Editor's foreword (by Sikret):

Since we have thoroughly tested most of the things saros reports in this thread and have found most of them totally false and misleading, we would like to emphasize that the content of this thread is not reliable and can even be misleading for new players. It's worth noting however that none of the things he has written (not even one single word) has been deleted. We could of course delete the entire topic, because we are not supposed to publish false and forged reports about Improved Anvil, but we decided to keep it as an evidence to show how the game should NOT be played for future reference.

saros is playing the game in an illegitimate way with lots of cheats. Many of the things he reports are totally false and can be misleading for other players. So, those who want to read reliable information about IA, should not waste their time reading this thread, because it can affect their mentality about the mod in an invalid and misleading way. As he has admitted in one of his own posts, he is just playing the mod in order to prove that he can win it with a solo character even if it means using cheap methods and cheats.

Even worse than his cheats are his lies. He has reported several nonexistent bugs; for example, each time he fails to win a battle, he retorts by saying that the battle was bugged and such things. Improved Anvil's testing team has thoroughly examined all of his alleged bug reports and has found all of them to be false and fake. Some of them can be interpreted as mistakes of an unskilled player who doesn't observe the events carefully, but some others are so obvious that they can only be interpreted as deliberate and intentional lies.

The best way to tell a lie and make it believable is to tell a big lie and then say "everyone is welcome to test it for himself". This is exactly what saros does. Of course, everyone is indeed welcome to test what he reports and see that he is lying (as we did), but saros is counting on psychological effect of his words and knows that most players won't actually test what he says. I don't really understand what motivates him and what is his purpose of writing so many lies. As I said, most of the lies he writes can't really be interpreted as simple mistakes; they are so obvious that can only be intentional. To see a concrete example of his lies click here. Examples of his lies and false reports are really numerous, but I don't have any extra time to waste on composing a complete list of them.

Of course, at first, we decided to help saros play the mod in a legitimate way in a friendly tone, but he kept refusing to listen.

Cheaters never prosper. True winners never cheat. Liars are even worse than cheaters.

As a newer and recent discovery, saros had actually more than one nickname(s) here at BWL and had cross-posted some of his lies with another nickname as well. When someone is not honest, he is not honest in many ways.

==============================================


Hi again.

I'd also like to share my experience so far with the fifth version of the IA mod and I will describe some methods which may prove helpful to all. This is my intention. Some of the methods are pure cheese by certain player's standard, but none of them is cheating. And I have an absolutely official installation of the required only components in the right order, with the exception of an added Happy tweak from the EoU mod. According to Sikret, it's no big deal.

My personal opinion is that everyone is welcome to play the mod as he/she wants. With this I mean with or without cheesy methods. I personally do not like cheating.

The experience I've collected so far concerns primarily the first hard steps in Athkatla, and some methods to create a higher level party.

In Chateau Irenicus, it is good for the PC to play solo through the dungeon. It would be immensely helpful if the PC is some sort of wizard or thief, because these classes offer an additional xp boost (from traps, locks and scrolls).
If the PC is not a thief, then he/she may consider joining Yoshimo, but only for the traps and locks in the dungeon, meaning that Yoshi should be avoided until everything else is cleared. Avoiding him is easily done via Invisibility, Hide In Shadows or Sanctuary.
After the PC has cleared the way to the exit, he then may start to collect NPCs: first Minsc, then(after temporarily disbanding Minsc) Jaheira, and finally Yoshimo. This way, the joining NPCs will be with a starting xp of 161 000. If an NPC is joined right away after the start of the game, his or her xp will be only 90 000.
This way, not only your PC will get more overall xp in chapter 1, but also the joined NPCs will have 71 000 free xp points gained.

SPOILER!


After going out, and collecting the quest xp reward for chapter 1, it would be wise to kick everyone out of the party and temporarily play solo. The logic in this is, that most of the new NPCs will join a high level character also at higher levels(up to 1.2 million xp for a joining NPC).

I suggest completing the Circus tent for the xp and spell scrolls, and afterwards, sleeping over in order to wait for the first two night encounters. As we all know, these contain gems, gold and several spell scrolls, namely Find Familiar, Spell Thrust, Stoneskin, Minor Spell Turning, Disintegrate and Contingency. All of these are useful, most are qute rare and hard to come by.

The most dangerous part of the solo starting strategy are the first two random city encounters, and especially the first one, Suna Seni. I've had experience with her party with a low level solo F/M/T and F/M/C. It's easy for a F/M/C to win this battle with the proper domination/disabling spells. It's harder for a F/M/T since the two actually active classes in the battle are the fighter and mage, the thief does absolutely nothing. Here is my experience:

SPOILER!


There are a few unmodded quests in Athkatla. No need to rush to Trademeet.

The relatively free xp which may be collected(apart from spell scrolls for an arcane caster):

Copper Coronet: fight with Amalas
Outside Copper Coronet: fight with Corvale
Find out what happened to Montaron: catching the bird without completing the quest(yet). Xzar may be looted for his scrolls and gems. Spectral Harpists may be killed for extra xp.
The Graveyard quests plus all of the monsters in the crypts, except for the Spider Lair.
The kidnappers who buried Tirdir(bridge)
Mae'var's quest, without getting the quest xp reward from Renal.
The illithium ore quest.
(revised)
The skinner murders.

Note: It is not necessary to collect the Reputation rewards from such quests. Remember that by donating gold to a temple you can raise your reputation up to 16, and afterwards collect reputation reward from both this and the Circus Tent quest.

SPOILER!

Welcome saros!

I will be a regular reader of your walkthrough. You want the maximum, and yes you use some cheese-like method, but if you like your game, than it's OK.

I ask two thing:
1) Skip out the best pickpocket places, every player works hardly for this stuffs like the permanency scroll.
2) If you like open a new topic here (like me), because this is a dead and haunted topic. There was lot of flame here.

You are very precise, and i wait your updates.

Hi Ryel ril Ers!

1. I will most certainly not reveal any more locations of upgrade ingredients anymore. I thought that it's safe to give away such locations under Spoiler tags.
2. As for the topic, since I started here, I don't see the reason why shoud I flood the forum and create another topic with a similar name.

As for the adventure afterwards, since I'm currently playing with a powerful F/M/T solo, this is what I'll be writing about. Along the way of my walkthrough, there will be still more advices for players who don't want to use xp or gold gain exploits too, so I think that all will profit in the end.

After attaining a decent amount of xp(10 500 000 total), I've decided to stop killing Amnish Guards and focus on some other stuff. I quickly raised my reputation by donations to a temple to Average since I didn't want to be chased for now by Amnish patrols:

SPOILER!


After selling a little plate mails, spell scrolls, potions and jewels gained through the extensive fights with Amnish patrols, I was able to buy Dak'kon Zerth's blade, an Amulet of Protection +1, an additional Ring +1(I have 4 now), a Knave's Robe.

Another very interesting and rare(for the start of the game) item was dropped in the Amnish Guard fights - a Bastard Sword +2.

I re-visited the City Gates District.

SPOILER!


I bought all scrolls from this guy, as well as some potions of Hill Giant Strength. The Spell Deflection was what I needed.

With previously bought scrolls at the Bridge District(Spell Immunity, Improved Haste, Protection from Cold),the Watcher's Keep(Prot from Electricity) the Promenade(Protection from Acid) and with all obtained scrolls from Amnish Patrols, I was ready for the Pirate Cave fight. I dropped to Cromwell to get a Ring of Protection +2, and thus my rings in the subsequent fight were RoP+2 and a RoP+1.


SPOILER!


With the Bag of Holding obtained in this fight, I went back to the Promenade to better collect and sell Amnish Guards plate mails...

10 mill xp from the amnish guards? How many time did you spend with it. I think you kill your game experience. You must play a lot to meet hard battle now, and your npc-s will have more less xp than you. But if you like the game like it do.

The triple classes are very good in any party, the lose some level but they are very flexible. I love the f/m/c and i play with it in IA 4.2.

Please continue your story.

You can edit all of your post so please remove the docks pick pocket spoiler.

I currently play with a solo F/M/T. But even a certain party can attain high levels of experience using this exploit. The party should consist only of neutral or evil NPCharacters (I think that Anomen or Jaheira are also unacceptable), since they don't object or leave even if the party's reputation is 'Despised'.

The triple classes have their enormous drawbacks. They start to gain HLAs at much more higher total xp score than a single classed character. There are also very powerful new items which can only be forged(or used by) a certain single classed character.

I've removed the docks pick pocket spoiler.

An additional little info: there is an item ingredient called 'Worn Out Boots' for a new recipe. Both Rindus and a certain named Paladin in the Bridge district (from the Fallen Paladins quest) have such an item, but it's not the real ingredient. I will not give away its location though.

Anomen is a must have npc for an evil party. After he fail his quest he don't leave after reputation drop, and he change.

The double and triple classes reach the HLA at same experience.

If i know correctly the max experienced NPC version is around 2.7 million xp, but possible that only aviable in ToB, so i think 1.2 million the max.

I also loot the enforcers but only if they are in our way when travel in the city. Earn 10 million XP is cheat, because if you think like a role player that is impossible. The city did'nt have that force, and after the 10th encounter you mustn't get XP for it, and finally after a huge massacre the city must be send stronger force. These things wasn't implemented, so the player must control it. If you didn't bother with it, thats your thing, but if you write it to a forum and feel pride for it, that is another story.

You do the same thing than somebody add xp and spell with cluaconsole or shadowkeeper. The difference is the normal cheater spend 10 minutes with it and you spend many hours with it. The cheese is when you use an unnatural thing in the game like cast spells offscreen or steal some very valuable item from a store, these thing solved by a good storyteller in the pen-and-pencil games. The cheat is when you get incredible resource with minimal effort. Don't bother with these exploit instead type the similar cheat, you spare lot of time.

I only give you an advise don't write down your cheater methods, because you only became fool in the community. If you will be happy from your game, continue, but spare yourself the guide.

Try the anvil without the exploit and write that guide down, and you earn some honour if that is that you like.

I know your post is written in a good intention. Yet here is what I think:

Earning 10 million xp and spell scrolls and gold is cheat if done via a ShadowKeeper or a similar cheating program. I simply exploited a weakness of the mod. So it's cheesy and using exploits, but no cheating. That's why I spend many hours of battling Amnish guards instead of using a cheat code. Besides, I neither have SK, nor do I know any cheat codes.

The city may have such a force. Why not? It's a big city and I killed roughly about 2000 guards and wizards total so far.
You're right that the difficulty of the fights should improve. Yet this is not the real world, but a game(mod) with its own rules implemented. I play how the mod allows it, not how anyone thinks I should play.

I don't take pride in using cheesy methods. What I do is give away info. Anyone should decide for him/herself how and if to use it afterwards. If one thinks that my info is wrong, then he/she is welcomed to correct me with facts.

I don't want to earn any honour or respect by playing computer games or writing about it. I do it for fun. And I play however I want. With one exception: no cheating. Cheese: yes, exploits: yes. Besides, so many people have a lot more time than me to test the Anvil without exploits and have written their experiences. Why should I also do it? But here's the thing: by following the "strict" and "honest" road to victory, these players don't notice many exploits or bugs which are still present, nor do their notice subsequent events(bugs) from such acts. I do, since I'm looking to profit from them. The mod may not be won by a solo character in an "honest" way, but I will try to do it with exploits and thus will try to prove that the mod is doable in a (mostly) solo game. And if I fail, I will not write down that I succeeded.

The improved battles will be written down round by round, for anyone to see and test afterwards.

Some other info about my current game: the purple Bag of Holding turned out to be great. This one stores up to 200 different items. I loaded it with full plate mails six times and thus was able to receive the full price of my loot(1800 for each full plate). With the money(around 3 million gp) I bought everything I saw, either needed or not, and am currently with only a million gp.

With the help of Cromwell I managed to forge a cloak of protection +2 and a dagger +3 and a pair of Boots of Speed. Laeral's tear necklaces were gained in a huge amount from Amnish patrols. I also temporarily joined Jan in order to get his superior equipment, which I was able to use with UAI HLA. He joined and immediately received a huge quest xp reward, and his total joining xp was 1.2 million. Then he was disbanded.

The last thing which I tested (not present in my game since I reloaded) is forging the Improved Flasher Launcher. I wanted to see if it is usable with UAI. It is, but my PC cannot create the special ammo, but only use the crossbow as a +3 one with an extra attack. So I decided to keep my last (so far) Permanency scroll and reloaded.

"I know your post is written in a good intention."

Yes, i didn't want to harm you, i use some harm sentence, so exuse me. I only worry about your game experience. You install a tactical mod, so you wanted challange, but the exploit kill the challange. If you feel fun in this way, than i am glad, but i worry that you cancel your game because it is too easy. You meet challange in this way too but you must wait a lot to gain it. (Try the shade lord or the troll mound that are enough hard your character now).

I don't know Athakala how big, but a big city in the middle ages are between 20000 and 120000. So the 2000 is not too high for a very big fantasy city. I only want to say, they are very dummy, they must instead attack in a very big groups after the first tries. (That could a very good battle when 50 soldier and 8 mages attack your party)

Your infos are useful, because there are some exploit what musthave fixes. I also post lots of cheese methods (i try lot of things first because i worked one year at a programmer company as a tester so this is in my vain, after i test some method, i find the most effective what is cool for my party, and yes i love the emotion, that is the best thing when the enemy lay on the ground helpless in front my wild mage feet), but i didn't get any thanks for it (but there was some idea what thanked by sikret), only get you are cheeser because i always try cheeser methods, so i understand you.

EDIT: I read your posts in the Anvil forum. What with your 6 member party, do you use cheeser methods?

