Took 1 reload, due to the fact my prot got killed before.

Went to Amkethran, did the quest there, sold a ton of stuff (a lot of which I've been saving from SoA), teleported to PP to forge Hammer of Thor (my prot's main hand wpn, blade now gets FoA for when he needs blunt), ring +2, 2 +3 rings. Next stop is Sendai and her Drow.
Party:
prot - 18/16/19, Greater Elemental Golem
blade - 36, Greater Elemental Golem
kensai - 32, Orcus
B-C - 8-33, Bodhi
sorcerer - 27 - Green Wyrm

Thelyssn (or something, drow with a key) SPOILER!

was slain under usual buffs in addition with free action, under constant pfmw. Kensai and B-C remained at the door with sorc and did the battle there with several drow who attacked them. Killed spiders first, next archers, blade took care of the wizard with 2x ruby ray + remove magic. Didn't even bother breaching anybody here. DB from sorc is always a good battle opener.

Lasha'ra and Slavemaster
SPOILER!

Not much to say about this spider. Prot got confused, forgot about chaotic commands. Kensai killed all the spiders himself with Critical Strikes. As for Slavemaster's slaves and spirit slaves, all were slain under pfmw, no harm done. Slavemaster is much like Captain with the Answerer sword, invurnerable to physical dmg with his hardiness up. However, he can be breached. Also likes to summon more slaves, but they are worthless if pfmw is running, and everybody else stay near entrance.
Also summoned Genie and Spider to help a bit. No problem.

The problem starts to be, as always here, inventory management. So, some rummaging through my bags was in order. You wouldn't believe the stuff in there. Memory boosting scrolls, The Truth longsword parts, Demon Hearts, Chunks of Amber, Neb's head (!!?)..all gone now.

Odamaron the Lich
SPOILER!

2 reloads. Long fight it could be, but my blade dispelled him very nicely indeed. He wasted his silence on my kensai, which was good. One bad thing happened: blade got stunned. Sorc had to ruby ray him together with Odamaron so my B-C can cast "remove paralysis" on him (he had still Globe and SI:abj on when he got stunned. Lich took care of the globe, sorc of SI). No harm done here, altough kensai was brought near death 2 times (Cat figurine and a Greater Restoration saved him). A f/m/c (or a c/m) is a perfect choice for this battle.

Cpt Egeissag
SPOILER!

Well, if you're a single class fighter, you might have problems waiting him out. F/m/c has no such problems. Buffed up with turning, spell shield, deflection, globe, archons, si:abj, I opened with pfmw. 4 rounds of complete invurnerability to ruby ray and breach him. After that, activating "Smite" HLA was enough to put him to his well-deserved eternal rest while he was stunned.

"I'm killing drow, I think."

Sendai herself
SPOILER!

She uses SI:div. Blade dispelled it, atfer that it's a matter of breaching her when she pulls something up. Her pet deafens everybody with his Roar, so you might have trouble using spells here, but there's always a chance you'll cast something. Much like with Vaxall, be sure to prepare your triggers and sequencers before the main battle, since they can be used without spell failure. Abilities such as "Hardiness" can not, so I pulled my kensai away as soon as he killed Sendai's helpers. (Sendai is a dangerous melee fighter, even more than as a mage or cleric)
Another tip is to prebuff with spell protections while fighting her last statue (thief of some kind), since that statue will rarely even hit you. Chaotic commands are also recommended before the REAL Sendai appears. Her AC is also low, but Answerer fixed it very soon.
Also, be sure to kill spiders first, golems second (with use of Critical Strikes, they really go down fast now) and lastly her pet.

Sold most of the loot, forged quite a few rings +3 (not +4 yet), Spectral Brand +5 and went back to WK to take care of Ancient Dragon. Blade hit lvl39.

Ancient Dragon
SPOILER!

