Thank you, Sikret!

I have finally gotten around to playing Improved Anvil, and wow, I'm stunned. The mod really makes the game feel fresh and fun... and so excruciatingly difficult. No, I'm not complaining, after all difficulty's what I've been looking for. I'm truly impressed with the improved AI and the new scripts: now it seems like the enemies actually know what they are doing. Most of the battles which used to be cakewalk are at least moderately challenging now. Generally speaking I'm very happy with Improved Anvil.

The first "between area"-battle (the one with Suna-Seni and Eldarin) was especially memorable. I only had four members in my party and hardly any equipment, yet I managed to beat them on the first try. Monster summoning is a really underestimated spell: with haste and defensive harmony even those puny dire wolves can wreak some serious havoc. The sewer encounter (Hatchetman) was a little more difficult but didn't take too many reloads either. I then started the Planar Prison quest but ended up postponing it because of the new elite bounty huntress who kept ripping my lowbie party to shreds regardless of what I tried. After some aimless estate plundering I concluded my day with the beastmaster and the slavers in the Slums.

Even though no battle is easy in IA, I find mages (especially higher level ones) extremely difficult to beat. Am I missing something or is Spell Immunity: Abjuration really unremovable? Every counter-protection spell out there (Breach, Spell Thrust, Pierce Magic, Dispel & Remove Magic etc.) seems to be of that spell school so there's practically no way to touch the mage until the immunity expires. The only way I've managed to beat them is to cast every possible protection on my party, then circle the spellchucker as long as his/her protections last. Now, I'm 99% certain that you are not intended to fight them that way, so... What am I doing wrong?

So in the infinite wisdom of this mod the combination of spell immunity abjuration and spell shield is only removeable by spells like ruby ray, which is not an abjuration spell and it will take the spell shield down, actually you need two of these spells, first for the spell shield and then for spell immunity, then the rest fall with breach and so forth. Unfortuneately, someone forgot that you don't get that spell till you are 14th or 16th level( its a 7th or 8th level spell, can't remember).

So yes, the tactic of waiting till their spells wear off which ia tries to disuade you from using actually forces you to use it by putting the means to overcome it at such a high level.

Romulas

hmm, sounds hard!

Maybe arrows of dispelling?

Ruby ray and khelbin's are level 7 mage spells.

I know how you feel. The first few tough mage fights simply decimated my team. Took me a while to figure out that I simply couldnt take down their protections with anything I had.

But there is a solution. Best approach Ive found is to beef up fire protection and send your fighters in to whack away at them once their protection from magical weapons goes down. Standing back and trying to trade spells with them using a low level mage is simply suicide. And the old strategy of sending wave after wave of summons to deal with them, while hiding around the corner, doesnt work very well anymore....they know the strategy. They quickly kill the summons (death spell) and come after you, hehe, and the door behind you has been locked.

Seens they almost always have fire shields (red, but sometimes blue), so elemental protections are necessary for the melee....but there are lots of elemental protection potions around, as well as low level elemental protection spells. Throw in some free action and chaotic commands, and the melee can take em down quite effectively.

The blade barriers, on the other hand, really hurt, and need good armor rating. But the blade barriers are usually on clerics, who are generally easier and less threatening than the mages.

Thanks for the feedback, Ballad!
And thanks for your helpful posts, everyone!
Yes, SI:abjuration is fixed to give protection against all abjuration spells. Ruby Ray of Reversal is the only spell which will work against it, because as Romulas mentioned, it's not an abjuration spell. The Holy Avenger (Improved Carsomyr) can also remove it (15% chance per successful hit).
@nataben
There are no arrows of dispelling in the game. See the readme.

@Ballad

I am glad you are enjoying the mod
As for Mages of IA, Romulas explained very well how it works.

SI:Abjuration can be brought down only by Ruby Ray.
Spell Shield can be removed even by a single Magic Missile, but since enemy mages have usually other protections like Globe of Invulnerability, S.Turning or S.Trap they will be blocked.

So the best way is to use multiple Ruby Rays in order to remove their protections.

At low levels things are pretty difficult against enemy Mages and the melee approach (with a bit of micromanagement) seems to be the most effective.
Protection from elemental dmg (and PfMagic dmg later), can help a lot.
Death Ward (mainly on your party mage) and Chaotic Commands are also extremely useful.

Also since enemies use Remove Magic a lot, sending a character with SI:Abjuration against them first is a good tactic. That's why F/Ms are very useful in a party.