You have a mistake, don't needed fix all of the bugs and exploits. The players must controls own actions when the game allow cheating. Why? Because you gain more game experience and fun if you use clean methods. If you cheat (i don't want to do difference between cheese and cheat, because you use bug and implementation errors of the game like exploits, cheese or debugging options like the cluaconsole) you destroy your own game, and once you bore the game because it will be too easy and if you have successes, it won't as sweet as play clean and win.

First of all, I started indeed a six-person party game, but this game is very slow progressing, since I'm paying much more attention to my solo game. And once again: I don't use exploits in the six-person party game. I use them in my solo game, because everyone knows or seems to think that IA 5.0 is impossible to win with a solo character, if played by the mod's rules. I intend to prove that it may be very hard to do, but it's possible. A challenge, of a sort, for which I need a proper preparation.

You are of course absolutely correct that there will always be bugs and exploits, and it's up to each player to decide whether to use them or not. This is doable even in an original unpatched unmodded version of the game. However, there are some people who don't know about these exploits or what can be gained from them;I grant them the freedom of choice, I describe the exploits to grant them this knowledge. What will they do afterwards with it is none of my concern.

I don't use CLUAconsole. Nor shadowkeeper. I use the weaknesses of the mod itself, i.e. what's INSIDE a normally installed IA game.

Now to my recent adventures.

Since I seem to have forgotten my CD3 and 4 when I began my vacation, I decided to clear all areas available on CD2: Slums(without the Sphere, no way to reach Valygar), City Gates, Graveyard, Bridge District, Waukeen's promenade, Docks and Government district, and finally, Watcher's keep. Fortunately, I had taken the first steps of the Mae'var's quest and had completed the illithium ore quest and had begun the Dawn Ring quest.

I again deployed the Amnish Guard killing, and brought my levels to 30/25/34, for more HLAs and the maximum 9-th level wizard spells(and more powerful Remove Magic too).

Afterwards, I acquired again 3 million gp from sold full plate mails, and the city had almost nothing more to offer for sale.

Then I completed the Mae'var's quest, which was altogether unmodded, with the exception of the fact that Rayic Gethrac had a nice starting contingency, including SI: D, so I guess that he will not be as easy to a very low-level party, but will be doable.

Before this quest is started, it is wise to buy everything you like from the Temple of Talos, because after stealing the necklace, this will be impossible. Inside this temple are sold not only the regular temple stuff, but also some relatively powerful items.

Before the quest is finished, it is good if you've bought everything you need from Gorch. Gorch has a bugged slot in his shop inventory, this particular slot contains a Mace +2(seems like he has unlimited). Same kind of slot is present in Ribald's shoppe, that one containing a Ring of Animal Friendship currently.

After joining Edwin, I was unhappy to see that he didn't receive any quest xp reward and joined at 220 000 xp or something. I thought that according to level of my PC, all further joining NPCs should be with 1 200 000 xp!

I dismissed Edwin and killed Mae'var alone. And got my quest reward from Renal.

Afterwards, I decided to kill Renal Bloodscalp. I knew(from the vanilla game) that he had Boots of Speed. But I also knew that Arkanis Gath is protecting him with an uber weapon. Fortunately, the Uber weapon(as i remembered) was a sword of +3 enchantment. So I cast Improved mantle and attacked Renal. No Arkanis Gath appeared, and what is more strange, the guards outside and the thieves on the first level of this hold didn't go hostile afterwards. This maybe means that I could join Aran even if I killed Renal?

No matter. I collected my prize from the body of Renal and departed to join Bodhi.

Note: I am totally unaware of the modifications made to vampires in Bodhi's lair. All I've heard is that Tanova in the graveyard is made a lot more tougher.
But I am positive that the thieves are not modded in any way. With one exception: the thief/mages which appear on the first and second level in the Hold(NOT in the basement). Those mages open with a starting ImprovedInvisibility/SI:D/Mirror Image contingency, but they are of relatively low level.
I also carried the last battle with Aran out under three Time traps, so my reports on this one aren't 100% helpful.

Anyway, when I joined Bodhi, I was able to obtain a lot of enchanted shortswords and crossbows +2, some leather armor +3, an elven chain +1, a ring of Djinni Summoning, several Cloaks of Protection +1(from dead mage/thiefs), but unfortunately, no Ring of Lock Picking(seems to be obtainable only if one joins Aran), the Rifthome Axe +3 was also in my possession. This all is easy treasure, not to mention the fact that the Improved Mace of Disruption is also very quickly assembled this way, and all the treasures in Bodhi's coffer are also available for looting(several gems as I remember).

Besides, once I joined Bodhi, the thieves' hold was renewed, meaning all chests/containers became reloaded. This way I acquired some additional potions and gold, and an additional diamond.

If the vampires are indeed greatly modified, then joining sides with Bodhi should be much more easier and much more profitable for any player. The drawback is that this way, fewer overall experience is gained.

After obtaining the Amulet of Power from Aran's body, I faced the City Gates' Grave lich.

SPOILER!


I also assembled a ring of protection +3 and a cloak of protection +3.

I killed Mencar's group, and since I used Time traps and they were of relatively low level compared to my own, I will not describe the battle. Just one thing: Mencar carries several valuable potions, which he consumes immediately. For a low-level party, I'd suggest that the party's thief should pickpocket them while Mencar is still neutral, before the fight had begun.

You are only a simple cheater. Yes there are chance to finish the game in solo but only because your exploits and cheats. You don't want help bugs, you don't search hard tactical battle. You are only want to finish the game in solo in all price to able to yell to everybody:
I done the impossible, i am the best, workship to me!!!

But the truth is more simple. You use all of the possible bug of the game and you are feel pride. You waste lots of hour to it. This is worst than you use editor or bruteforce cheats, because users of these things don't waste their time and reach the same thing finish the game with dirty methods.

You have more xp than able to reach in the whole game.

Read sikret's article about the cheat. I don't agree all of that points but i accept it, and my game more exciting, and harder. Instead of IA install lots of item upgrade mods and some tactical improvement what give you more reward than you work.

I don't have interest in your process anymore because it is very boring. I don't care your theoritically exploit free 6 member party too, because you are a simple cheater, and i never belive anymore than you able to play clean.

I don't write IA experiences to this topic because i don't want to people compare me with you. Anything else is only waste of my time.
Good by cheater!

P.S.:Sorry my harsh attitude but i don't want to players believe their tactical skills are good if they are use cheats and exploits.

Umm... last time I looked, this wasn't the Olympics. If someone's enjoying the game on a certain style of play, what's wrong with that? Some others may not find it interesting to read about that person's game; some may. That's fine. One's preferred style of play for a computer game is a loooong way down my list of things worth generating moral outrage!

Thanx. That's what I was trying to point out the whole time.

Anyone who doesn't like my reports is free not to read them.

Anyway, there are much more experience exploits which Sikret himself had set. Any spawning sequence of unlimited monsters(either spirit spiders in Pai'na's lair, or the battle with the Guild's Contract: I've heard about Vampire Brides spawning there unlimitly, or similar places) grants to anyone the 'free xp exploit'. I haven't personally checked if the number of spawning monsters is unlimited while the local 'boss' is still alive, but I counted to 10 and then concluded that they will spawn forever and stop spawning if I kill the 'boss'.

I managed to make a new CD3. So I continued with the Temple District.

Some corrections: tough enemies like Mencar Pebblecrusher or the Pirates carry in their inventory a Potion of Magic Shielding, which I thought was pickpocketable. My recent experiences with Tagor the Henchman, Gajus and co. proved to me while they all carried potions of Magic Shielding, I was unable to pickpocket them. It was something like that:

5 Time traps were set far away from their group.
Kitthix was summoned
PC attacks Kittix and thus Kitthix became hostile and triggered the time traps.
Under an activated Time Trap PC approaches the named sewer group. This was unable under Invisibility or Hidden in Shadows since the talking sequence is always triggered and they turn hostile. So, I approached under Time Trap and pickpocketed everyone. No potions were looted, just some minor gems and ammo.
Then I tried a different approach. Reloaded, cast Improved Alacrity, in the time of casting my Planetar attacked Kitthix and turned him hostile, thus activating my Time trap, in the same time PC completed IA spell, charged the sewer group, and attacked Gajus with Critical Strike, Greater Whirlwind Attack *and* Assassination active at the same time. Gajus fell quickly. In the time of the second and third Time trap, fell Tagor the Henchman, and the rest of the group was easily slain.
Afterwards, I looted six potions of magic shielding: one from each enemy.

So in conclusion: tough enemies do carry a Potion of Magic shielding, which they consume right away in the start of the fight, that potion(and other potions in their inventory) cannot be pickpocketed, and extensive Time Trapping, plus most probably killing the leader(s) of the group intervenes somehow with the starting 'potion gulp' sequence.

I also managed to free Haer'dalis from Mekrath and kill the Horrid Rakshasa, and also the Elemental and Shade lich guarding the remains of Kangaxx. Those battles were relatively easy, but surely they will be very tough for a low-level party.

I was pleasantly surprised that after reaching mage level 26, my PC was given additional 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level slots. Maybe at the next level my PC will gain 5th or higher level slots.
I temporarily joined Keldorn and tried to use his equipment, but even with items and spells, I couldn't bring my PC's charisma to 18(equivalent to Keldorns), but only to 17(Base is 4, Friends spell 10, Sensate Amulet 12, Nymph cloak 14, Helm of Glory(pickpocketed) 15, Plate of Balduran 16, Axe of Hrothgar 17). So Keldorn's armor and sword are yet unusable to me, unless I find a way to raise my Cha by 1 more point somehow).

BTW, my starting stats are 18/73;18;18;18;18;4: a (re)roll of 94 total.

Similar Charisma requirement was needed for the Chaos blade, but here the requirement was 16(equal to Haer'dalis), so I was able to equip Chaos. Unfortunately, the blade is nerfed in comparison to the original game, so it's not very useful now.

Strangely, the Harper pin acquired through Jaheira's subquest(I dismissed her afterwards) did not have any Stat requrements in order to put it on.

BTW, thanx to Jaheira's subquest, the Slaver's quests(both Copper Coronet and Slaver District) I was able to acquire a lot of +1 rings...well, enoough so that I could forge another +3 ring. Then I forged a +4 ring of protection, and due to a bug(I reloaded a couple of times to try to avoid it) one of my Rings of protection +3 was not consumed, but preserved, so now I have a ring +4 and another +3.

And another thing: when Haer'dalis was temporarily joined, he didn't receive any quest xp reward. Unlike Keldorn, whose starting xp was even 1.3 million total(with quest xp reward at joining). What is this: some sort of favouring certain NPCs? Why Anomen, Keldorn, Jan and others should receive quest xp reward at joining while Jaheira, Aerie, Haerdalis and Edwin do not receive similar rewards? Are they less favourite to the mod's creator and thus left nerfed?

Actually, I believe some people intend IA as a challenge rather than as a for-fun game... if you've ever played Nethack you'll know what I mean.

Is there some reason why a mod can't be both a challenge and fun at the same time? For me one of the main reasons IA is fun is because it is a challenge.

Of course not - I might have phrased badly. What I meant is that (like Nethack) IA is assumed to be a gaming challenge rather than something everybody 'deserves' to win to be able to be able to see the ending (which is fun for me). An interesting trend is that, in comunities surrounding 'challenging' games, usage of cheat is much more frowned upon than it'd be in comunities around 'permissive' games. For example: if I tell DavidW that I ctrl-y'd somebody, he'd be likely to ask me to try and formulate a way to make the battle less challenging, and/or suggest me a different approach. If I tell Sikret that I ctrl-y'd somebody, well...

Hopefully this is clearer

So Improved Alacrity works on non-mage HLAs as well? Interesting, never knew that.

I don't use cheat. As I explained, I use the weaknesses of the mod itself, so-called cheesy methods. For instance, I didn't CLUA in any items/spell scrolls/experience, but limited myself to the variant of spending numerous hours of killing Amnish patrols for my low reputation, and thus received only a limited number of spell scrolls and other random items.

Improved Alacrity works wonderfully with everything which counts as 'spell'. This includes innate special abilities, which include warrior and thief HLAs. Spell Sequencers of various type also can be activated with the help of Improved Alacrity. Polymorphing special abilities also can be activated immediately. For instance, if I have previously activated Shapechange, had Spell Trigger remembered, and also have Assassination, hardiness, Magic Resistance, Greater Whirlwind attack, Smite, Critical strike and other special abilities(NOT granted by items, those doesn't count in here), I could cast IA, release my spell trigger(aura cleansed), activate GWW(aura cleansed), Critical Strike(aura cleansed), magic resistance(aura cleansed), Hardiness(aura cleansed), Assassination(aura cleansed), shapechange into Mind flayer(aura cleansed), shoot a Psionic Blast(aura cleansed), and attack with 10 critical intelligence draining attacks. By the way, trap setting can also be done with the help of IA much more faster.

My recent encounters and tips:

I decided to obtain a nice crushing +3 weapon and went to clear the De'arnise hold. This battle was very easy for my high-level character, so I won't describe it here. A Neo-Otyugh still managed to Disease(and almost kill me) since I play on Insane.

Tor'gal apparently was a high-level cleric, since his starting contingency was Shield of the Archons, Armor of faith, etc, no matter, he fell under a Time Trap(wouldn't wanna miss a valuable potion which he might swallow). Same happened to Glacius and I had 2 potions of Fire Giant strength obtained from his body.

With the Flail of Ages obtained, and also a Ray of Fragmentation, I went for the Guarded compound.

