What tactics will allow a level 13 party to kill Vadek? I have no problem chopping up Lady Galvenus, but my only +4 weapon is Melf's Minute Meteors. The space is constricted with a "good" girl in the midst of the area of effect (don't want to hit her) and of course there is no way that I know of to bring down Vadek's spell protections (don't have multiple scrolls of Ruby Ray). My current party consists of kensai 13, fighter 7-mage 13, sorcerer 13, ranger 7-cleric 13, swashbuckler 15, and fighter-illusionist multi - levels are apx.

IIRC Vadek doesn't use Remove Magic (or at least he doesn't use it more than 1 time).

So first of all give protection from Fire and Electricity to your characters.
Prot. from M.Energy would be also very good since he casts many ADHWs IIRC.

Also he uses MMMs, so keep the character he is targetting as close as possible to him in order to get a penalty to his THACO (since MMMs are a missile weapon).

Unfortunately you won't be able to bring down his SI since you don't have Ruby Ray. But attacking in melee and with the above protections he will not be able to damage you enough.
(BTW Sikret had correctly given SI: Divination to some of the Mages of early-mid game and I suggested that they would be more effective with Abjuration without thinking that the player can't have Ruby Ray in early game. Sorry )


If he uses A.Immunity wait for its duration to run out.
And MMMs have been tweaked in IA, they are now +3 enchanted.

If you still have problems with him, summon a couple of lesser summons to waste his Death Spells (or use the Wand of Monster Summoning) and then give him a Nishruu to play with.

I need to check to see if Prot from Magical Energy is in my main wizard's spell book. The half-wizard can't cast it, and the sorcerer does not have it yet. I did realize to protect from fire - fireshields are everywhere. I went through 3 Nishruus last night (one at a time), and Vadek was still happy. Vadek has a stack of srolls granting him immunity to weapons less than +4 (and stoneskins, etc.), which he happily uses. Unfortunately, the Wiltings wilt characters before the duration of all his protections run out. I'm afraid I will still have trouble even after your advice, thetruth.

Perhaps I can last long enough if I send in a chain of summons and then the Nishruus. After all, how many Death Spells can he have... Of course, if the AI is really smart, he will ignore those summons (other than the Nishruu), because they can't hurt him anyway.

Vadek is one of those smart mages who won't waste all of his Death Spells on your lesser summoned creatures and will reserve some for your powerful summons (such as Nishruus).

Hah, Sikret answered as I edited. I suspected he (Vadek) was tooo smart. Woe is me.

Hmm OK .

Rbeverjr don't forget that you have a powerful party with 3 Mages.
Even if you don't have PfMEnergy you can use Mirror Image or SI: Necromancy on your Mages for those ADHWs

Besides you don't have to attack with all your characters.
I am sure that with all these protections you can kill him.
It's just a matter of time.

Yes, Vadek has one Absolute Immunity and two Improved Mantles. So, once his stoneskins are removed (you need to attack him to remove the skins), he will be invulnerable for a maximum duration of twelve rounds. After that period of time, he will be vulnerable to your attacks. (BTW, why did you go to chapter 4 with such a low level party? You will probably have more problems later.)

Thanks for your vote of confidence. All my mages and the kensai start the fight with mirror image.

This is true.
I understand that many players want to go as soon as possible at Spellhold for Imoen but IMO it would be better if you had at least 1.7-2 M of XP.

Imoen will lose some XP, but you will have easier time with the difficult battles of the Underdark.

Anyway it's still doable so rbeverjr don't worry about it.

I think I recovered 3? scrolls of improved mantle when I cheat-killed him to check him out. In one of the several reloads, I noticed the read out saying he was using a scroll. Any way, 12 rounds seems a long time when a powerful wizard is attacking. I wonder if I can cast area of effects that won't kill or turn hostile the courtesan I'm supposed to "rescue?"