I must say this battle is much more fun if your party isn't at this uber levels. Since mine was, I lost only my sorc, and only due to a series of stupid mistakes (she prebuffed only with prot energy, prot fire(blade) and Spell Shield (final lvl5 pick) - not even SI or turning). I lost my blade to "Emotion" at the start of the battle, which was bad, since he had "Answerer" sword.
Bah. No reloads, however.
The battle went like this - blade - 1st prebuff - prot fire on everyone (as I said, he's lvl39. Try dispeling that!), after this the usuall buffing sequence (turning, imp.haste, etc... kensai got a double Regeneration). Use all fire resistance spells and potions, I want those up to beyond 127. Enter lair. B-C and sorc stand at the top of the stairs, kensai, prot and blade go down. Blade uses off spin to trigger Dragon. prot and blade use "apsolute immunity" scrolls to protect themselves from nishruu thing and everybody starts whacking him melee (blade dual wields Answerer main and Bastard +4 off hand). Dragon is busy in killing our spell protections, but he doesnt have that much ruby rays to do that before we kill nishruu. (triggers are also deflection, imp.haste, globe). When nishruu goes down, kill Salamander, after him Genie (he didn't manage to use his pfmw, poor bastard..) all melee. At this time, Dragon fired his sequencer with Emotion and blade fell unconciuss (I hate Emotion spell). Sorc comes into the fray, gets dispelled immediately. Perfect. Now, she must not cast anything, keep aura clean or die. Dragon fires "lower fire res" at her, followed by his extra blast fireball. (This hurts badly, btw... If you don't use some measures for prevention, she's dead far beyond resurrection...). She immediately cast mirror img (only thing that can save her now), so took no dmg. Dragon started with his pfmws (due to my kensai hitting him severely), protag breached him via wand (no time to cast spells here, you might get disrupted, either scrolls or wands will do) as soon as he put it up. Kensai is practically killing him with Poseidon, since it does such massive dmg to him.
Sorc managed to go into Alcatry. (Vecna robe is on protagonist, unluckily for her) Great! She starts her 1st lower resistance, finished (I had set up a trigger with 3xlightning).
2nd - finished.
3rd - she gets disrupted. Tries for pfmw, disrupted again (dragon is on her in melee)
Incredibly enough, she didn't get silenced in the process. (blade has that Harper amulet and prot has AoP)
Next thing, she's dead, happily not chunked. Dragon cast "Heal", went to attack my prot. No problem, plenty of stoneskins, SI is still active.
Blade finally woke up and cast prot fire on himself, SI:abj, pfmw and went melee.
Dragon soon cast his "Regeneration", followed by Armor of Faith and CC-3x ADHW on blade (he cast mirror to avoid, kensai had poseidon, prot also cast mirrors)
This is the perfect moment for HLA's, since Dragon is close to dying.
Blade - nothing, his HLA's are no good now, and he's already in off spin, so goes pure melee. (would go with spell barrage, but Dragon still had all spell protections active. No rubys were fired.)
kensai - GWW (has THAC0 of -24!. He's such a mean badass), each hit does around 12dmg + some cold and if it hits for + 30 additional cold does adittional 20. Multiply with 10 and you'll see why Dragon is going down in this round, since my kensai practically cannot miss.
Prot - Critical strike (useless, since kensai is beating him like a baby)
Ancient - dead after 3 hits from kensai. Kensai (who else? blade?! Hahahaha..) killed him.
I never used Ruby ray vs him in this battle, since sorc was out, making Dragon's spell protections useless to both him and to my party, since sorc has the most damaging spells. Sure enough, Spellstrike would work. But as I said, this spell is ridicoulusly underpowered, even more so once you get Alcatry.
B-C's job was only to cast Greater Restoration, she was out of this battle completely.

Finished the rest of WK, killed Demogorgon via Spike traps. (Yes, it cheese. I like to kill Demogorgon this way just for the fun of it, even if anybody in my party could kill him solo without problems. I had some traumas from vanilla game 9 years ago..) Blade hit lvl 40. Sold the rest of the loot I won't be needing anymore, back to PP to finish 2nd and 3rd challenge there. Prot hit (FINALLY! I didn't think he'll ever get this level) mage lvl18... Abazigal beware now..you're next, mongrel half-breed..not to forget your dear Draconis. He's going down like a house of cards.) I immediately set a CC-hit points at 25% - pfmw, spell shield, Regeneration. Went for final 2 dragons, don't have money for Dragon's Halberd and some rest of the stuff I want still to forge. Will have to sell quite a few scrolls, I'm affarid.

Draconis
SPOILER!

Well, at my levels, I took very little damage. The battle was won using only my prot and blade, both completely invurnerable. He didn't even go into TS to whack us with his Black Blade, since his first form was very weak against us. No rubys (3 were used on his first form) were used for his Dragon form, pure melee was the way since my blade can dispel him practically without failure, regardless of his Spell Shield. When he changed into dragon form, he was already bleeding so severely that few well placed blows were enough to put him out of his misery (yes, bastard +4 works great. Again.). Sorc refreshed our spellbook once, which was enough.

Abazigal
SPOILER!

Pretty much the same, altough I reloaded once since my blade got killed. Next time I took kensai along too for the extra firepower. He summons quite a few monsters, but you don't need to attack them at all. Focus your attack on Abazigal, leave his summons, they take a long time to kill so you're better off not even touching them. Kensai killed him (he attacked once he changed into Dragon form with poseidon).
Abazigal is also fond of using his shockwave, but in this instance, he used only one single shockwave, he died very fast indeed.