This was tough. I cast my long-lasting elemental resistance buffs, along with Spirit Armor, Blur, ProEvil and Mirror Image and also consumed a Hill Giant Strength potion, plus Improved Haste. The initiate battle on the first floor was decided by something like:

Summon Planetar
Trigger enemy spawning
Contingency: Death Fog(planetar stays behind).
Enemies except Skeleton Lords, Assassins and Golems fell under Death Fog.
PC focuses on Skeleton Lords with Daystar(Planetar helps by deflecting part of enemy attacks)
PC kills Skeleton Lords and starts banging the Assassins with FoA
PC casts DUHM
PC activates another Stoneskin and Mirror Image while killing the golems(2 Gem and 2 Coin golems)

PC casts Spell turning, Spell Deflection, Shield, Blur, ProEvil, sets 3 Time Traps, and summons Kitthix in the trap area.
PC casts the shorter-lasting buffs(Spell Trap, GoI, Improved haste, Mirror Image, Shield, SI: Abjuration, DUHM)
PC attacks Kitthix, waits when Time Trap activates and rushes to the 2nd floor under Time Trap.
PC detects traps on 2nd floor.
PC disarms trap.
PC has enough time to slay Sion under the Time Trap with Critical Strike.
Enemy Cleric summons Fallen Deva
The rest of Time Traps do not activate. PC cannot go down(for now), but Kitthix appears to join the enemy horde.
PC casts Improved Mantle.
Enemy cleric tries in vain some Hold Person and similar spells.
PC kills Koshi(critical).
PC kills Keta(critical).
Assassins start showing up.
PC kills enemy cleric.
PC manages to lure enemy to farther right part of the screen(piano) by using Summon Planetar, and afterwards summon Mordy sword.
PC rushes backwards to the stairs and lays yet another Time Trap.
Under time trap PC kills Manzerfan.
The last enemy fighter, the Deva and the assassins were easy to kill.

I *thought* this fight was hard until I discovered the Greater Elemental Golem on the same floor. Ugh.

I ran away because I didn't know what this was(a wise move btw). Fortunately for me, it didn't follow and I looted everything in sight and went outside to rest.

'So' I thought 'a golem'. Maybe my new spell, Ray of Fragmentation, would help?
Test 1: loaded Spell Sequencer and Trigger with triple Fragmentation Rays and charged the Greater elemental golem. No effect from the Fragmentation spell.

Reload.

After battling and reloading several times, I knew a few base principles(this is only my suggestion, I don't give 100% credit for being absolutely true, I write what I saw):

SPOILER!

I accidentally noticed that Raven has posted in this thread and decided to come and see what is going on (as I've said before, I don't usually read topics in this side-froum).



This criticism can be correctly aimed at saros (not at Ryel). saros has heard that IA v5 is not soloable and he has decided to disprove it by any means. Of course, poor saros has forgotten that the complete statement was this:

"IA v5 is not soloable without cheating".

He keeps cheating and keeps saying that he is not cheating (something which as Ryel said has made a fool of saros in the forums).

Do you really think that saros is enjoying his game? I'm completely certain that he isn't!

If you read his posts you won't find even one single paragraph in which he has said anything positive about the mod or about his game. His tone is negative everywhere. He is not enjoying anything exactly because he has not left much to enjoy. He has ruined his game, not only by excessive use of cheats and cheap methods but also with the innate duty he has defined for himself to win the game with a solo character by all means.

He has even admitted this in one of his posts above:


He doesn't play the mod for the extra challenge the mod adds to his game, he is playing it to challenge other players!

We tried to help him in friendly ways in the past. Raven warned him against his playing style in Bioware forums in a diplomatic and friendy tone. I warned him in much more friendly ways here in IA's forum. There is also a warning in the mod's readme file; but he ignored all. Now, there is little he can enjoy from.

First of all, he has deprived himself of most of IA's best quests by deciding to play solo. This much can be put aside; perhaps he doesn't care for new quests.

Second, he has cheated lots of xp/gold/items to make his protagonist a demigod. He had not done any of the game's major quests when he had more xp than it's possible in the entire game.

The funniest part of the story is that he gives instructions of how to gain those free xp and items as if other players don't know how to gain free xp in the game. Perhaps he is too naive to realize that all players know various ways of gaining free xp in the game; the fact that they don't use them doesn't mean that they don't know how.

All of the xp exploits saros is using in his game (except the one with amnish guards) had been already reported to me long before by other players and they are all blocked in IA v6. However, those other players who reported those exploits to me didn't use them in their own games. They realize that there is absolutely no difference between using those xp exploits and using CluaConsole to give xp to your characters.

Even with his uber-protagonist, he is still playing cheesily and with cheap methods. Running, casting spells from offscreen, etc, etc.... Just read his reports of his battles with the sewers party or with the Greater Elemental Golem to see what I mean. All those battles are doable with sound tactics even by far lower level characters who do not have even one single HLA. saros doesn't know sound tactics, but he reports his cheap methods as if they are true tactics. This is another proof for what Ryel said.

His playing style will also add self-created bugs to his game. He will later return to report those local bugs as if they exist in everyone's game.

Cheesily killing enemies before they turn hostile (similar to what he did with the sewer party) will cause bugs in his game, because some enemies are scripted to set certain global variables after truning hostile. Those global variables will be used in future events. Moreover, certain important items are scripted to be generated in the enemies inventory via script after the enemy turns hostile and checks certain variables in his script. Cheesily killing those enemies before they turn hostile or by excessive use of timetraps offscreen (and activating those traps by attacking your own summoned creatures to make them hostile), will mean that those items will never be created in the enemies inventory. To make the long story short, there are several ways a cheater and cheap player can corrupt his own game or punish himself. Bug reports from such players are totally useless for us.

I will edit the "Cheat and Cheap.pdf" and will add a section to it about why not to cheat.

Actually, we have recently tested again and can confirm that the bugs saros reports don't exist in the game and even look to be sort of deliberate lies (the report about the nonexistent bug that Cromwell doesn't take enough number of +3 rings to forge the +4 one is one such example).

Returning to the question of whether saros is enjoying his game or not, we are certain that he isn't. Some battles are too easy for his uber-character (not to mention that he is still using cheap methods to win even those easy battles), but there are a number of battles in the mod which are not beatable even by a 40/40/40 level solo character with the best equipments. He will fail to win those battles even using his typical cheap methods, but he won't enjoy them either. He is in his olympics (to use your term)! He has decided to prove that he can do the impossible. So, he will probably forge a false and artifcial report of how he won the battles (it won't be the first time we see such forged reports). He will also probably add some sentences such as "this battle was tough" to make people believe that he has actually won it. He will probably know that people such as Raven or me (who know the mod very well) will not believe him, but it won't matter for him. Nonetheless, he won't enjoy his game at all. He has ruined his game by ignoring our recommendations.

As for why Ryel is angry, it may not be easy to understand for those people who are not dedicated tactical players. It can indeed be frustrating for Ryel and most other players to see that a cheater speaks as if (or to pretend that) he is a tactician.

Since he's probably not being paid for it, probably not doing it to research a newspaper article, and almost certainly not under a geas... I'm guessing yes.

This mod is very good. It was proposed to me by Raven (a.k.a. touch_of_the_wild on Bioware forums). IA adds many hard battles and new items, which I enjoy very much. If I haven't said that, now may be a good time, but I think I already mentioned it in some of my posts (which were afterwards deleted by Sikret).



NOT everyone. For instance, people unfamiliar with the mod might not know them. And even you, Sikret, did not know about Amnish guards exploit.



My uber-protagonist is more than able to defeat the most tough enemies met so far by using non-cheesy tactics(except for the twisted rune, I've tried several times, no luck yet). The cheesy methods described like pre-activating Time traps and similar were made so that I could obtain enemy's Potions of Magic Shielding, and most of the enemy's spell scrolls(which enemy mages usually read in thick of combat).
Running(or tactical retreat) was always part of some sound tactics. In IA running away at double speed from enemies is disabled(unlike other mods), and anyway, most of the enemies are hasted so they run as fast as the protagonist, not to mention certain 'Invitation' type effects, like magic lasso, etc. etc.
Defeating enemies with a high-level character in IA is a lot more harder than using an entire party of six relatively low-leveled characters (even worse, all pre-generated characters). For instance, against the Elemental golem, many fighters, supported with magic, can win the battle much more easier and quicker than a single uber fighter.



Then, of course, this appears to be weakness of the mod. If one intends to play the mod however he/she wants without using codes or cheat programs, and still receives bugs because of his playing style, then the mod is not perfect yet. IA is very good, but, as it tries to re-do the whole game, bugs are inevitable. So I think that it shouldn't be "Don't play the mod this way, because you'll get bugs", but instead "Try the new version of the mod, it has fewer bugs and we will appreciate if you test it for further bugs and report them, so that the next version is even more bug-free and anyone is free to play however he/she wants".

I report bugs as I discover them in my current game. Since I don't cheat(according to mod's rules), then they do exist for everyone who might want to play in a similar way.



Some enemies turn hostile in the second I kill them. I don't know if I missed a single quest item this way, but I doubt it, because I got several quest notes this way, and in the final battle when I slew Sion, i got the special Rogue Stone(I think from his corpse).
This again seems to be a weakness in the mod, because I don't cheat. Cheesy tactics is not cheating IMO.



I am most than certain that I had only 2 rings of protection +3, and after the upgrade, I got one +3 and one +4. Two times after reloading BTW. Maybe the bug occurs rarely and only if certain conditions(maybe place of items in pack) are met???



I enjoy the mod, and the tactical challenges, and the moment I work out an always-working(no-reload type) system for a solo to win each of the improved battles.
I absolutely realise that Sikret and Raven are experts in this mod, while I'm vanilla. So I am almost certain that I would fail to win(and may be even too ashamed to write about it). But I won't write down that I won a certain battle if I actually haven't. I even won't write down a certain victory if I haven't done it several times in a row.



Yes. I am.

P.S. I think that while my game has its exploits, it still may provide useful info to all players, whether they use or not cheese or cheap tactics.

Yes, apologies (to no one in particular) for having entirely different names on different sites.

Cheating is not a playing style. Cheating is screwing the game by doing something illegitimate. This is exactly what you are doing.

Cheating is not merely confined to using console codes and programs. You will create those bugs in your game and it's not the mod's fault.

Of course, cheesy playing style will also create some minor problems in the game, but your playing style is not merely cheesy, it's cheating.

No, I'm not going to add additional support for cheaters by altering the mod. I have even added some deliberate anti-cheat precautions to the game to ensure that you will face its consequences if you are a cheater.



No, you are simply lying. I have tested this thoroughly.

You are cheating according to the mod's rules. The examples of cheat are mentioned in a .pdf file in a pinned topic in the mod's forum and you are violating all of those rules.

You may disagree with those rules, but then you shouldn't say "according to the mod's rules" you are not a cheater, because you are not the one who defines the mod's rules.

Yes, for anyone who cheats those problems will exist and that's exactly why your journal is here rather than in the mod's main forum; your reports can mislead players.

As I've said many times before, reporting an xp exploit to me to block it in the mod's next version is fine, many other players have also reported such exploits, but none of them were thinking that using those exploits in practice is a right thing to do. When they found exploits, they reported and then reloaded the game just to avoid it.

You, on the other hand, are so excited in using those exploits that you even call them "tactics" and encourage others to use them.

We didn't know about the amnish guards, but we probably know a lot of other possible exploits of the vanilla game that you don't know about. But we don't instruct using them and feel proud of it. We rather fix and block them instead.

And as I've written in the "Cheat and Cheap.pdf" file, using xp exploits is not merely a cheesy method; it's plain cheat.



This makes me laugh. You are swimming in cheats. There is absolutely no difference between using Consol to give xp and gold to your characters and the way you gained free xp and gold in the game. I have said this before and don't want to elaborate it further. At least, don't say that you are not cheating; in that way we can say, "hey, that's not a problem, let's have a cheater here as well!"; but the way you are denying it, you are not only a cheater inside the game but also a liar and untrustworthy person in real life as well.

I think much better if you clua some xp, and gold if you think the mod too hard for you and you want a bit training for it in lower difficulty. My younger brother started the SoA with ToB created characters and 100k gold because he was 8 year old and the game was too hard to him at time. Later he walk through the game some times without exploits and cheat. Yes he play with cheat first time, but he never think that he is a good player on the contrary he think he is a starter player so he needed some help. Later he remember that with funny and don't understand why he cannot beat the game without cheat.

Sound to be a constructive and good suggestion for beginners but only for the gold, not for the xp, because if the player adds two or three levels to his characters, he will begin to face tougher enemies in every dungeon. Then, he may think to cheat even more xp!

Was your 8-year-old brother playing IA?! Or the vanilla game?

He played with the vanilla game. He is much older now and i suggested him the IA but he doesn't like the fucking with spell protections in the vanilla game, the icewind dale in heart of fury mode match to his style instead. He play with the BG 1 now with Tutu and Stratagem so he is no hopeless and once he will be an anvil player.

Those rules were written down a few days ago Sikret, IA is indeed your mod, but the rules you implemented are IMO more like your own rules rather than mod's rules. Here, you and I have our disagreements about the rules:

My opinion is: Once the installation of the mod is made correctly(according to the mod's creator), and I don't use cheat codes or programs, just that which is originally implemented in the mod itself, it is no cheating.
Many players would find the Ease of Use components recommended for the mod blatant cheating. Things like magical armor/protective rings/protective amulets stacking, multiple strongholds, etc. were not implemented in the original game. Of course, this cheating I use, and I admit using it, since it's recommended by the mod's creator.
Some would also find cheating(to some extent) pre-generating a multiplayer party under 1 person control, since this way, a perfect team can be easily created.