And summons are not totally useless since the enemy doesn't have infinite Death spells.

Yes, a wand of monster summoning can be helpful in some cases, though some of the smarter enemy mages are coded to reserve one or two Death Spells to cast them only on your stronger summoned creatures.

This is a good point, Romulas!

Most mages in the early stages of the game used to use SI:Divination +Improved Invisibility in IA v3. I changed some of them to use SI:abjuration instead, but I guess I have gone a bit too far. In IA v5, I will probably change back some of them to use the previous tactics. For now, try to enjoy those battles as they are. I'm sure your mage will hit level 14 soon enough to cast reversal spells.

Yes, I would agree that the constant use of SI:abjuration is somewhat overdone. Even when you get your ruby rays at level 14, it forces you into a single tactic to deal with the mage bosses. Right now, all my level 7 spell slots are filled with ruby rays.

I would prefer a more diversified gameplay, where you dont really know what to expect from these mages. Give them a variety of Spell Immunities.

What would really be interesting is if their spell selections could be randomized for a given game, as you have done with the items. Then the tactics used in one game for a given boss might not work in the next game. Not sure if this is even possible, or worth the trouble, however.

Great Mod Sikret...congratulations. Its a helluva lot of fun.

Its amazing how much easier things get when you get to 12 or 13th level, the fighters actually start to hit something and mages/sorcerers have enough spells to do some things.

I have two sorcerers in my party and it makes a difference at that level, On some of the battle tank monsters with magic resistance casting lower resistance 2 at a time helps, even if one of them is absorbed by something. Then my sorcerers are able to contribute to the battle by causing some damage.

The trick is to get them to that level in one piece. I have finished most of the plain quests and just finished the slavers ship and nalias keep. It took about 4 tries but I finally for the first time waxed that greater yuan ti in the keep courtyard, what a tough fight even for my party and level.

A question for sikret, what do you think about changing the feeblemind spell to duration for the following reason. If you fail your save your character, usually a fighter tank is immobile and useless, and if you are not high enough level to overcome it with dispell magic there is really nothing left to do but get rid of the character or reload. I know the real tactic to use is 2 potions of clarity but not everyone is able to get those so early, it just seems it would give a couple different ways of surviving the battle than just one.

Now off to the planar sphere, I tried it earlier but those blankity blank halflings kicked my tail out of the sphere, might need help on those.

Romulas

Chaotic Commands, Potions of Invulnerability, Potions of Stone form and Potions of Magic Shielding (but keep these for later ), all of them can protect from Feeblemind.

No need to tweak the spell IMO.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I, too, think that SI: Abjuration is a little too overpowered in its current form. Also, every mage shouldn't have it. The mage that has caused me the most pain so far is the improved Slave Wizard in the slaver ship building. I think it's pretty safe to say that Irenicus is easier to beat in the unmodded game.

Speaking of the slave ship building, I think it's way overdone (fun nevertheless, just horribly frustrating at the same time). First, the assassins that keep appearing out of nowhere are a godawful pain in the backside. I've always hated infinitely respawning mobs and thought it was unrealistic. I mean, how many assassins can one ship hold? 100, 1000, 10000? And why don't they give any exp? They really aren't that easy to kill... Also, why does the door slam shut behind you? Is there a logical reason for it? Now, I could live with the door if you were allowed to rest inside the ship, but you are not. That's really a problem since the constantly popping assassins drain your spells and health really, really fast. The worst of all is the new Slaver Wizard which I already mentioned above. To a low lever party (yes, the quest is intended for relatively low level characters) he's next to impossible. SI:Abjuration prevents you from doing anything at all. Your best bet is to play hide and seek until his protections wear off. Of course, the rapidly spawning assassins make this tactic a lot harder than what you could think. Last but not least, why is the slave golem only vulnerable to piercing weapons? The halberd+1 doesn't help much if you don't have any proficiency points in it. When I first encountered the beast, I didn't really have any other piercing weapons on me (apart from Jan's crossbow bolts). Needless to say, I got my ass handed to me.

Yeh, I am also having great difficulty in accumulating XP enough to effectively battle the new encounters. I've followed the advice of Sikret and thetruth and done most of the quests that aren't improved. These battles simply prove to me that it is very difficult for an 8-11th level party to take down mage/clerics of apx 20th level, particularly as they are usually with a group - even sometimes with a gem golem (aarrgh). I guess it's not so hard in the normal game, but Sikret tends to buff his guys like I try to buff mine before a character-known upcoming battle.