Went to Amkethran, killed all the guards, sold their loot.
Now is the time to "empty your pockets". Meaning, sell every little scroll you have but leave pfmw and AI scrolls, e.g. sell everything you won't be needing anymore. I left some weaponry for the final showdown:
Hammer of Thor
FoA +5
Storm Star +5
Foebane +5
Answerer
Staff of Ram
Dragon Lord halberd (newly forged)
Warblade with regeneration
Spectral Brand (if only for that Armor Piercing Strike)
Hindo's Doom +4 (only for Greater Restoration)
Rimed Club
Treefolk's
Staff of Magi

In adittion, I had:
prot : Gaxx upgraded (newly forged), ring +3, cloak +3
kensai: ring +3, ring +3, cloak +3
blade: Melodic Fury, ring +4, cloak +3
to boost my saving throws.
others had almost nothing, I sold practically everything

Sold all other rings (Wizardy included), cloaks, Ruby and breach scrolls (there's no need for Rubys anymore. buhuhu..), weapons, some spellstrikes, various other scrolls, EVERYTHING to forge Gaxx ring upgrade, ring +4 and Dragon Lord halberd

I also had 9 barabrian essence potions, 18 Resurgence Oils, a big number of big healing potions (over 300) (sold all minor healing potions, they're useless now), in addition with
54 pfmw scrolls
28 AI scrolls
2 BBoD scrolls
5 invulnerability potions
6 magic shielding potions
6 Wish scrolls

Not much, but it will have to do.
Finished all of the left PP challenges.
Went to do EDE, on day 401 of my adventure.
party levels
prot - 20/18/21
blade - 40
kensai - 38
sorc - 31
B-C - 8-39

[LZJ]

Hi Kerkes! Enjoyed your walkthrough. Actually I've done a run-through using a FMC protagonist with a full party before. I found the Elven Expertise potion very useful when used at the right time (after entering Spellhold).

[Raven]

Kerkes, I'm also enjoying your reports so far - I like how you've managed to condense basically the entire game into (relatively) shorts bits, so that someone could feasibly read the whole thing in one go.

A couple of things - how come you went for regeneration on Warblade, rather than damage resistance? Also, you say for several battles that you just used certain party members (e.g. only those who could run PFMW) - personally I prefer making the use of my entire party for every battle, even though this will mean some of them will be in great danger.

As for the Holy Avenger v DoaTC: I agree that Thousand Cuts is pretty much superior, but I suppose if I had a ranger in my party who could use the FoD&W then I wouldn't be so concerned about forging another bleeding weapon and would go for the Holy Avenger (assuming I had a paladin, of course).

[LZJ]

As for the Holy Avenger v DoaTC: I agree that Thousand Cuts is pretty much superior, but I suppose if I had a ranger in my party who could use the FoD&W then I wouldn't be so concerned about forging another bleeding weapon and would go for the Holy Avenger (assuming I had a paladin, of course).

Hi Raven. I agree that the Thousand Cuts bastard sword is superior too. However, I would forge both the FoD&W AND the TC... Two are better than one after all, and it kills enemies doubly fast.

@Kerkes: I think a single-class Kensai is awesome too. I've found that the baby-sitting required for him isn't all that much of an issue, but he needs other characters to act as tanks of course.

[Kerkes]

Tnx guys!

@Raven
As for use of f/m/c and blade only, yes, I tend to use all members also (for example, blade would cast pfme on kensai vs.Rakshasas, he'd also have Hardiness, prot fire, regeneration etc.), Sorc could do Bigby to hold em etc, some summons... The thing with this party was - a lot of buffing is needed. I got a bit tired of it, even more so in ToB, where the game got a bit boring I must say. And my prot and blade were enough for any such fight, so I didn't bother with kensai or others.
As for warblade... I don't know, really. I just like that fast regeneration (indigo stone + warblade). It wasn't much needed anyway, kensai swithched weapons only for golems and several oponnents (usually with Staff of Ram), I rarely even used Warblade. Poseidon is an amazing wpn, all he needs actually from the moment I forged it. It would be better if I saved that money I believe.
I went for Avenger sword only once, and reloaded (started a new game actually, without a paladin. Even when I had Keldorn along once, I SKed his profiencies to flail, bastard, 2wpn style). It's just a pathetic wpn, but that's just how I see it. I'm sure some would disagree, but I hardly find mages with SI a problem once sorc gets Alcatry (and this is basically the time you actually get to forge Avenger), so it's practically useless to me. Just comes in game too late to be of any use. Even more so since blade was so good at dispelling. I mentioned this to Sikret, he said that the Avenger sword is worth it. I just don't see how.
Another good thing is that Bastard does slashing dmg, which is perfect for some very tough golems, unlike piercing. I like bastard even more than ranger flail, it's such a cool wpn. I like dualing Bastard and Foebane a lot, especially with a Riskbreaker.