Sikret's opinion(it undoubtedly weighs a lot more than mine):
Everyone should play this mod the way Sikret recommends.
Every rule Sikret states should be unquestionally followed as mod rule(it means little if the mod itself allows to bypass certain such rules).
Everyone who doesn't follow Sikret's rules is a cheater.

If everyone thinks like Sikret, by all means, I am a cheater. But I doubt that absolutely all players think this way.

By the way, judging someone's personality in real life and insulting him, based on his posts in a certain game discussion forum is somewhat...childish.

Anyway, back on the main topic.

PC was able to relatively easily slay Kangaxx in both his forms(using time traps, DUHM, GWW attacks with Staff of Rynn for his demilich form).

Afterwards, PC focused on clearing Trademeet areas.
PC bought everything from Dao Djinns without taking the Rakshasa quest.
PC temporarily joined Cernd, who didn't receive any quest xp at joining, and his initiate xp was 161 000.
PC took Cernd's staff and cloak.
PC dismissed Cernd.
PC cleared the wilderness of the Druid Grove, including the Tower and its guardians.
PC bought each and every potion from the shapeshifted Ithafeer.
PC rejoined with Cernd.
PC entered the grove, accompanied by Cernd(PC is a F/M/T). Strangely for me, PC was given an option for a duel with Faldorn!
PC easily won the duel.
PC was afterwards offered a challenge for Great Druid! Well, that *was* strange.
No matter. PC won the challenge, received a Ring of Protection +2 and a Cleric's staff +3.
PC took the quest for killing Ithafeer from the trademeet genies.

It's all about whether someone wants to play without cheats, or doesn't want to.

For example, assume someone says to me that "your Grey Clan Episode One mod's rules allow other mods to be installed, so I also install another mod which replaces many of the elements also changed by Grey Clan Episode One". The game allows it, but I wouldn't support it. It would ruin my work.

Similarly, (in your interpretation) if even a tiny bit of things allowed by the "rules" of computer networks and the internet were used by the people who are competent enough, most of them should end up in prison (but, unfortunately, those who really exploit things are smarter and avoid prosecution).

The "rules" allow you to download a portscan program. So do it, and scan my PC with it. It's a criminal offence, yes.


Have you ever heard of being stubborn or persistent? Sometimes when you're questioned and you want to prove something at any cost, there is no need to be paid or forced to do it. The process itself might not be full of fun, but you're excited because some other emotion/force is driving you (anger, faith, excitement to be able to prove something at any cost, etc.).


You don't know how much a person's style can reveal at least about certain things of his or her personality, mentality. Many people consider the online world as a playground where they can speak what they wish, without responsibility. Because they don't have to be afraid of the consequences. For example, 80% of those trolls who spread lies about Improved Anvil (no, not those who criticize it -- those who spread lies) would be cowardly and wouldn't dare to say the same things to Sikret's face in the reality. They hide behind their online disguise (they even enjoy it), and when needed, they even pretend to be nice and kind to get some negligible advantage on a virtual website or forum. Of course, I'm not stating these things about saros, I'm just saying that there are online signs that reveal certain characteristics about someone to a certain extent.

Back to the topic, you don't use the possibilities provided by the mod; you abuse them, saros. There is a difference between using and abusing something. For example, in real life as well, many people get the possibility to abuse something. What makes difference between them is whether they actually do it or not.

I'm kind of confused here...

I had thought that Sikret's philosophy was that:

(i) of course anyone is welcome to play IA with whatever playing style they like, but
(ii) it will cause confusion if they post on IA's own thread without adhering to IA's rules (i.e. the "play it this way" instructions in the mod readme and on the boards).

Fair enough. (Not how I'd do it; perfectly defensible, though.)

& Saros doesn't adhere to IA's rules, so Sikret doesn't want him posting on the IA forum. He asks where he should post; Baronius suggests this forum. He does so.

Also fair enough.

But now I'm a bit confused at the tone of some of the replies here, which seem to carry a moral overtone, as if, in fact, it's not okay to play a game or a mod any way you like, even if you refrain from posting on the mod's official forum.

... what am I missing here?

I think the problem is the following:

I was punished here in the past and when saros appaered i didn't want to the people put me in the same category than him. It seems to childish, but i wanted to help him to earn the same experiences that i feel when beat any insane battle in IA without cheats and cheese. That feeling is much better than my 12 vanilla game walkthrough together. If you play clean the game become chess play where every action is important.

Saros continue the game as you like but you miss lots of thing...

@saros

We seem to fail a fruitful conversation. It is as I had guessed long earlier. Here are my last comments.

1- The rules are not written a few days ago; they had been discussed several times before here. They have just been written in pdf format and pinned a few days ago. Most players already knew about them.

2- The fact that some action is doable inside the game, doesn't mean that it is not cheat. I doubt that any reasonable person will disagree with me that the way you have gained free xp in the game doesn't have any difference with giving those xp to yourself by using CLUAConsole. Also, as you can see, none of the people who have been sypatehtic with you have ever denied that you are cheating; they just say that cheating is ok. So, please stop denying it.

3- When I use the term "cheat", I use it with my definition of the term (which is the standard definition of the term as well). So, you don't need to argue with me over terms or names. Call it whatever you want, but as long as you play with cheats (with the standard definition), you will have to accept the consequences. You can play the game in any cheap way you want, but the consequences you will have to accept are these:

- As Ryel and myself have mentioned before, you won't really enjoy the mod (depite whatever you claim) and won't see most of the new content IA adds to the game. In short, you won't be playing the real IA (neither challenge-wise nor content-wise).

- As long as you cheat, you will create self-imposed bugs and problems in your game. Creating them will be your own fault, not the mod's fault. IA is the most thoroughly tested mod ever created in the history of modding IE games. It's totally stable and bugfree. However, players who cheat will create bugs in their own games and it is their own fault. It's the same with other complex mods as well. This is not the mod's weakness; it's intentional not to offer technical support to cheaters.

- Apart from item no.2 above, IA has an artifical intelligence to detect cheaters and to apply certain punishments to them.

- You will not have the permission to post to IA's main forum.

- Your bug reports will be ignored, because they will be false reports (I have already tested most of your reports and have found them false).

- You won't receive any technical help from me if you encounter any problem or have any question. Even a simple question about mod compatibility or anything else will be ignored. In short, you will be completely on your own.



It's not your character inside the game who logs into the forum to write all those lies and false things. It's you the real person who sits behind a computer desk with the intention to write lies. So, what i wrote about your personality in real life was the bare truth and based on solid evidence. If you find it insulting, you should go and correct yourself.

That's all.

@ everyone

- As IA's creator and the one who has the most thorough knowledge about the mod, I tell you that most of what saros writes in his posts are either forged or totally false. Some of them even look to be deliberate false reports. If you want reliable information about the mod, IA's main forum is where you should visit and consult.

- I am returning to my usual habit of not checking this side-forum. So, if you want to say anything important to me, don't send it as a reply to this topic. I will not probably check it again.

I think saros lost all his credibility in Sikret's eyes when he lied about his game in the Improved Anvil forum. No wonder. Perhaps some people consider it normal in the online world (or even in "RL") to be continusly hypocritical in order to get advantages or avoid something negative, but then don't be surpised that not everyone appreciates such a behavior; this is directed to everyone who is considering the use of hipocrisy and cheat (I mean cheat generally, not in-game). If you want positive feedback, be a gentleman, be straight.

IMO any stable and bug-free mod should not interfere with anyone's personal opinion about how to play the mod. IA is a great and challenging mod, but(again IMO) it is not bug-free, whether deliberately made this way in order to punish 'cheaters' or not.

5- My bug reports may be ignored, but then again, they're all present in my current game as I describe them in my game, as I've watched them. To anyone who doesn't believe this, I'd suggest spending some time to play as I did so far, and see for himself. So, again, IA is most probably stable and bug-free as long as anyone limits himself to the style of play offered by the mod's creator.

@ everyone

1. Again, I don't deliberately forge any false reports in order to mislead anyone. Then again, most probably Sikret is right and my style of play had created most, or even all of the reported so far bugs in my game.

PC assaulted the Troll Mound.
The battle was something like that:
PC buffs with his long lasting buffs
PC enters Troll Mound
PC kills trolls near the entrance
PC lays 5 time traps and 2 usual traps
PC casts shorter lasting buffs
PC summons Planetar and together they rush forward
PC Protects himself from Magical Weapons
PC Rays the Troll Queen 3 times in order to bring SI: A down. Meanwile, Planetar is slain.
PC releases Sequencer with 3 remove Magics and immediately rushes backwards. Queen enchanntments were dispelled.
Using 2 Time Traps, FoA main, Belm off, Impr. haste, DUHM and critical strikes, PC slayed the Troll Queen.
Even the rest of the Time Traps were somewhat insufficient to slay the king, but he fell shortly after the last TT ended(forgot to cast Hardiness or didn't have time to do so).
The rest of the trolls were a piece'o'cake.

The Rakshasa in the druid grove and its allies fell quickly to a Time trap after the conversation dialog triggered. So my PC was granted the title 'Hero of Trademeet' and received a reputation reward, bringing his current reputation to 20.

With the city freed, my PC cast Friends, and donned his Merchantise equipment in order to bring his CHA to 17. Then my PC bought all valuable items from the local merchants+the temple.

PC took the quest of clearing Trademeet Crypt.

PC didn't know about the Dead magic zone(of a sort) inside, so in the first attempt he fell. Still, PC noticed that Contingencies, Triggers and Sequencers work inside. So the tactic was forged:

PC enters: buffs on PC are dispelled
Contingency fires: ProMW
Contingency loaded: Impr Haste
Sequencer fired: Spirit Armor, Stoneskin, Impr Invisibility
PC interrupts Founder of Trademeet's true sight spell with melee strikes
Impr Haste triggers
PC kills Founder of Trademeet with Critical Strikes, FoA main and Belm off hand(9 APR)
PC now is most probably headed for Valygar in order to enter the Planar Sphere.

My recent experiences:

PC cleared the Umar Hill area. Seems like it is unmodded by Sikret(unless, maybe, Protagonist is a Ranger of some sort), so PC completed the Mimic quest and Madulf's quest(no shield yet), and visited Merella's cabin. PC also killed Valygar's guardians(wrong line in conversation), bought everything from the local merchants, and also joined Valygar.

Valygar, of course, joined and immediately received a large xp reward, bringing his total joining xp at 1.3 million. So far, it's like that:

Quest reward receiving NPCs(according to player's total xp): Jan, Keldorn, Anomen, Valygar
NPCs who don't receive quest xp reward at joining: Aerie, Haer'dalis, Edwin, Cernd.

I do not include in this cathegory NPCs in Jon Irenicus's starting dungeon, like Minsc, Yoshimo or Jaheira.

PC took Valygar's armor and katana. With the help of the stalker, the Planar sphere was opened.
Valygar was disbanded immediately afterwards.

With the help of his numerous HLAs and high level spells, PC was able to clear the whole sphere from the inside. On the lower floor, maybe because of very high PC level, in addition to the stational 2 Gem and 2 Coin golems, appeared two more groups as random encounters, each group contained a Greater Bone Golem, 2 Gem and 2 Coin golems. @ anyohe who might want to know, Gem golems seem less resistant to Crushing damage, Coin golems are less resistant to Piercing damage, and Amber golems are less resistant to Slashing damage(plus Amber golems are surrounded by a permanent Lightning Shield of some sort, similar to original fireshields, but dealing lightning damage).

This time PC donned a Ring of Gaxx when he met the Neo-Otyugh inside. This critter managed to Disease my PC, and diseased he was, taking no damage from the disease, but still whirling in pain(spellcasting was interrupted) until the disease effect ended.

Finally, PC went outside to kill some demons.
The Tanar'ri were easy since they appear to be unmodded. The Lea'yil was apparently modded. He summoned 1 Skeleton Grandlord, 2 Lords, and 3 Maureshi(which then summoned 3 Skeleton Warriors). PC protected himself from magic weapons, slew the Skeleton Lords with Daystar, and cast a Death Spell, killing an Imp and 3 Skeleton Warriors. The Lea'yil was easy, but right before his death, he managed to do a critical hit on my PC and thus I saw my PC's buffs dispelled(seems like the demon's melee attack is dispelling).

So, PC had no more stoneskins, or Protection from Weapons, and my mighty dagger +4 dealt 2 or 3 points of damage to the Skeleton Grandlord.
I decided to reload and find a better sollution. For instance, I already knew that Spell protections are worthless in this fight, and planetars help too little, so I decided to remember more Protections from Magical Weapons and Absolute Immunity(not to mention that I gained another wizard level in the sphere and received additional 8-th and 9-th level spell.

Unfortunately, when I reloaded(had an autosave right before entering Demon's domain from Planar sphere), and went outside of the sphere, I was in the Slums of Athkatla!
Well, I thought, another self-created bug.
Reloaded a little older game(right after killing Tolgeras). Tried to exit the sphere, and again, I was in the Slums.
Fortunately, I had a save before the quest had started(outside of the Sphere in the Slums). I reloaded, initiated Planar travel, and then left the sphere. I was glad to see that I was in the demon world again.

This time, the battle was carried out much more efficiently. In addition to complete buffing, PC had several Time Traps layed, and focused on the demon first(nasty dispellation melee attack). The demon fell in a couple of rounds. Then PC killed the Skeleton Lords, and rushed back to his traps, followed by Maureshi, Skeleton Warriors and a Skeleton Grandlord.
Traps triggered. The Skeleton Grandlord fell to GWW attacks with the Staff of Rynn +4(he is immune to weapons +3 and less). I was pleasantly surprised to see that PC dealt 12-14 points of damage to the grandlord per strike with the staff.
Afterwards, the fight was easy. PC cleared the minions in the area, collected all three of the demon hearts, and also an artifact piece(I will not tell what it is).