I'm disappointed because I am discovering many parts of quests that are too difficult for me at present. I'm building a long list of "return and do that after the underdark." That kind of thing destroys role playing and makes the game just a tactical puzzle. I'm hoping with enough character levels this will change. If tactics is all that's desired, it's hard to beat chess.

I'm looking forward to the walkthrough. I'm sure I will be kicking myself with "why didn't I think of that." Meanwhile, I'm just doing the best that I can. My previous experience with IA3 gives me hope that things will get easier once my characters gain a few more levels.

Questions for Sikret:

I forged FoA - or so the readout indicated - but I did not get FoA. I also have an extra cold head for some reason. What's up with that?

I think I have IA 4.0. How do I know for sure? If that's the case, can I unload IA 4.0, load up IA 4.1, and continue my game?

rbeverir. see this thread

http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?showtopic=2656

I don't know whether to be scared or excited with all this I keep hearing!

Of course I'm going to play until I encounter these difficulties myself to know for sure, but I am really scared that this mod might simply end up being too hard for me. The combination of all the good weapons being either nerfed, or requiring tens (or even houndreds) of thousands of gold and extremely difficult to aquire components, all the early good weapons being taken from stores and placed in randomized difficult encounters, stealing from stores made impossible, magic doors, hit and run tactics, summons, invisibility, and many other tactics rendered useless or at least much less useful... all that combined with the fact that I'm not a perfect tactical player and my idea of fun isn't reloading over and over and over and over... well lets just say I'm really scared! I still have a good ways to go on the "untouched" quests though, so it will be a bit before I can face the craziness

One thing, however, compensates this level of difficulty (at least to some extent) and that's the fact that you and your enemies are playing the game with the same rules. I mean you can also use SI:abjuration + spellShield as pre-buffs and low level enemies will have the same difficulties to remove your protections.

Also, note that even the other protective method (i.e. SI:divination + Imp. Invisibility) is not really too easy to overcome. Only Remove/Dispel magic can dispel the inivisiblity and (without an inquisitor in your party) your low level spellcasters will not have much chance. Needless to add that while the mage's invisibility is not dispelled, you won't be able to target him/her with spells (such as Breach) which target a creature rather than an area.

In short, while your party is low level the game will be difficult, no matter how the enemy mages choose their protective buffs.


This is done to some extent with "Death Lords" (= one of the mod's new types of monsters).


Thank you. I'm glad you are enjoying it.

He is a 14th level mage and his collection of memorized spells doesn't go beyond the number of spells a 14th level mage can legally memorize. He just uses a good combat script and behaves intelligently. He doesn't do anything which your own 14th level mage cannot do. If he behaves better than Irenicus in the unmodded game, it's just because he utilizes his spells and abilities in a good way.


For every 7 rounds you waste time inside the ship, one assassin will come to attack you. Seven rounds in the game is equalt to 42 seconds (Real Time). Hence, if you waste time or stay inside the ship for 7 minutes (Real Time), you will see 10 assassins. In order to see 10,000 assassins, you should have stayed inside the ship (without killing Haegan and his party) for 7000 minutes (Real Time) and in order to see 1000 assassins you should have wasted time for 700 minutes (Real Time). 7000 minutes is equal to about 116 hours (Real Time) and 700 minutes is about more than 11 hours (Real Time).

Needless to add that wasting so much time during the battle is cheesy and the assassin spawning program was exactly an anti-cheese precaution. If you fight normally without killing time, you will not see more than 30 -50 assassins which is a reasonable number for being hidden inside a ship.



Beccause players could use the cheesy way to stay idle for killing more assassins to gain extra XP. The additional XP for the increased difficulty is actually added to Captain Haegan and other people inside the ship (to compensate the additional diffculty the assassins will cause).



It seems to me logical that a slaver gang could have set the proper mechanism to shut the door behind intruders. Use imagination and you will find justification for all such cases, IMO.

They give great many healing potions

Yes, each assassin carries one extra healing potion. If you can kill them quickly before they use their potions, you can collect those potions and it is your right if you can kill them fast enough.

And it is possible to rest in there. My party took several needed rests. After you kill one assassin you can rest up. An assassin will spawn in your midst after you finish, but only one. The eight hour rest does not spawn 20 assassins, nor do they interrupt your rest, so its not so bad.

