I went straight to the Copper Coronet at the start of the game.

My F/T managed to sneak and attempt to backstab the guard in the prison backroom... but he was un-backstab-able?! Is he a barbarian or does he have some special gear to protect him from bs (which he didn't drop)? Or is this anti-player cheese? Since I enjoy playing a thiefly character, random non-bs enemies seems a little heavy-handed, if there is no RP reason for it besides just making it tougher.

Anyways, that guard was swarmed and killed before he could summon his mage friends for help. Is this cheese or not? If you intend to storm a room (after scouting it), is it ok to attack enemies before they go red (while they're still blue)? I think that if you are an agressive bad*ss, kicking butt and taking names and to hell with friendly fire, then overwhelming attacks on undeclared enemies should be your MO (aka Pearl Harbor). What do ppl think?

The Beastmaster and Tabitha was a huge, FUN fight. I couldn't do it with my level 8/9 party of 4 (F/T,F/C,Spellsword,Spellweaver) without cheese.. (draw BM out of hallway without Tabitha, use Valen's level drain attack). I think that Tabitha MAY do a little excessive damage for this early in the game, and she has the amazing ability to knock back opponents through WALLS AND CLOSED DOORS...

Anyways, fun stuff with my first IA fight. Thanks Sikret!

kilolima

In one of my attempts with the beastmaster and tabitha, the door to the arena area was open, she knocked my fighter out that door, hit him again and knocked him into the cell with the slave kid. I sorta had to reload after that.

It would be interesting to see how someone beats her with a low level party and no "cheese" so to speak.

Romulas

Basically tabitha and the beast master can be separated by using a hasted party. Tabitha moves incredibly fast, so if you run away, only the kitty will follow you.

As leonidas said you can separate Tabitha from the Beastmaster.It can make the battle easier.
After you have separated them you can have one character with the best AC attack Tabitha in melee and the rest of your party to attack with ranged weapons.
Tabitha doesn't have a great THACO - good AC can protect.

Also if you can cast 5 level spells:

1 G.Malison (even better if combined with Doom) and then Hold Monster for Tabitha and Feeblemind for the Beastmaster
They will make the battle a lot easier.






Maybe Sikret should look at this and if possible to make knocked-back characters to not pass through walls and doors.
When I had tested the battle IIRC Tabitha hadn't this special attack.

I defeated the beastmaster with hasted party.In the beginning of the
fight he casted G.Mallison and a F/M casted emotion that put lot of animals
asleep.

Tabitha knocked my F/M very far and ran after him.So every one except
my sorcerer went after her.Meanwhile my sorcerer was target by insect swarm.
He was hasted so he ran and casted spells while avoiding the insect swarm.

After the haste was over he ran very far so other won't be hit by
the insect swarm and was protected because of a stoneskin.

After that that was melee from everyone on the beastmaster.

Killed Beastmaster with a party of 9s and 10s MY Mage/Thief lobbed a Malaison into his hallway, followed by a cloudkill, then instantly stealthed. Tabitha and BM were both immune to cloudkill, but it was enough to draw BM out into the foyer, and then back into the slave pens where my party of four killed him. Tabitha never followed, and was left for a later date.

I think an improvement for IA would be to keep Tab and BM together. Seems silly that one would go off and leave the other. Is there someway to do this via scripting?

Not through "walls" for sure (tested), but yes she throws enemies through some of the closed doors and this is a problem with the structrue of that area (EDIT: this problem is fully solved in IA v4.2).

You are welcome.

It's certainly doable. Just tested the battle without dividing them and it was doable and not too difficult. It was more challenging and even more fun. So, it is recommended that players do this battle without separating them for maximum enjoyment and satisfaction. For the next version, I will make them fight together and not to be separable from each other. Thanks for suggesting this improvement.