@LZJ

Kensai is a perfect, perfect choice for 2-h weapons, he never misses in mid and late game. Actually, with a couple of +2 rings, cloak +2, indigo stone, Girdle of Might and spirit armor, he had an amazingly low AC. Dwarf is much better than half-orc, no baybisitting with chaotic commands etc. Only weakness is of course, the extra abilities gained with armors (resistances, immunities etc), but then, those 2 halberds make you immune to a lot of stuff.
Ancien Elven I used when I got to Sahaugin underwater city. Didn't know how Spellhold would turn out, and wanted to be on the safe side. That tougher Spellhold is not my cup of tea.
I also tried f/m/c with a full party, including:
fmc
priest of Talos
Inquisitor
barbarian
necromancer
and somebody I forgot, a kensai maybe, really don't remember.
This journal was actually intended to be written for them, but I simply had too much problems with Inquisitors.
I quit playing them in lvl 5 WK.
I hate inquisitors. I'll post a short summary of their dispelling power, and just how it is useful, and you'll see why the more I play, the more I find them useless.

This post has been edited by Kerkes: Oct 30 2008, 06:14 PM

[Raven]

The thing with this party was - a lot of buffing is needed. I got a bit tired of it, even more so in ToB, where the game got a bit boring I must say. And my prot and blade were enough for any such fight, so I didn't bother with kensai or others.

Yeah I can understand.

Poseidon is an amazing wpn, all he needs actually from the moment I forged it. It would be better if I saved that money I believe.

It's one of my favourites as well .

[Kerkes]

This is basically one issue that really kind of gets to me, and because of it, I tend to enjoy early game much more (for example - Torgal, Conster, slavers ship, Underdark) and some after Underdark battles like Rune Asassins (so much fun!), Samia, Ilithid hideout, Slavers Compound, Dragons (ok, not in this run-through, a bit too easy with Alcatry. Fight them before Underdark. I think Thax was gone in 2 rounds. Or was it 1?! ), Demi-Lich in WK is a very nice battle also (really great. Just think about about how good his script actually is.), Planar Prison is also nice, even more so if you don't have 3 mages....
Most of the late-game battles are just not as good IMO, everything is so uber-powerful, so it kind of ruins the real fun and excitement (ok, not Twisted Rune. That's always a challenge!).
My favourite battles are actually Conster and his skellies (always exciting, regardless of my party composition) and WK DemiLich, followed closely by Shade Lord (if I fight him in chpt3). Not that any other improved battle is bad, I just find these to be my favourites.
yeah, Gith Supreme Leader and Kruin are also very nice.


I believe I'll play IA5 one more time for sure, as an evil non-mage protagonist (will have to think on what to choose here), and without any custom NPC's.
Any good suggestions for party composition and protag?
note:
I'll role-play evil. Chaotic evil. Valy will be killed, rep will be pathetic etc. Won't get it below 5 anyway. Who to take?


This post has been edited by Kerkes: Oct 30 2008, 09:47 PM

[lroumen]

Yuan-Ti Mages are a hell for me early-game. I noticed that you didn't go for the paths that meet them early on. Is there any reason for that or just chance.


As for the Planar Prison. I always have the problem that the Warden gets healed rather swiftly and lasts very long. As such he keeps summoning hounds to overwhelm my party (even with summons) which makes is a weary fight. Last rundown I had improved haste and ruby ray to off him, but this rundown I don't have those at my disposal and I'm having a lot more problems with him too. How do you manage 10 Planar Hounds?
I guess I ought not to have gone to the Prison without access to improved haste and without scrolls of ruby ray or sorts. It'll be a tough fight which I'm going to tune tonight, but luckily you can rest in the Planar Prison.


D'Arnise Hold. I often try to bring down the Yuan-Ti by using Emotion type spells and I use Secret Word about as often as you described. After he goes down, it's just a target for arrow fire. I always spread my party out such that his spells rarely affect more than one and then he is a lot more managable. The Spider I ignore by sending a hasted warrior to open the gate and come back to kill the Yuan-Ti whilst he is being dispelled. When I'm damaging the Yuan-Ti, the spider finally catches up and after the Yuan-Ti you kill it quite quickly. At first I thought the spider is the key, but he's the least of the worries actually.

Interesting tactic with Pasha. I used mass cure I think. It's a hastle to keep Pasha alive, but with summons to distract them I always seem to manage.

I don't know why you like the fight with the demilich so much. As far as description goes he's mainly trying to dispell enchantments rather than throwing out killer spells. That is also what I've found in previous IA games. He spends so much time dishing out the ruby rays and remove magics that he himself is dispelled rather quickly and is damaged and killed rather quickly. Not much of a fight for a high level party.