So now, PC has to (once more) clear the inside of the Planar Sphere. Oh well. Not like he hasn't done it before...

I've made some interesting discoveries in my recent adventure.

First of all, PC completed the Planar Sphere quest, and looted the body of Lavok.

SPOILER!


PC was also able to send the Solamnic Knights home with the help of Teos, Ribald and Kollynic Paac. So PC was rewarded with a Golden Girdle.

The apprentices in the planar sphere(with many reloads) couldn't create the easiest of the last serie of items, the Robe of the Apprenti. No matter how much I reloaded, the result was one and the same. IMHO, here triggers a checkpoint to check if the PC is a single class mage or sorcerer or not, in order for the robe to be created at all.
PC then reloaded for the last time and went for the Staff of Power. The staff was created from the first attempt!

The newest experiences of Saros, the mighty F/M/T.

Saros is currently in the Windspear's hills lair, and is assembling his strength in order to face Firkraag.
Levels: 35/29/39. List of all of Saros' HLAs will be displayed at lvl 40/40/40(if he ever reaches those).

Saros cleared all of Firkraag's dungeon. Due to his high levels, he had to face 2 Golem groups similar to those in the power core center of the Planar sphere(1 Greater Bone Golem, 2 Gem golems and 2 Coin golems). Also, while resting, he faced 3 Skeleton warriors. Skeleton warriors have a Two-Handed magical sword and a random item slot in their inventory, which is exactly the same as random item slots on Cowled wizards in Amnish patrols.

Tazok was slain under Time trapping after triggering his pre-combat dialogue. Good thing, because in his inventory Saros found out yet another potion of Magic Shielding, which Tazok didn't have time to consume.

In Samia's quest, before looting the Tomb of King Strom III, Saros layed 7 Time Traps and summoned a Planetar in the area of spawning of the enemy. All of the enemies except the fighter/druid and the cleric were slain under Time Trapping(a single Remove Magic in between Time Traps was sufficient to dispel Kaol's buffs and he was slain too). The F/D was at near-death when the last TT ended, and because the Planetar was still alive, he helped finish the enemy Cleric.
The dialog of Samia was triggered pre-combatly.
Saros found a lot of cool stuff from this battle
Another potion of magic shielding, from Samia's corpse
Other potions
Valuable scrolls from Kaol

SPOILER!


Conster and his 7 Skeleton Lords were slain again under Time Trapping, after Ruby raying Conster twice and afterwards releasing a Sequencer with 3 Remove Magics which dispelled his buffs. He still managed to activate one scroll of Absolute Immunity, which was dispelled inbetween time traps with the help of yet another remove magic spell.

The most recent encounters and adventures of Saros, the F/M/T solo.

I don't know what's happening anymore. Indeed I don't. The most recent events(or self-created bugs, how should I know), have turned out great for my PC. PC had most recently cleared both Windspear hills(firkraag himself) and the Temple Ruins. What is strange, however, is the fact that he was offered both paladin and ranger strongholds!

Moreover, PC just finished the Ranger Stronghold all quests(seems like only the last battle, the one with Umar, has been modded, and Umar was fearsome until I devised a successful tactic). And PC has just been rewarded with a Moon Dog Figurine!

From the fights in the Temple Ruins, most noteworthy were the two random encounters, each of the two groups consisted of a Shade Lich, 2 Skeleton Lords and 2 Skeleton Grandlords. The tactic: Buff well, kill Grandlords and Lords under Time Traps(Grandlords with Staff of Rynn and GWW attacks), and afterwards, deal with the lone lich.

Traxi's buffs were dispelled with several Breaches and Remove Magics and he fell just when he tried to lower my Globe of Invulnerability(next would've been my SI:A). The battle with Firkraag was similar to that. In both battles, the Dragonslayer sword had been used in addition to the Time traps and a Planetar.

SPOILER!


PC had already totally completed both the Planar sphere(all quests) and the De'arnise's fighter quests, including killing lord Roenall. He was indeed a worthy opponent, but had his weaknesses. With the Ranger's quests fulfilled, the fact that the PC is already a Great druid, and the Thieves' stronghold denied(and Renal slain btw), now maybe it is a good time to check if the Clerics will also offer me a Stronghold... Oh, yeah, and maybe PC should check the Paladins too? After all Garren had offered me a place inside the MNORH...

By the way, just for info: PC was able to upgrade the druidic circlet to its true form(forgot the name now because I immediately reloaded). And was able to use it! But the fact that aside from the original +1 bonus to casting speed, PC benefited only with +2 Cha and Wis bonus from the upgraded item, and the cost was a Scroll of Memory Boosting(too rare for me for now) was too high to me yet, and this forced me to reload.

P.S. I have absolutely NO idea why the game considers my character to be of every class!

P.P.S. Maybe I should check the Playhouse for yet another stronghold??

This is why:

PC has most recently completed the Paladin Stronghold vanilla quests and was rewarded with the Pride of the Legion.
PC has also started the special quests for lady Vanya.
PC has killed the Rune Assassins. The fight was immensely easy due to the six pre-laid Time traps, which didn't activate in Firkraag's fight.
But now PC has some serious problems. He has just begun the second quest, killing the Viper Queen. Unfortunately, so far PC have only met(and slain) numerous Giant Cobras and Mutated Cobras. I really need some advice: do I have to reach a certain number of killings? And what may that number be? Because I'm positive that I've searched every corner of the Windspear Hills dungeon and haven't found any Viper Queens.

@ Daulmakan: Thank you about the info. I thought that Multiple strongholds means being able to get all strongholds, which are allowed by your PC classes(in cases of multi/dual class).

The Tweakpack has an option to do that; I don't think the original Ease-of-Use does, though.

Well, I am unfamiliar with the Multiple Strongholds Ease of Use tweak, but that only is what I'm currently using.

Back to the main topic, PC was able to find the Viper Queen inside the Windspear Hills dungeon (no, I'm not going to reveal her location). What PC also found out, was the Viper Queen total immunity to Fire, Cold and Magical damage. PC didn't have a nice weapon dealing a lot of Electrical damage to try that, nor risked to try Acidic damage(the Queen was immune to poison naturally). The Queen was also highly magic resistant, immune to Lower Resistance spell effects, immune to backstab, immune to missile fire, highly resistant to slashing and piercing damage, and somewhat resistant to crushing damage. Also, the Queen regenerated at an average speed.

PC was unable to lay time traps, because of the random spawning Cobras in the whole dungeon. Besides, Time Traps do little good when the PC was surrounded by several lines of snakes and thus unable to move.

Fortunately, random spawning Giant Cobras and Mutated Cobras didn't have the ability to detect invisible units. Under the cover of Invisibility spell, PC quickly rushed to the place where the Queen hides, and buffed(again, under invisibility) with long lasting buffs. PC also cast Blur, Mirror Image and Spell Immunity Evocation on top of that, plus a potion of Frost Giant Str imbibed, then summoned the Viper Queen, and while the queen teleported in the zone of action, PC cast Improved Alacrity.
Then PC activated:
ProMW
FireShields(red and blue): they didn't help much BTW.
ProEvil
ImprHaste
DUHM
Critical Strike
GWW
and armed with the Staff of Rynn, started pounding the Queen, dealing roughly 5 points of damage per strike.
Before IA ended, PC was able to refresh his GWW, Critical Strike and ProMW, and.
SI: E was essential for this tactic to work, because Queen starts with Cloudkill, and after it ends, continues with Death fog. These spells may easily break PC's concentration when casting Improved Alacrity.

This tactic was applied 3 more times(4 total Improved Alacrities, 10 Critical Strikes and 10 GWW attacks, and 5 total proMW spells wasted in the fight). BTW, Improved Alacrity gives time for 3 GWW and 3 Criticals, if the last GWW + critical are activated before the second ones had ended: goes something like: IA, Critical, GWW, 10 attacks, Critical, GWW, 8 attacks, Critical, GWW, proMW, IA ends, 10 attacks, recast IA, all over anew.
Once in the whole combo, a Mirror Image was also recast(the giant cobra attacks are considered to be normal weapons apparently, and also DUHM+ Impr haste had been refreshed.
The last 20 strikes were dealt by a Staff of Striking(recharged with sell/rebuy previously in order to have 25 charges). With it, the average damage per strike was 6.
PC had 2 more staves of striking in his inventory, so maybe the whole battle could've been won faster with using only them.

When the queen finally fell, her minions were easily slain.

The newest adventures of Saros.

Saros gained 31 wizard level, which surprised him with a bonus spell slot for each spell level! From 1 to 9.
Saros cleared the Planar Prison.
The only modded fight here was the fight with the Warden. With an Improved alacrity, and afterwards ProMW, Mirror Image, ImprHaste, Ruby Ray on Warden, repeat, repeat, remove magic, repeat, critical activated, melee, Saros slayed the Warden in a single round.
Before this particular fight, Saros focused on clearing all of the Planar prison's pits, which triggered the Warden's conversation, and thus several planar hounds appeared in the pits. They were slain.

Note: BTW, a single Planar Prison pit may be used in order to avoid the Warden's spells(or magic lasso) in any game. In order to do so, one must not destroy the Command Orb, else will close the pits. The planar hounds will still follow the party.
The Warden's original thralls had been only slightly modded(mages have better starting contingencies, that's all), so they're no big problem. Which is good, because the Warden and the Planar hounds are scary enough for a relatively low-level party.

After killing the Warden, his thralls, all of the living still Planar Hounds, and all of the monsters in the pits(slightly modded in comparison with the vanilla game), Saros destroyed the orb, looted everything and was rewarded with a Playhouse deed.

Afterwards, Saros forged the Amulet of Hades and tried to wear it. Unfortunately, the item stays only for a second and then immediately moves into the inventory. BTW, the original amulet of Charon also does that, so I've seen. So I reloaded in order not to waste my last Manual of Elaboration. It looks like PC will have to do with the regular amulet of power S

Saros was able to complete the last still unresolved side quests in Athkatla and its areas: the Temple District Sewer quests.

First, Saros stormed the Mind Flayer area. The first fight was fierce, but nothing new added in particular. The mage fell quickly to a Improved Alacrity-Ruby Ray-Breach-Critical strike combo, the cleric fell soon afterwards, and the rest of the enemies fell quickly without magic support. The mind flayer was laughable.

Still, the Ulitharids in the next room were well modified. They had a number of illusion spells which they used at maximum efficiency. Nothing scary, though.

The treasure room was heavily guarded. Thanx to the new treasure found in the first battle(a Wish scroll), Saros wished extensively. BTW, he had 7 Time Traps layed before the battle. 2 times he received IA + double TS and 2 times the rest option from the wishes. The Elemental golem summoned some Gem golems and fell with Critical+GWW combo under almost permanent IA and Time Stop. Then Alohoon and the Ulitharids fell under Time Stop and time traps. The Mind flayers were easy, as were the Umber Hulks. Finally, the two Gem golems were slain with FoA.

The treasures in the illithid lair were numerous and valuable.
The most notable from my point of view was the Master of Discipline, since PC could wear it.

The Unseeing eye quest was modded, but fortunately, the Beholders themselves were not. This was a good thing, since PC didn't have Spell Shield or Shield of Balduran.

PC layed some time traps before grabbing Ashideena and killed the spider group under Time trapping.

The battle in the ghoul lair was improved, but the Ghoul chief was no match for my buffed PC.

More dangerous in fact was the random monster spawn inside. Since it was identical to the spawns in the Temple Ruins(2 lords, 2 grandlords, a shade lich), the tactic was the same.
After completing the quest, PC decided to forge some artifacts with the help of Cromwell(too many artifact pieces, 3 Manuals of Elaboration, 2 Scrolls of Mem boosting and 3 Permanency scrolls total)

After subsequent reloading and forging artifacts, here's what were the results:

The grandmaster of flowers cannot be used with UAI(reloaded after forging and trying)
The upgraded Corthala family armor cannot be used with UAI(reloaded)
The Circlet of Golden flowers can be worn by PC with UAI(reloaded). BTW, its mass cure apparently can be used by PC(seems I made a mistake in a previous post about that.
The Talisman of greater protection is nice, but after the process of its forging, 2 of the pieces were still in PC's inventory(an amulet +1 and the amulet of 5% MR - on the bottom of 2 gem bags to be precise). Anyway, PC still likes AoP better for now.
The girdle of Lordly Might is superb for my PC. So I switched the Belt of Inertial barrier with it for now. With this girdle, and DUHM, PC can have 25 str without previous potion drinking.

PC has decided to try to clear the 1st and 2nd floor of WK dungeon, in order to assemble FoA +4.

P.S. The so-called 'cheesy' tactics had given the PC a lot of Potions of Magic shielding(19 or 20 total), and a lot of valuable scrolls. If PC hadn't applied such tactics, many of the ProMW scrolls, Absolute Immunity, Spellstrike, breach scrolls, etc. etc. would be used by enemy warriors/mages in the fight. Quickly slaying mages who rely on scrolls to live had provided PC with about 40 scrolls of ProMW, 15 scrolls of Absolute Immunity and 20-25 scrolls of spellstrike. Plus, some rare scrolls(like the just looted Wish scroll) may be used by enemy in the thick of combat, and thus lost.

Unfortunately, the recent victories of Saros are neither original nor very sound. At least the clearing of the 1st and 2nd level of WK went with 2 reloads only.

Saros has hit the 40th fighter level a little before he entered WK. 40th thief level has also been reached. Current wizard level after clearing lvl 1 and 2 of WK: 33.