In all my previous games, I usually head to the underdark at this level. Although without Improved Anvil, I go with unnerfed Celestial Fury, Ring of Gaxx, Carsomyr, Staff of Magi, Daystar, Azuredge, Belm, Flail of Ages, and Mace of Disruption 2. (And find the game extremely boring and quit shortly thereafter....) Playing on Insane with Fixpack improved AI, Tactics toughest random dungeon encounters, etc. doesn't help raise the challenge enough. Then the other end of the pendulum is IA4.1. I'm struggling, sometimes floundering.

I headed to the Underdark because I've finished all the unimproved quests and some of the "slightly" improved quests and want quick XP. The Underdark quests give a bunch of XP. I'm hoping for quick levels to get Ruby Ray. I have a much easier time with the golems than the casters at the moment. All in all, I think 4.1 is MUCH tougher than 3.0.

If Vadek is protected from Globe of Invulnerability, then 1-4 level spells are out for the duration (GM included).
Chaos maybe could affect him if gets through his MR.

As for the courtesan you can always retreat with your characters to the first room and Vadek will follow.







I know, that's why Sikret made IA

You're right, thetruth. I managed. I kept Vadek under a fog of acid - Death Fog until I run out and then Cloud Kill. I tried to keep my kensai improved hasted and protected from fire and acid while he beat on Vadek. I used the FoA with a cold and fire head. That's all I could get out of my IA4.0 game converted to IA4.1. I found out late that I needed to replay from a point before the keep area and decided not to do that. So, I didn't have the 3-head version. Anyway, I wanted some weapon that could at least do a point of damage through stoneskin. The bum does have 2 scrolls of Improved Mantle - and used them both leaving none for me! I'm not playing the game in my LCD's native resolution and I first misread that 2 to be 3. Anyway, I'm learning that it takes persistence to make it through these battles! Arrrgh, Sikret wants ME to learn patience.

Good job rbeverjr; yes some of the difficult battles of IA require a lot of patience and trying alternative tactics.

As about the FoA I don't know if it's possible to CLUA-in the FoA +3 in your game. Maybe Sikret could suggest a solution for this, since you would have the flail without that problem in the DeArnise keep.

I'm thinking of doing something about this. In the original game, Imoen can be (at most) 13th level, right?

What if I add something here to have a higher level Imoen if you go for him with a high level party?



With not returning to a saved game before D'Arnise keep, rbeverjr has not only lost the possibility to forge the +3 Flail, but also has not seen some of the challenges of the area (Keep Viper, additional spiders, etc). So, now, he shouldn't perhaps have the flail without having faced those challenges.

This is a good idea. Yes Imoen's highest level can be 13.
You could make her highest level 15 (about 2M of XP) for example (and only if the PC has >2M of XP).

My only problem is if this XP can be justified, since Imoen had been imprisoned during this time.







Hehe yes, maybe now he has to suffer the consequences

On the other hand though, since he has killed Torgal and he has already missed the FoA until now, maybe we can forgive him.
Besides I am sure that he will meet again these enemies in the near future.

By Golly, if I had to reload at a pre-Keep save to get around the flail bug, so does everyone else!! Share the pain! ;-)

Re: increasing Imoen's Spellhold level, I think a plausible argument can be made that Irenicus has been "stimulating" Imoen's magical abilities as he attempts to waken the portion of her soul that is Divine. Some of that magic he's been casting is certainly stuff I've never seen in any of my party's spellbooks.

The same problem of justification exists even for Imoen being a 13th level character. If there is a justification for it, we can probably extend it to justify a level 15 Imoen.

Yes this is a valid argument.
Αll that torture should have changed her.

Still though I think that her max new level must be capped (at 15?).
It wouldn't be nice if you do all the quests of ch.2, to find an Imoen with HLAs.

For me it's a need to have Imoen a little more powerful than level 13. Level 14 is when you can cast 7th level spells, right? So, no problem with that.
And for people complaining about it, you could just make it an optional component and as thetruth said, make her only level 14-15 if Pc is above 2 million XP, or add another difficult encounter there related to Imoen, don't know... you have proven to be very imaginative so, surprise us!