A 401 day runthrough. That is a lot more than I generally do. I suspect that it is all due to travelling to Cromwell and the Strongholds.

[Kerkes]

Blade could dispel yuan-ti mages with a fairly high probability. Elemental dmg is always good for bashing through stoneskins, if he couldn't. Basically, I wanted those acid clubs for them, later FoA. remove magic will always remove mirrors at least. You can also interrupt their spells easilly once you get rid of mirrors with a simple fireball etc.
For greater yuan-ti, so many ways can be used. Doom, slow, malison, all work, he's nice for experimenting. I don't use arrows, I sell them. I wouldn't agree for spider, he's nasty, but can be killed fairly fast if you're not really unlucky with dice throws at this levels.
I don't see even 15 planar hounds as a problem. There are several Chaotic Commands scrolls to be found on Elite B.H., Liracor, you'll have harmony shield also. Enrage will also protect you. It's the Warden who is nasty. But I could use 2 Ruby scrolls and breach in 1 single round on him, so I think only 4 Hounds were left to take care of after he died. Another thing is, if he must refresh his protections, he can't cast offensive spells, allowing you for a very offensive (rather than defensive, which is quite hard here) approach to this battle. I find him hard if I have one single mage in party, but otherwise no. I wouldn't fight him without 2 RR scrolls, since I don't have 7th lvl spells in my spelbook at the time I face him.
As for Demilich - yes, for this party it was very easy (only kensai was vurnerable). But with some other party compositions (say f/t protag, Anomen, Riskbreaker, kensai and 2 mages) you'll see why this is such a good and hard fight : no Enrages, 1 single caster of DW, and 4 people who's only protection from Imprisonment is DW. Killer spells would be useless to him unless he removed spell protections first, my prot was literally invurnerable to everything. He did the best thing possible to him. Some might think it would be better if he only tried to remove kensai's DW, but I had 2 DW casters so he could never be succesful with that. Or, use a lot of Fog spells. Which can be countered with Sweet Air. As I said, his scripting is really good.
For Pasha, yes, summons were the key.
Day 401 - yes, travelling, and a lot of resting, especially early on. Even in Druid Grove area (first battles actually) I had to rest, since my prot had so very few stoneskins. I also traveled to Alkathla from WK for no reason, to see what I can forge and than forged nothing, sometimes I had to rest to prepare different spells for battle (say Faldorn, 3lvl was slow for druids, now I put flame arrows for Faldorn), different triggers, I rested a lot for trying to trigger messengers for Strongholds (who never spawned unfortunately) etc.

This post has been edited by Kerkes: Oct 31 2008, 03:09 PM

[matti]

Oh, nice job on Twisted Rune.

Final SPOILER!

BANG!

on Layenne just warms my heart.

[Hideous the W...]

Nice writeup Kerkes. I had to stop reading where I've left off in the game though @ Twisted Rune. Some random thoughts after I read:

I had a Berserker>Cleric going as well and loved him. I hate Anomen anyway.

Your faith in your Dwarf Kensai and his saving throws makes me want to make a Wizard Slayer Dwarf and see how that goes. I hope since he can't equip damn near anything saving throws and buffs will keep him alive.

I only hope I can make it to the end one day, I've had some major problems with some battles. But I've gotten pretty accustomed to IA. I've restarted several times and got pretty deep into chapter 6, I just get bored towards the end as well when everyone is uber-powerful.

Kruin seemed like he gave you fits so -

SPOILER!

I want to say he casts PFMW and I switched to normal weapons and rushed him taking him out really quickly. The Elite Bounty Hunter F/M/C does as well so you don't have to wait for her protections to where off. I think she may cast an improved mantle after the first PFWM so be quick.

I could be wrong though, it's been a while.

I also noticed you mentioned fighting the Devas in the first drow encounter.

SPOILER!

rush in with a sunfire if you have it memorized and the drow fail summoning them.

Time to go start a new party now!

[Kerkes]

@ Wu Jen

The problem with WSlayrs is that they'll have a high AC (I don't have a high opinion of it anyway, but ther are some battles in which you'll want a really low AC, otherwise you'll die, make no mistake about it) and they can't us barbarian essence potions, which is a suicide approach to for example Orcus.
I believe they're also bugged, spell failure is 25% I believe not 10 as it should be, it doesn't work with ranged wpns.
I have no experience with them in IA, so I may be wrong about how useful they are. They're not my style anyway.
For Kruin, my party had a relatively high (bad) THAC0 (blade and fmc) and he is fond of using Hardiness. It's a good idea anyway, thanks! Will try it.
For f/m/c (elite bounty hunter) I know she's not immune to normal, but she dispeled my protectons from fire/cold so Fireshields would kill me. Therefore, I had to wait her out concentrating on defence. Luckily, she doesn't know ADHWs...
Believe it or not, in that run-through, I haven't used one single Sunfire spell!!