Major focus in HLAs has been on Critical strikes and GWW attacks.

The 1st WK level was not very hard. Fanatic spirits have been killed in melee with Critical strikes. There were no additional statues spawning except for the original in the vanilla game. The monster groups(random encounters) were also like in the vanilla game. With one exception: the Spider Queen.

PC had his spider figurine equipped on a quick-slot. When he went in the southeastern rooms(the one with the spellhaunt) the Spider Queen appeared.
PC was surprised, and without spells. I reloaded.
Second time, PC set a line of Time Traps in the next as well as in the same room. PC had buffed himself with only longer-lasting buffs in the next room(not the one with the Spellhaunt) when the Queen surprised PC again.
PC started casting IA when he saw the dimension door of the Queen.
PC completed IA. A time trap triggered.
PC casted proMW since he noticed that the queen is immune to Time Stop effects.
PC cast Wish. 5 times.
PC received both a Rest option and Double-length TS&IA from his Wishes.
PC cast shorter lasting buffs. They almost all had a casting cost 1. Except for DUHM.
During the TS, PC slew the Spider queen with the usual Staff of the Ram + GWW + Critical strike+ proMW to protect himself from Queen attacks.
The queen fell almost at the same time as the time stop ended.
PC cast ProMW. The next round, PC cast IA, a Wish(Horrid Wilting on everyone), Skull trap *3, and Horrid Wilting *2, and killed the surviving spiders in melee.

After clearing the 1st floor of the dungeon, PC assembled the Golden spider figurine with the help of Cromwell.

On the 2nd floor, there was a battle with a Steam Elemental prince. He uses Lower Fire resistance, but not very often. Now is a good time to say that if your Fire resistance has been lowered and you are under certain protective spell(say, ProFire), cast a different protective spell(Fireshield red, proElements, ProEnergy, or simply use a protective potion/scroll or item granting permanent fire res to negate the lowering effect.
Keeping your fire res to 100% or higher is essential if you wanna hurt him in melee, and I'm not 100% positive, but melee may be the only way to harm him.
He had a lot of HP, but seems like no resistance to crushing damage, so the Staff of Rynn with a couple of GWW attacks killed him.

In the opposite room, there was an Elemental Golem. Plus the additional quo-toans, who tend to dispel the so-needed anti-golem illusion spells with their innate true sight. A bad combination, but still, both type of creatures cannot pass through maximum elemental resistances and proMW or similar spell. The ellemental golem fell during a double-length TS+IA, and the gated Coin and gem golems were afterwards slain. Maybe I should learn to use that new spell, hand of undoing or Ray of fragmentation, with IA several may be released simultaneously, dealing a lot more damage than my puny melee strikes.

There were no more modifications(at least I saw none) except for some interesting items and scrolls, and the final battle with the Chromatic Demon.

I was prepared wrongly for this fight, since I expected the vanilla demon. Unfortunately, this one transforms cleverly accordingly of damage situation and spells released on him. I noticed that he's not immune to melee damage(although he's highly resistant and also regenerates somewhat). Also, I noticed that he's highly magic resistant, and I think that he's immune to lower resistance effects(I tried some Pierce Shields on him, with apparently no effect).
Plus, he gates in several types of monsters to assist him. A new mist of some sort, which is vulnerable to elemental damage, but immune to melee strikes. Some Salamander princes which come with permanent Fireshields around them, and Amber golems too.
Also, the golem has some spells. I didn't see breach, but he had a remove magic(at least in his Air elemental form), and also had the ability to lower elemental resistances(fire and acid in particular), and afterwards he releases a death fog or incendiary clouds.

So PC reloaded. The preparations for the 2nd fight were:
More ProMW. The demon is not immune to Time Stop btw.
7 pre-laid Time traps
PC casts IA and summons chromatic demon. A time trap triggers.
During IA pc casts:
a ProElements and ProMagicEnergy in addition to normal elemental buffing with long-lasting spells, plus of course fireshields.
All other shorter lasting buffs plus DUHM. ProMW too
3 Wishes

PC wished for Double length TS+ IA.
afterwards PC cast 6 Sunfire spells(Demon was in Ice Golem Form)
Demon switched to Fire beast form while still Timestopped.

To make a long story short, PC wished extensively and used 3 of his 7 time traps to kill the demon with...Guildmaster's dream main ,scarlet off, and critical strikes...
PC had the luck of yet another double length TS + IA.
The demon managed to release several spells in the intervals between the Wishes and trap triggering. An incendiary cloud and a Lower fire resistance.
The demon's minions were nothing in particular. Not to mention the fact that he summoned another Mist, which, as the first one, fell from the Sunfire spells and Horrid Wiltings released by Wishes.

With this battle won, PC was afraid to rest inside, because due to high levels he may've been disturbed by high-level enemies while resting. But PC made a mistake: went downstairs and tried to exit the dungeon the normal way(following yakman). Unfortunately, here he met with a Supreme Elemental Golem. Ugh...

Having met a greater elemental golem, and barely surviving to tell the tale, PC was more than frightened. Fortunately, the beast only wanted for Saros to prove himself. To face a beast...well, anything's better than a Supreme Elemental Golem...

Unfortunately, PC was still exausted from the previous battles. Having too few HLAs and spell protections available/running, PC saw the lair he was teleported in and knew...there will be dragons.
So PC paused and rested.
PC cast IA and started buffing immediately. Besides, PC set 5 Time Traps(with IA, they can be set without delay). PC cast SI: A and was trying to cast his protections from Acid, Lightning and magical damage, when the wurm approached. PC saw it and cast only the instantaneous buffs like Imprhaste, blur, proevil, mirror image, proMW, and in this moment, the dialog triggered...well, the wyrm wanted a fight.
PC cast Ruby Ray, and Breach, before starting wishing.

No time trap triggered. Until almost the end of the fight. With IA still running, PC Wished several times. One of the wishes was Double length TS+IA. PC cast his remaining wishes (3) and, casting all other protective buffs, like Spell turning, Spell Defl, GoI, proAcid, proLightning, ProME, DUHM, critical, and attacked the beast. Somehow, under Time Stop, the beast fired a Spell Trigger loaded with more than 3 spells(no cheating monsters, right), and one of the spells was Spell turning(again, no cheating, right), and another was, of course, ProMW. So PC released another breach,6 Sunfire spells, 2 Pierce shield spells and his IA ended.
Almost at the time of the end of TS, the wyrm's proMW faded. So the breach removed only a stoneskin.
from the rest of the Wishes, PC got a rest option. The beast released his storm of vengeance on PC and started ruby raying. Suffice to say, I forgot to don the Ring of Gaxx and the effect of his breath was catastrophic...almost 200 damage on Insane...Still PC survived(DUHM running, 260 HP). Afterwards, PC wished and got another double-length TS + IA. Again, some sort of contingency fired with ProMW, so the only rounds the PC could harm the beast were the last 2 rounds of the TS. The Wyrm was at near-death, when TS ended. Here finally began time trap triggering, and the beast fell.

On its body, and on the body of the Chromatic demon were several valuable artifacts. With them, PC forged the FoA +4, and also tried to forge the Truth sword, and also the boots of the ranger lord, only to find out that they are unusable with UAI(cannot even keep the sword in place to use its True Sight ability).

So far, PC is satisfied from his artifacts and is storming SpellHold, Sahuagin City and Underdark. With a nice 1-handed +4 crushing weapon, 1-handed +4 piercing weapon, many many spells and a good +3 slashing weapon(Celestial fury), with ** in katanas, flails and daggers, I think that PC will not meet any real challenge in chapter 4 and 5.

P.S. I have saved games at most vital points(before a crucial fight). So, if anyone wants an exact information about a certain fight, I would gladly replay it, and then write it down, round by round. The fact that I don't do so is because these fights seem to be doable(even in a no-reload game) yet. I will concentrate on the description of the really challenging fights(If I'm actually to win them at all).

PC had won the twisted rune fight, but since the battles were 3:2 for the rune(after 4 reloads and replays), and PC won only if the Wishes were right(Double TS + IA), this battle will be re-done in chapter 6. I guess that when PC has Time Stop, Spell Shield and Chain Contingency, the battle will be much easier.

BTW, PC has an excellent slashing weapon, since he had found a scroll of Black Blade of Disaster(in WK 2nd floor to be exact).

PC is now headed for Spellhold.

Before heading off for Spellhold, PC forged the Phosphorous and the Circlet of Golden Flowers(for the Cha and Wis bonuses and also, the Mass cure might come in handy)

PC has heard rumors about the Spellhold asylum: mainly, that it is very hard to comlete at higher levels of experience. Something like 'a hell', as far as I remember Sikret's description.

To me, it was more like a walk in the park.
In Brynnlaw my PC obtained a certain named magical weapon.
The Spellhold asylum began normally, with little improvements. The main improvements were on Dace's level, where(due to high level of exp) PC had to fight the normal undead spawn(Shade Lich, 2 Skeleton Lords and 2 Grandlords). In addition to this, 3 more skeleton lords appeared from somewhere(later, I understood that these are Asylum guards which spawn at some interval, and the group may be either 3 Skeleton lords, or 3 Wraith spiders, or 2 Asylum golems, besides, these groups don't give items or xp when slain).

The Cat'o'nine lives was nothing special nor very tough.
Dace and his master were also easily slain.
The problem was the Kobold battle since PC didn't expect it to be that modified. He started pounding everyone in melee, but when he received some Lightning damage from Guardian Spirits, he understood that his Lightning resistance had been lowered to 25 percent. Then PC ran away, and thanx to a prelaid tTime Trap, was able to activate IA, several Wishes, and Protection from Energy, bringing back his Elec res to 100 percent. One of the wishes gave double TS&IA option, which was absolutely sufficient for PC to slay enemy Guardian Spirits and spellcasters. The Amber Golems were subsequently killed with Black Blade of Disaster and critical strikes, with Phosphorous off for 25 Str(and girdle of Lordly might).
All of the monsters of the book were slain without either usual or Wish resting. 2 groups of random guards appeared during these fights. Some Time Traps were used too(for the Beholder especially).

On the next level, the Mitrhil golem proved to be a tough enemy. PC was rendered unconscious and asleep during that fight. Fortunately, he managed to awake without injuries, and activating a couple of ProMW plus criticals, was able to kill the golem without a scratch. During this fight, 3 Skeleton lords appeared, they were slain.
Unfortunately, PC was able to collect only 34 mithril tokens, which were insufficient to get all of the desired items(Jester's chain, Boots of the North, Boots of Grounding). So PC decided to pick the Chain and Boots of Grounding, with a save game in case he's not able to use the Eternal Melody(and he will most probably be unable to, but I wanna try).
The fight with Jon was easy, but only due to PCs high wizard level(34), which allowed his Remove magic to be extremely effective, since Jon runs SI: D.

Afterwards, PC cleared the Sahuagin city.
By the way, all of the treasures may be looted. My PC looted the King, and found a key and some valuable scrolls. The treasury was opened with the key, thus PC received a Rod of Lordly Might and a Scroll of Prot from Elements. When PC killed the Prince and his snakes, and the King rewarded him, PC got another Rod of LM plus Gauntlets of Crushing plus the loot from the Imp quest and from the body of the Prince.

Now PC enters Underdark...

Yipe! New areas, modified enemies, ok, I'm starting one by one:

Armament of PC in all of the described battles: Phosphorous main, Scarlet off, FoA optional.
Girdle of Lordly Might(25 str), boots of speed, ring of prot +4, cloak of prot +3, ring of Wizardry, circlet of Golden Flowers, Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill(replaced by Gauntlets of WE in the Orcus fight). In short, PC had maximum str with 9 APR under ImprHaste and six with Haste only, reduced casting speed by 4, and MR of 15.

First drow ambush: suprised me, had to reload once because I got my protections dispelled by a spider. The second time, both my physical and magical protections were up. An IA, followed by 4 ruby rays(casting time 1, 2 for each of the drow mages), followed by 2 remove magics(casting time 0) followed by 4 horrid wiltings, and afterwards wishing(really didn't matter in that case), Skull traps and melee, solved this fight quickly. Enemy Devas were almost all of the time Webbed.

Second drow ambush: having all buffs dispelled in a narrow place, surrounded by enemies is indeed bad. Yet(after reloading, they surprised me the 1st time), PC simply waited the(only) mage to start casting his Chaos spell and released a Spell Trigger: ProMW, Globe, Deflection.
Afterwards, PC resisted the Chaos spell(saving thr vs spells -4), and activated his SI:A. The next round, he cast IA and the battle was over in 2 or 3 more rounds.

From all of the other battles, PC haven't yet completed the Illithid city, and the Kuotoan prince.

The Elder orb was tough: modified with great physical resistances. PC, however, entered the Beholder lair under a Double length TS&IA wish, and thus slayed the beast without much problems(the other beholder was killed in mere seconds in melee).

The other Elder orbs inside were not modified. PC hid in a safe place and wished. Several wishes were for Horrid Wiltings, which killed everyone except the Orbs. PC killed those via another TS&IA wish.

The one thing PC did not find, was a scroll of Spell shield. Now, in the original game, the Duergar merchants do sell one, but these didn't have any, instead had 2 different types of scrolls of Spell Sequencer. Is there something wrong with my game or do I have to wait until later?

Then PC entered the Deep Maze.

It took quite some time for PC to find the way through the maze. Finally, he met with Dracolich:

This fight was not very hard. PC had his buffs removed, but activated IA immediately. He had almost fully buffed himself(and had 3 wishes already activated, one of which was for Rest) when Dracolich arrived. PC had laid some Time Traps under IA, but those proved to be ineffective since Dracolich was immune to TS effects.