Are you sure?! What is the base number of bad guys? I had a stack of assassins so deep, it took a shovel to sort through the treasure - most of which I left. Any way, it seemed they were appearing from hiding 1/4 seconds real time in my game (using 4.1 now). That quadruple damage hurts! Any way, I didn't wait around in any combat; I took them down as quickly as I could manage - not as quick as I would have liked vs the uber cleric, uber wizard, and fast chopping captain. Does this timer depend on computer speed? I'm operating on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 at 3100 MHz if that matters.

One assassin per 7 rounds is for the times you are idle inside the ship. When you are engaged in actual combat, the rate doubles. Once you kill Haegan and his party, the rate will drop to zero and assassins will not come anymore.

i tried improved invisibility + SI:divination against Suna Seni's party but it didn't work as i hopped. Fighters don't see me but cleric and mage can. To be more accurate, they can't cast spells directly on me like magic missiles but cleric always cast great order and it's a pain in the ass. This i can understand it's like then can feel a presence. But what really annoys me is that they FOLLOW me if i retreat. Plus, if i try to cast a spell, the hole party can see me and i get whacked in less than 5 seconds. Shouldn't improved invisibility allow you to remain invisible?

Maybe i should add that i played with my sorcerer alone. Finally the good tactic was SI:enchantments + emotions reloaded many times so everyone miss its saving throw...

Wonderful mod anyway... much fun but lot of frustration too. Pocket's plane is driving me crazy...

Not exactly. After cast or attack you are still partially invisible and can't be targeted by enemy spellcaster, but melee fighters and archers can hit you (although you get +4 bonus to save throws and enemies get -4 the penalty to attack)

There's a large number of encounters in IA 4.2 that are impossible solo.

None of them can see invisible.



This is not true either. Greater Command is also one of those spells (similar to Magic Missile) which cannot be cast even on partially visible characters (let alone on invisible ones). I just checked their cleric's script and I'm sure that he would not cast it if he fails to find a fully visible target.



Glad to hear that you have fun with the mod.

Ah, but greater commands is an area of effect spell, so is it possible for the caster to target another and catch the person with the mentioned protections in the area of effect?

Some items and spells that the party uses have been "nerfed" to allow for greater balance. I think that this spell (greater commands) is what makes the game so difficult in the lower levels, you have bad saving throws and your entire party can be put to sleep, especially for those staged encounters that puts your party in bad/close in quarters.

If I remember right in the battle with suni that occurs at a low level it was a luck of the roll vs. any tactics involved. Because of the encounter you pretty much have to reload till someone finally makes a saving throw. Not much tactics involved in my opinion.

Romulas

Eh, that's not quite true. Everyone in your party doesn't have to get hit by greater command, just the party member closest to the cleric.

So you can move one party member you don't like so he's right in his face, and move the rest of your party away. That way only one guy gets put to sleep (or none if you have a lvl 9 cleric, which you probably should).

Hi,

should be a bug: my Elfchar constantly falls in (command-spell)sleep.

Unfortunately immunity to sleep for elves was never implemented in the game.


About Suna Seni's battle, like leonidas said, you can have your character with the best s.throws (or with C.Commands) as a decoy and this way you can avoid the effect of G.Command.
Besides enemies do not attack unconscious characters if another party member is in their sight.

Command is different from sleep, I gather, even though they have the same debuff icon.

Not complaining in the least but this made me chuckle slightly.


Perhaps if it were a thieves or assassins guild, but to have that many hidden people in a building that's supposed to be doing slave operations is pretty funny xD

I mean, that's A LOT Of ninjas to hire for security! I think small well armored, or even just medium groups of reinforcements coming from the main entrance would work as well to prevent anti-cheese.

The numbers 30-50 were certainly results of a miscalculation of mine. If you play normally and without wasting time, you will not probably see more than 15-20 assassins in that area. (I don't know how I had calculated those big numbers. )

Yes, but i thought the difference is that it affects higher hd creatures, and not that it isn't "sleep". On the other hand, iirc sleep is itself bugged in BG because you do not wake up when taken damage.

The cleric spell is a mental command given to the target telling them to "die", i.e. lay down on the floor so my cronies can stomp you. Arguably, this is different from putting a character to sleep magically.

Makes me think elf characters being affected by command is by design, rather than a bug.

Ok, this could be right.