[Sikret]

I believe they're also bugged, spell failure is 25% I believe not 10 as it should be

Known and fixed issue. This was a bug of the vanilla game which is already fixed in IA (the entry for this particular fix has been in the progress report for quite a long time).

Kruin seemed like he gave you fits so -

SPOILER!

I want to say he casts PFMW and I switched to normal weapons and rushed him taking him out really quickly.

I could be wrong though, it's been a while.

Yes, you have certainly confused Kruin with some other foe. Kruin is immune to normal weapons.

[Hideous the W...]

Kruin seemed like he gave you fits so -

SPOILER!

I want to say he casts PFMW and I switched to normal weapons and rushed him taking him out really quickly.

I could be wrong though, it's been a while.

Yes, you have certainly confused Kruin with some other foe. Kruin is immune to normal weapons.

Yeah, after typing that I thought maybe I was dreaming something up. You wouldn't have been that nice a guy to make him vulnerable to normal weapons.

[Kerkes]

Hi everyone!
Been apsent for a long while, had a lot of work in RL so I haven't played in a quite long while (3 months or so), nice progress I see (TS melee no longer a tactic - wooooo...)
Anyway, last time I was here I asked Sikret wether it would be all right if I made a walkthrough with a somewhat mage heavy party which included screenshots. He said fine, I said fine and did nothing, since uploading pics takes forever with my internet connection. I am sorry for that because some of the screenshots were really cool.
Ah well. Maybe I'll get a faster connection this year so I'll upload.
But, to business.
P.S.
Happy New Year to everybody, all the best!

What I had in mind for this run was - which is the better way of killing critters in IA - magery or the usual melee under imp.haste etc.
I had some ideas of some battles (e.g. I tought Thax Dragon is better of by magery. He isn't.) which proved false, of course - perhaps it is my lack of skill which caused problems. I don't think that's the problemm, but still - feel free to comment and try out for yourself. I'm curious of how you can win some battles without mellee.

Anyway, the party was as follows:

protag - figter/illusionist, gnome
f/illus - gnome
fmc - half elf
sorcerer
sorcerer

I have no dispeller this time as you can see, not even a cleric can dispel. I tought about an Inquisitor here (I'd kick out a sorc) but, no. Inq would actually be very nice here, faster lvl ups, everyone can cast SI (but him) etc. But as I said, no. Hate 'em.
I won't bother with their stats, they're nothing special, protag dual wields short swrd and flAIL, f/ill is 2-handed, fmc is going with 2 clubs.
both sorcs have 18 wis, other stats are abysmal.

Oh yeah. Some rules I gave myself to follow - 1 single casting of Wish-make if rested per battle, other Wish options as I please
No casting of Mirror Image unless I'm only fighting golems and melee-only monsters (e.g. no avoiding area damage such as ADHW by mirrors)
And no cheating etc.
forgot this one. I don't ever use Sunfire spell. It's too powerful (5th lvl, bypass MR, and worst yet - area of effect. Powerful? Nooooo...)
Unfortunately, the game got quite a bit boring in later stages (I am a big fan of early quests) but I finished it anyway.

So, here are my toughts.
and this is not a walkthrough. Some battles are described in detail, some I didn't even mention because they were very very easy.
Anyway, be this whatever it is, don't read it if you don't like spoilers.

And here's a question with a reward. If you know the game, and now you know my party, what would you say - which were the 3 hardest battles in game (not EDE)? Whoever guesses gets a reward from me on his messenger.
2 out of 3 are enough for the reward.

Did the usual early quest stuff, did Suna Seni and didn't loose a single HP here (I have a cool picture of it!!!!), SPOILER!

imp.inv + spirit armor, disrupt cleric's True Sight and voila.

They're dead.
Did Shadow Thieves, Montaron for Harpers, did Beatsmaster in CC.
Here I had to reload once, SPOILER!

since Tabitha has a decent AC. 2nd time I buffed up some, and it was over in no time, any Druid doesn't stand a chance vs.5x magic missile in a single round

.

Lirarcor sword took 3 reloads. SPOILER!

Shadow Lover was a pain. I don't know wether some disabling spells work, for me they didn't so I buffed up the AC, cast "doom" on him, drank sthrenght potions, prot evil - attack melee while sorcs throw Flame arrows at him.

He was gone quite soon.
My prot had an AC of -19 without a shield (effectivly, he was -19 -2(doom) - 2(prot evil) so at -23!)

Next I did Trademeet, solved Skinner and bought Blackblood Cub.
Did 1st Aran's quest for Shadow Thieves, then I went to Temple Ruins and fought Jailor which took 1 reload due to veery bad planning. SPOILER!