Fortunately, Dracolich was of lower than my PC level, which allowed my remove magics to be always successful. With six remove magics, a sequencer of remove magic, and melee attacks, PC was able to slay Dracolich. PC used his refreshed IA(casting time five) when Dracolich had removed his SI:A, in order to buff himself with SI:A(casting time 1, almost immediately Breach was absorbed in it), Spell Turning(casting time 3), Globe of Invulnerability(casting time 2) and Spell Deflection(casting time 2), plus another spell turning because Dracolich managed to release another Ruby ray.

Dracolich released many Death fog spells on PC, in hopes to break his spellcasting concentration. Due to the reduced casting time of PC(by 4) this tactic of Dracolich was unsuccessful.

The other 'tough' fight was that with the Demon Knights:

This battle was a laugh. PC buffed with Fireshields, and prot from Elements and Energy(anti lowering Fire resistance tactic), and set 7 time traps. 4 of the Demon knights had SI: D running however, so time traps or no time traps: they survived unscratched. The fifth one was running SI: A. Bad luck. He was immediately slain in melee.
PC also released 3 Remove Magics under Time Traps.
Time traps ended. Remove magics were successful. Demon Knights started falling. One released a CC with 3 Incendiary clouds, and they tried to lower PCs fire res. Well they did, but not below 127. Some of the Demon Knights started Ruby Raying PC, but with the help of IA and Spell Trigger, PC kept all of his buffs active and killed the puny demons in melee.

The toughest, so far, fight, was with the prince of the Undead, Orcus.

This is the tactic I used, and it relies on luck somewhat:
PC enters, Orcus appears, PC casts ProMW. Orcus summons 8 Grandlords.
PC focuses on Orcus with 2 Criticals. Orcus shoots Ruby Rays and fights, and also summons more undead(Lords, master vampires, vampire brides)
PC refreshes proMW
Orcus(with the help of Dominations from vampires) lowers PC's spell protections
PC refreshes SI: A and melee on Orcus
Orcus ruby rays
PC refreses SI: A and melee on Orcus
Orcus ruby rays
Undead keep coming
PC refreshes ProMW and melee
Orcus in the meantime had wasted 2 Stoneskins. Here he casts another Stoneskin
PC refreshes SI: A and melee
Orcus ruby rays
PC refreshes SI: A and melee
Orcus activates ProMW
PC refreshes ProMW and melee a skeleton Grandlord.
Orcus fights and summons undead(didn't have more rays, but this info may be misleading: it was a hell inside and I'm unaware of the exact number of Rays that he has)
PC activates Critical and melee the grandlord
Orcus melee
PC Critical and melee grandlord
Orcus melee
PC refresh ProMW and melee grandlord
Orcus melee
In short: the tactic was this afterwards: PC had 8 total ProMW remembered before the fight started. He refreshed ProMW until the last one. PC hit Orcus when his ProMW was down, because neither Remove Magic nor Breach worked on Orcus. In the other time, while Orcus was Protected from MW, PC hit the nearest undead he could, the preferable target choice was: Skeleton Grandlord, Skeleton Lord, Vampire Bride(master vampires take too much time to kill).
When PC had only 1 ProMW left, he cast IA.
With IA, PC activated 3 Wiltings, refreshed his short lasting buffs, cast his last ProMW, activated one of the last Critical and GWW, Hardiness, Avoid Death, Evasion, Greater evasion too, and hoped for rest.
Needless to say, I reloaded here a lot. Anyway, rest from six wishes is something like fifty/fifty chance.
Rest was granted, as was a Horrid Wilting on everyone.
With Rest, PC had 9 ProMW spells(replaced one before resting), which were enough to kill Orcus and have 3 more ProMW spells available. Then PC repeated Wishing, but no rest this time. 2 of the wishes were for Horrid wiltings, which with the 3 recast Wiltings killed many Vampire Brides. Unfortunately, TS&IA activated while Brides were in Gaseous form, still surrounding PC and preventing him to reach the Skeleton Lords and Grandlords which were still alive(2 grandlords and many Lords). PC activated 3 Teleport fields to make some room around him. A second TS&IA was activated, this one helped PC to slay a Lord and a Grandlord(no more were near, PC was still surrounded by Gaseous forms. In the end PC had only 3 ProMW and too mny enemies were around, so PC hid in one of the rooms, switched the Ring of Wizardry for another protective ring +4, and the Circlet of Golden flowers was replaced by Helm of Balduran, also PC had many illusion spells which now came in handy(2 Blurs and six mirror Images, plus a minor sequencer with Blur and mirror Image). PC slew many Brides, 2 or 3 master vampires, the last grandlord and 2 skeleton lords(the lords and grandlord were slain under the last proMW). Brides couldn't punch through PC's Armor Class, only Master Vampires, Skeleton Lords, and the(already dead) Grandlords could do it. so the remaining Lords and Master vampires were killed with GWW attacks(no more Impr Haste), while PC continually refreshed Stoneskins, Mirror Images and once, Blur.

There were many undead, and it was a glorious battle.

Of course, this tactic solely relies on luck with Wishing. To remove the Luck factor, PC replayed the battle with 20 scrolls of ProMW in his inventory. This was sufficient for an honest victory.

PC assembled a lot of artifacts. As expected, most of them couldn't be used by PC. Some, however, could:

Poseidon's Wrath
Hesperus
Crom Faeyr(haven't fount Uzuno's blade yet for the upgrade)
Cutthroat +5
The new Ioun Stone
The Eternal Melody

While the Eternal Melody may be used ONLY by bards( thieves with UAI cannot use it), there is still some small benefit in assembling it. With reduced casting speed, and quickly reequipping the item, and autopause on 'spell cast', many spells can be cast before the game engine actually checks to remove the item from PC. Of course, this tactic is possible with regular thieves with UAI too, but in this case, the armor will only help them to quickly lay series of traps or activating simultaneously many thief HLAs.
The automatic unequipping of the item makes it totally useless in combat situations, however, since the armor will not be available for reequipping until the fight has ended

Some more addons.

First of all, PC replayed all of the Underdark again, with no reloads this time, and cleared each and every area(incl Illithid city, Demon Knights, Dracolich, Beholder Lair, Adalon herself, etc.)

The battle with dracolich was carried out Without any Wishes(removing thus the random element), with many IA spells, and many Remove Magics, and many ProMW too, and criticals and melee).

This time most of the Demon Knights were under SI: A and thus fell under time trapping, leaving only 1 or 2 alive for after time traps ended.

PC hasn't yet faced Orcus again, but have devised an always working tactic versus the Twisted Rune:

PC layed 7 Time traps on the staircase
PC buffed with long lasting buffs, Blur, Mirror Image, and summoned a Greater Djinni and a Noble Spider. Greater Djinni summoned Djinni and GJ buffed well, and also hasted all summons.
PC cast Spell Turning, SI: A, 3 Farsight spells in order to light the battlefield and summoned the Rune.
Shangalar gave his speech. PC contingencies activated: ProMW, ImprHaste, GoI and Spell Deflection.
Shangalar started casting True Sight.
PC ordered his summons to close Vexal.
PC shot Remove Magic so that it could affect Vexal, but standing out of his sight(no spell shield folks).
Vexal recast Stoneskin
Shangalar attacked Greater Djinni, as did Shyressa and Ravanek.
Layene started buffing herself.
PC cast Time Stop, and started pounding Vexal.
It took PC a little more than 4 Time Stops to kill Vexal. In the meantime, a Twisted Golem appeared.
When the fifth and final memorized TS ended, the enemies started pounding the still alive Greater Djinni.
PC retreated to his prelaid traps.
Enemies approached. Shyressa was slain under 2 Time traps, 1 went for Ravanek, and the rest went for Shangalar. Under Traps was also refreshed SI: A.
Traps ended. Layene and Golem were still alive. Layene's SI: A had expired under Traps and Stops.
PC approached Layene and cast his Trigger with ProMW, GoI and Spell Deflection.
Layene cast Absolute Immunity from a scroll.
PC cast IA.
PC refreshed illusion buffs, ImprHaste, cast True Sight, activated Critical and Remove magic. True sight dispelled Layene's staff invisibility. Remove magic removed her Fireshield, Absolute Immunity and other buffs.
PC managed to hit her 4 times when she cast Stoneskin and hid under the staff.
PC cast Remove Magic(still active IA) and ProMW. After a couple of seconds, True Sight revealed her location and 2 or 3 more strikes were enough for her.
The Twisted golem, on his own, provided I had 4 more ProMW unused, and 17 Criticals, was easily slain.

This tactic was tested 3 more times with unerring success.

Note: sometimes Shangalar may have activated ProMW before the traps start activating. In this case, focus on someone else until his ProMW has expired.
Also, a fighter may have activated Hardiness. In this case, too, find a more vulnerable target.
7 Traps are enough for Shangalar's ProMW to expire and to be slain with his stoneskin removed in melee.
If fighters have Hardiness active, they'd better be left for last. With 4 promw, 4 breaches, additional Wand breaches, the warriors don't stand a chance.

No new encounters yet. PC plans to defeat Orcus(again, with no-reloads this time, even if this means sacrificing several ProMW scrolls, or maybe a new tactical approach, with lots of Absolute Immunity spells instead of Wishes), and also to clear WK lvls 3 and 4, plus completing the Bard and Clerical strongholds, and maybe even joining some NPCs in order to trigger their 'specific' quests(no more than 1 NPC at a time), and also PC will try to find out the secret of Mekrath's staircase, as well as(of course) kill Bodhi.

Several tips, however:

The Wish spell, if cast by a wise spellcaster, may prove to be a gold mine: with all of the potions and wands received, which afterwards may be sold for a fair price.
One of the random Potion reward is Potion of Absorbtion. This means, that for each fight, a character may consume six (or more) of these potions, in order to bring his Crushing AC modifier to -60(in addition to the normal person's AC). This may prove invaluable versus, say, Golems, or Vampires, or demons, in fact all enemies who rely on Crushing attacks.
Another random reward is Potion of Clarity, so no need to worry about those either.

The Ray of Fragmentation(at least in my game) seems to be totally ineffective against Elemental or Greater Elemental golems: they seem to be immune to spell level 4 and lower. Hand of Undoing works, at least vs Elemental golems(haven't found yet another Greater elemental golem to test it), but frankly, for my character, with 9 APR under Impr Haste, ProMW and Criticals, it seems to be a total waste of time casting this spell even under IA with reduced casting time. Melee and Criticals deal a lot more damage(for instance, Hand of Undoing casting time 3, deals 10-11 damage to an Elemental golem, in this time, PC will deal 17-25 points of damage in melee).
Ray of Fragmentation seems to be useful only cast via IA(releasing several simultaneously and still being able to activate Critical and ProMW), because, if PC is not under Improved alacrity, while the effective casting time of the Ray for my PC is 0, PC is way better activating Critical strike instead, thus doubling his melee damage for an entire round, rather than casting a single spell which will deal 2-16 points of damage to a Gem/Amber/Coin golem.

Certain enemies who are naturally immune to elemental/magical damage, tend to cast Protection from Energy, thus bringing their resistances to more than 100%(more like 127%). Such enemies must not be hit with elemental damaging weapons, because they will regenerate. The most obvious example: Vexaal. He is 100% naturally resistant to Elec damage, and starts the fight with ProEnergy, thus bringing his elec resistance to 127%. He has great physical resistances, meaning that my character with str 25 and ** in War hammers was able to inflict only 3 points of damage per strike with Crom Faeyr. When I tried the same strategy with Phosphorous(again str 25 and **), Vexaal died much faster. I puzzled why, and guessed: for each hit with CF, Vexaal took 3 points of Crushing damage, while at the same time healed by 1 point of damage from his 127% elec resistance and CF's elec damage, thus resulting in 2 points of effective damage per strike with CF. Phosphorous, on the other hand, has no elemental damage, and thus it dealt 3 points of dmg per strike.

The Adventurer's mart 'special stock' was once the best place to sell all of the extra equipment, because the selling prices were astounding. Now, Ribald offers the 'normal' price for an item instead, thus leaving the Swirfneblin merchant in Underdark to be the most profitable place where a character can sell some extra stuff.

On Ray of Fragmentation. I don't know whether you have it installed, but there is a fix for this spell in the IA bugthread here.

Thanx. Can you please help me with my Spell Shield problem? Where in the IA game can be found such a scroll? Do Duergar merchants in Unrderdark sell one, or has it been replaced? You may post it either as PM or in Spoiler tags. I will be grateful.

PC has reached lvl 40 in WK dungeon, lvl 3.
HLAs:
All of the wizard HLAs
Thief: 1 Spike trap, 1 Exploding trap, 7 Time traps, 1 Evasion, 3 Greater Evasion, 3 Avoid Death, 1 Assasinate, 1 UAI
Warrior: 1 Power Attack, 20 Critical Strike, 1 Smite, 1 WW, 19 GWW, 10 Hardiness

Meanwile, with a little thinking and a little reloading, PC managed to devise an always-working tactic versus the Prince of Undead and his army.

The tactic is solely based on melee and 17 protective spells(11 proMW and 6 Absolute Immunities), with additional scrolls in pack if things get rough, plus 5-6 Spell Immunities and 4-5 Spell Turnings(great anti ruby-ray tactic)
The other buffs which help immensely in order to finish Orcus' minions after he's slain, are Blur, Mirror Image, Minor Sequencer with those spells, Fireshields(Red and Blue), Stoneskins, Skull Trap spells, Protection from Energy, Horrid Wilting spells, Teleport Field, and an Improved Alacrity spell(seventh 9 lvl slot).

The tactic is primarily this(I tried to write it down but it got messed up at the time when Orcus fell).