I attacked Lords first and left him for later - big mistake! He must go down first. After that, it's a cakewalk.

party lvls -
prot - 9/10
f/ill - 9/10
fmc - 8/9/9
sorcs - both at 11

Forged a +3 morningstar, pickpocketing was done by mr.Jansen.
Went to Firkraag's lair, finished all but the Dragon, Conster and Samia, SPOILER!

Tazok was very easy after 3x Lower resistance, he was killed while punching stoneskins. Having a low AC is very good here, since it saves stoneskins and mirrors.

Went to De'Arnise keep.
Big Yuan-ti was the most fun battle by now.
SPOILER!

Everyone used different tactic in my party. For example, prot used SI:div + imp.inv and stayed away from "remove magic". One sorc used SI:abj in conjuction with CHaotic Commands.
2nd sorc used SI:enchantment.
3x Secret word, 3x lower resistance, (others must cast Larlochs at him to disrupt spellcasting) after that (you think Fireball is a good spell?) - my newest dicovery - Lighting bolt. all the way. The lizard was fried in no time. Lighting is my "a must pick", same as Vampiric and Larlochs spells.

Torgal - this was also new for me. I was set on killing him with magic alone.
SPOILER!

Ok, I prebuff, enter, prot goes for golem, others 3xLower res on Torgal + Secert Word. Golem soon dies, Torgal tries to cast something but is usually disrupted. Everyone kills Trolls, Torgal gets to "Near Death" and I ran out of damage spells. Great. Now the coin flips over as Torgal (I played this battle over 80 times for sure, and I have never seen this) started summoning 10+ Bears. Luckily, I had found a "Death Spell" scroll and used it here. After that, melee was the key. It really took a while, but I suceeded.
His MR got back up again, it really lasted.

Did guild contact without trouble, forged Treefolk.

Went for Pooky and his gang. SPOILER!

One spell is wonderful vs Amon - Hold monster after a Malison. Took 1 reload still. Just be sure Amon is visible once you cast Hold on him, othervise you wont be able to attack him due to his SI:div.
Others are pathetic without him, Emotion is usually enough.

Bought 3 Sthrenght potions, went for Conster, SPOILER!

killed the poor bugger with nothing but Magic missiles. I disruped everything succesfuly. Skeleton lords vs fighter/mages is a laugh I'm affraid.

Firkraag - SPOILER!

I know this will be improved. And it's a good thing. The Dragon's behavior was quite strange. 5 mages around him, each one under SI...my my. I cast 2x acid arrow, othwerwise only Magic missilies. He died in no time. He never used his Breath, anything. He constantly tried to "breach" someone, so while one of 5 mages was casting SI other 4 were killing him.
No problem, not a single HP lost.

Oh.
Another note. I never, never memorize or cast prot fire. You have 1000+ potions of fire res in game. They're cheap and effective. Not that I spent a single one on Firkraag however.

Went to Planar Prison.
lvls and kills -
prot - 9/11 - coin golem
f/ill - 9/11 - Torgal
fmc - 9/10/9 - Glacias
sorcs - both at 12 - one Adamantine golem, one Firkraag

more tomorrow....

This post has been edited by Kerkes: Jan 27 2009, 11:26 AM

[nicoper]

My guess for the 3 most difficult battles:

- Demiliches (Kangax and WK)
- Supreme leader (WK)
- Ancient Wyrm

[Shadan]

Let me to write down my thoughts about your party, Kerkes. First of all I want to clear, you did a great job, so I don't want to criticise you.
1. You wrote you want try to decide spells vs melee. Still you have 3 fighter multi in your party. In a 6 man party I usually use 4 character with decent melee ablities (single, dual, multiclass warriors, blade, monk). You have 3 in 5 man party, it is not too much less. I know there are many enemies immune to magic, so you need some melee. My question here do you use melee only against completly magic immune enemies (even most golems are not immune cause of new antigolem spells)?
2. I think game is easeir many many times with full arcane user party. You have SI, elemental protections, melee protection. I found sometimes very hard to keep alive characters without Stoneskin, Mirror Image, PfMW etc. Hardiness can help this later. Also without SI your elemental protections can be dispelled very easily.
3. About Fire Res. potions: Yes, they are plenty of them. But potion can be dispelled easily which is not big deal in your party beacause all of your characters can cast SI, but in normal party spells are better many times, especially from clerics cause of high casting level.
4. Your party's weak point is a lack of clerical support. Since you have a triple class cleric, you will get high level clerical spells only later. Since all of your character is arcane user, so clerical buffs are not so important, only the late Greater Restoration is problem.

My tips: (assuming you don't use melee at all):
Demiliches
Supreme leader
Rakshasas
Mithril golem

If you don't forgot melee completely:
I don't know.

This post has been edited by shadan: Jan 28 2009, 08:39 AM

[LZJ]

This is my opinion of what the hardest battles are for your party (in no particular order, spoiler tags contain the rationales for my choices):

(1) Ancient Dragon

SPOILER!

The Elite Nishruu would force your arcane-heavy party to use certain 9th level spells as protection so you would have to finish it off fast. The only effective tactic Ancient Dragon itself seems to be melee attacks... I can only think of 1 cleric spell which can injure it considering its MR (cannot be lowered I think), immunity to elemental and magic damage, and incredible saves.

(2) Dracolich (assuming that you fight it before Chapter 6... in IA v6, this encounter can only be accessed before Chpt 6)

SPOILER!

I expect that your mage-heavy party would have rather bad saves vs death... though I think SI:N can protect you against that (but also means you can be easily Breached or Dispelled as SI:A cannot be cast). In addition, the Dracolich cannot be Breached, you probably will not have access to memorized 9th level spells at this point nor any HLAs, and you will only have 1 divine caster to cast Zone of Sweet Air. Needless to say, I expect that offensive damage spells would be rather useless against this foe, so it would be a melee and summoning battle which would be rather tough for your party.

(3) Mithril Golem (I assume that you enter before the harder levels trigger? Even so, I am not sure that this would be that difficult for your party but I'll just put it in anyway.)

SPOILER!

With my assumption above, I expect that your 2 F/Is only have a fighter level of 12 or so. Currently, I don't have IA v5 installed, but from my memory:

- It can only be hurt by melee;
- It has a rather good AC, so your multiclass F/Is and F/M/C would have a tough time hitting it;
- Its attack causes Bleeding (cannot remember if it strips Stoneskins quickly;
- PfMW alone is not enough to protect you from it;
- Tends to kill summons with 1 blow.

The bolded text is the main reason for my choice... but THAC0 can always be boosted by potions of Heroism etc, Phosphorous, your FMC's Champion's Strength... I just chose this encounter as many of the high-level encounters can still be dealt with using TS.

[Kerkes]

@ everyone posting

Thanx all very much!
A bit of an explanation: In early game, magic took ALMOST completely the edge, since most enemies are somewhat vulnerable to it. However, I didn't want to finish the game by practically only magic, because I don't think it is at all possible to do it, regardless of your skills. In late game, I preferred melee simply because it's much more efficient and less time consuming.
Even tough that's not what I usually do, I even fought Green Wyrm in melee..


@Shadan

I completely agree with you, melee is a must, altough you may summon some monsters.
The thing here (which is a BIG problem) is that multiclasses gain HLA's very late.
Their THAC0 is pathetic for most of the mid-game.
you'll see how difficult some battles were because of that.
For clerical support - well, there was 1 single spell I actually lacked. Not Heal, not Greater Restoration (useless practically) but - check this- Zone of Sweet Air.
For fire res potions - enemies don't cast many "remove magics", and you have a ton of different equipment which provedes it. Even with single class fighters I don't cast fire res. Potions also boost up (and therefore negate) "lower fire resistance" abilities, and spells do not if they're already cast.. so, I go potions.
And yes, this is somewhat "uber" party, I agree.


Well, I may say this -
Your're correct about Dracolich, yes, I fought him at sorc lvls 17 and could not finish him, simply impossible dou to bad THAC0, and very few Death Ward spells, horrible battle and the one I had to return again (when sorcs hit 18, not later).

Nicoper has listed an interesting (and brutally hard) battle vs.Demilich in WK, so he also guessed one correctly. However, he did not mention Dracolich.

Ancient dragon was a wuss I'm affraid, I barely lost HP's there (if you can keep SI up, pfmw up, and drink fire res potions, he can't do nothing about it. Answerer took care of his AC, Poseidon of his HP). Nishruu died in 2 rounds Greater WW attack (Ram Staff, Bastard of Wounding, Thor Hammer), so I only wasted 1 Apsolute immunity casting.
I don't know how you can kill Elite Nishruu without melee.

Since this was practically a tie (nobody guessed 2 of 3) whoever guesses the final (3rd) difficul battle gets the reward.
A little help - I don't use potions of power!
(and don't postpone battles to a later date - ok, Draco was really something else this time).
The battle I am talking about is usually relatively (actually, very) easy, and it's post-spellhold.

[Raven]

Hmm I haven't thought much about this but I wonder if it could be the Hybrid Tiefling fight in WK 3?

EDIT: Actually I guess not because you mention not using Potions of Power so maybe the fight in question involves an enemy with outstanding AC (which wouldn't be the Tiefling)... ah well it'll be interesting to see what the answer is.

This post has been edited by Raven: Jan 29 2009, 10:45 AM