I had 9 ProMW remembered. 1 was in CC, as was a GoI and a Pro Magic Energy. In my Contingency was Improved haste. All of these contingencies were made with a single purpose: to free me more 6-th level slots for proMW. Also, I had Imprhaste and ProMW, plus GoI in my Spell Trigger.
Globe of Invulnerability(anti ruby-ray), while shorter-lasting than Spell Turning or Spell Deflection, is still more useful in this fight, because Brides cannot remove it with their Domination spells, while Spell Turning or Deflection can be removed with 3 Dominations.
The tenth 6 lvl slot was occupied by ImprHaste(ring of Wizardry grants me this slot).

The most important things in this fight were to:
Keep PC always Protected from Magical Weapons, without letting the previous one expire, but also, never refresh too early. Also, PC must be well protected from Orcus's ruby Rays. I usually don't let him lower all of my protection(including SI:A) but instead counter his raying by immediately re-casting Spell Turning when he manages to Ray it. It requires some practice(managing to keep both ProMW and Spell Turning active at almost all times), but it's not hard to learn.
Of course, SI: A must also be refreshed. Since Orcus is immune to Breach and Remove Magic, my 5-th level slots were occupied with SI,and my 3rd lvl slots with Skull Traps.
When all ProMW have expired, there is a thin moment: Absolute Immunity cannot be cast on top of the last ProMW. Orcus's melee attack dispels specific protections(elemental protective spells), but does not dispel spell protections, or Improved haste, or Stoneskin or Spirit Armor. So, in order for AI to be cast, the last ProMW must first expire(if the tactic is right, at the time of the 10-th released PC ProMW, Orcus's last ProMW had just expired. When the last ProMW nears its expiring, PC must check carefully each moment his Character sheet, for only a Stoneskin(10 enemy strikes) separate him from oblivion(on Insane difficulty, that is) in a mere second. When ProMW expires, if Orcus succeeds in successfully hitting PC, then PC's elemental resistance buffs will be dispelled. This is no big deal, since enemies in this fight don't use any spells which deal elemental, acid or magical damage. However, this affected my tactic for the moment when Orcus was slain and I had to deal with his numerous enemies, which had me completely surrounded in 4 circles(teleport field just doesn't help against such masses).

Orcus usually dies when I have an Absolute Immunity spell activated soon, and 3 or 4 more memorized AI spells, unused so far.
Also, Orcus doesn't die alone, since, when he's protected from MW, I concentrate my attacks on nearest enemy in *this* order: Grandlord, Lord, Master Vampire, Vampire Bride.
Usually, PC has slain at least 4 Grandlords, 4-5 Lords and 3-4 Master Vampires, plus a fair number of Brides when finally Orcus dies.

As I said in my previous post, Master vampires tend to die a lot more harder than puny Brides. However, as many Masters as possible must be eradicated while PC has his Improved Haste spells(3 total), since later, when Orcus is dead, the Master vampires can summon additional Brides, which, although not very tough, tend to be quite distracting(not to mention their turning into bats/gaseous form when they die, thus successfully blocking PCs path for a round or two, while at the same time, Lords and Grandlords, due to their two-handed weapon reach, hit PC from a safe distance behind Gaseous Forms.

When Orcus dies, PC has protective spell running for at least 2 more rounds. PC activates his(one and only) IA spell.
PC casts ProMagicEnergy
PC switches Girdle of Lordly Might for Belt of Inertial Barrier(prot from Magical energy thus becoming 100%).
PC releases 9 Skull Trap spells(6 memorized, 3 from Spell Sequencer) in a blink(reduced casting time by 4).
PC waits for all of the traps to trigger, then starts activating ADHW spells for the rest of the Brides.
PC also activates a Teleport field(clears place for PC to move after the Brides are dead).
PC activates illusion buffs(Blur, Mirror Image, as well as Protection from Evil)
PC activates Fireshields(red and blue) - work great vs Skeleton lords.
PC switches belts back(for the AC and Str Bonuses)
PC switches Circlet of Golden Flowers for Helm of Balduran or Indigo Ioun Stone(for AC and THAC0 bonus)
PC switches Ring of Wizardry for another Ring of Protection +4(for AC bonus).

The spells kill almost all of the Brides, and some even manage to hurt the tougher enemies.

When the gaseous forms disappear, PC barricades in one of the rooms nearby, thus the maximum number of enemies which can hit him at a time are 2.
Well, not always. Master Vampires summon Brides around PC, meaning: inside the room PC has occupied. Brides, however, almost never penetrate PC's Armor Class(only on critical).
So, Brides are no concern(plus, there are few of them after the recent carnage).
Lords are killed with only illusion buffs active. Same tactic works for Master Vampires.
Grandlords, having a great THAC0, almost always hit(even with a great AC). So, the rest of the Grandlords are killed under the rest of PC's Absolute Immunity spells.
GWW attacks start to be useful after the last ImprHaste had expired.
PC usually ends the fight with 2 stoneskins, a minor sequencer and 1 protective spell(AI) unused.

PC has also cleared the whole 3-rd level of WK dungeon. The toughest fight(since demon fights are unmodded) was with the Tieflings.

The regular Thieflings are unmodded(meaning, they still activate Assassination while double-wielding axes +2). The only modded enemy is the Mage.
He(apparently) is a high level Wild mage, since all of his spells are cast successfully. In addition, he summons Elite Planar Hounds, which are great in melee and their melee attack dispels elemental resistance buffs plus Stoneskin. Meaning, that even if a fully buffed character enters this place, when his ProMW had expired, he is slain in a second.

The always-working tactic for my solo was:
Activating Improved Alacrity in the previous room(the one with the dead tree inside, where Demon Knights appear)
Immediately entering the room with the Tieflings
Pausing the game
Activating as many as possible Time Traps(usually 4 or 5).
Killing the Hybrid Tiefling and his 2 elite planar hounds under Time traps with powerful melee strikes.
The rest of the fight is easy.

The High Priestess card from the last game with Aesgerath makes the character playing permanently silent, even though my PC was wearing the Amulet of Power(immunity to silence). No matter, I've met with this bug before, so I left the maze, headed back to town, and used one of the previously stored Remove Curse scrolls to cure my permanent Silence. No other option works in this case: PC cannot talk to NPCs in order to join an additional mage/priest who can cure the silence, cannot talk to temples(again, for remove curse), and cannot talk to merchants(i.e. if the scrolls haven't been bought previously, there is no chance save reloading before the game). Reading scrolls, although PC is silenced, works however(this might help in a battle when some characters are Gravely Silenced - they can still cast spells from scrolls until their Silence wears off).

Now, PC has some troubles with the Githyanki army, since he hasn't yet found a sound strategy. The only successful attempt so far included 3 Restings via Wish. Not very sound strategy, IMHO.

P.S. Does anyone know where to find a Spell Shield scroll in an IA game?

The Gith army had been soundly defeated. 3 times in a row. Here's the combat tactic(at least with a 40/40/40 lvl F/M/T).

Note: since in this fight the thief skills of the characters were of no use, a high-level F/M can also do it in a similar way, only in this case the pre-combat triggering of the Time trap will be replaced by an activated Time Stop spell instead.
PC came for this battle buffed with SI:D and illusion buffs, thus negating anti-paladins targeted Maze spell, and Ruby Rays of the Supreme leader.

PC buffed well and triggered a pre-laid time trap using a summon. During the time trap, PC entered the Gith quarters, and reached the ship. The goal was to close the three main enemies: the Supreme Leader, Mlar and Hr'acknur.

This tactic had been devised via much reloading. If one concentrates on the Supreme leader, he will soon find out that he's unkillable while Mlar and Hr'acknur are still alive. If one enters the Gith quarters without a Time stop effect activated, then he will be swarmed by horde of Gith at first, and afterwards, a horde of golems created by Mlar and Hr'acknur, and this horde of monsters will somewhat prevent them from reaching the Golem Constructors.

Note: The Supreme leader is, of course, a high-level F/M, armed with Angurvadal(nasty fire damage from the sword, spellcasting disruption). His Gith arny is apparently armed with Normal weapons(well, maybe except the Anti-Paladins, I'm not sure about their armaments), while the Golems strike with magical weapons(fists). This somewhat foiled the usefulness of ProMW spell.

Back to the tactic: under a single Time Trap, PC reached the Constructors. The trap ended, the Supreme leader gave his speech. PC attacked Mlar.

Note: I think that Mlar is a shapeshifted elemental golem, because he creates Gem and Coin golems, and also has the same resistances as an Elemental Golem(plus he and Hr'acknur are immune to Time Stop effects).

After the beginning of the attack on Mlar(CF main, scarlet off), PC cast Absolute Immunity, because of the mixed normal and magical attacks around him.
With the help of 3 Critical Strikes, Mlar was brought to Badly Injured.
PC refreshed AI on 4th round.
With 3 more Critical attacks, Mlar fell, and PC was even able to bring Hracknur to Injured.

Note: If Mlar is alive, Hracknur seems to be a lot harder to kill(as if Mlar has some sort of protection aura).

With another Absolute Immunity spell, Hracknur fell and PC calmly activated his Improved Alacrity.Then PC cast:
Ruby Ray of Reversal(effective casting time 1) on Supreme leader
Ruby ray again on leader
Remove magic(effective casting time 0)
PC waits a sec for Remove magic to take effect and Leader to cast Stoneskin or Absolute Immunity.
Remove Magic
Greater Malinson(effective casting time 0)
Greater Malinson
5*skull traps(effective casting time 0)
4*Sunfire(effective casting time 0)
a second waiting for Sunfires to explode.
Remove Magic
Time Stop

The AoE spells killed almost all Githyanki, and also almost all Clay and Stone golems(Sunfire).

With Mlar and Hracknur dead, and 3 Time Stops memorized, it took PC only a couple of rounds to slay the Supreme leader(his buffs have been already dispelled).

Unfortunately, when the Leader fell, so did the surrounding Coin and Gem golems. No matter in this case: PC is rich and has hit the xp cap.

Saladrex was slain with this cheesy combo: IA in front of him, 4 or 5 Time traps laid simultaneously, attack, hit until death(poor critter didn't even have the time to cast Stoneskin).

The Demi-Lich gave me a little hard time, since it lowers Acid resistance, and even with ProEnergy, my Acidic resistance was 25% at the end of the fight. I advise consuming potions of Acid resistance(at least 2) in this fight, on top of usual spell protections. The Demilich also tried lowering my Elec resistance, but PC had Prot from Elements running, thus foiling somewhat Demilich's tactic. Yet the Demilich managed to lower PC's elec res to 75%, so consuming a Potion of Absorbtion is also a good thing in this fight. The demilich also lowers Fire res, but in this case, due to the additional Fireshield running, PC's Fire res was very hard to be lowered below 100%.

Plus, the Demilich summons 2 golems, which must be killed, because, while they're still alive, the Demilich is protected by a permanent Absolute Immunity.

Hesperus proved its might in this fight, dealing 3-4 damage per strike to the demilich.

SPOILER!


The rest of the 4-th level WK was easy, since almost none of the other monsters were improved, maybe Rock was a little(immunity to Breach, uses HLAs a lot more wiser than in the vanilla game).

The final seal, WK(lvl 5):

Here the tactical challenges were great for a solo. But the contrast with the almost unmodded Final Seal guardian fights is obvious. Even the mighty Demogorgon(compared to, say, the Ancient dragon) is like a baby with a stick. Only the demon lich in the final seal is somewhat modded(summons Skeleton Grandlords and Greater bone golems).

But, besides that, I was pleased by the great tactical challenges provided by the Globes' fights(final purple and last 2 red), the Orcish Horde and the Ancient Dragon. I will write about each strategy as thoroughly as possible.

The fourth push of the Purple button releases 4 Grave Liches. PC was well buffed, with illusion buffs too, but the Spell Immunity running was Abjuration.

Grave liches appeared. Contingency(ProMW) and Chain Contingency(triple ruby ray on target) were released. As a result, one lich was without spell protections.
Grave liches started all casting True Sight(illusion buffs buy me 1 round). PC cast Improved Alacrity.
Grave liches cast True Sight and approached PC for melee. No luck, PC's protected from Magical weapons.
PC cast:
Ruby ray *2 on one of the liches(casting time of ruby ray 1).
Ruby ray *2 on another
Ruby ray *2 on the last protected lich.
Remove magic(cast time 0).
All liches activate ProMW.
Remove magic
Time Stop.
Melee with Hesperus main and scarlet off (9APR).
Game over for liches.

Third Red button push: the first two released 4 Coin and 4 Gem golems respectively.
The third push released 2 Ice and 1 Elemental golem.
I did some reloading here, but finally devised a strategy.
4 Time traps were prelaid in the spawning area, 3 more were set a little far away.
Before the start of the fight, were consumed 12 potions of Cold resistance, created with the Wish spell.
In addition to usual buffs, PC was running SI: Abjuration, and had many proMW spells remembered, five Time stops remembered and 2 Improved alacrities.
PC summoned the golems. A time trap triggered.
Using GWW attacks and Volcano axe, all of the traps and several time stops, PC killed the Ice Golems(volcano fire damage is great). PC also kept himself protected from Magical weapons while killing the golems. A little balance in between ProMW, GWW and Time stopping is required. Also, autopause on end round is of immense help, as is track of rounds.
The total quantity of ProMW for this fight were: 1 in contingencies, 1 in trigger, 7 memorized.
Improved haste spells: 3 memorized, 1 in trigger.
After slaying the Ice golems, the Elemental golem was a little threat to my PC. PC had potions of absorbtion too, but decided not to drink them: the golems were anyway seldomly penetrating through his AC.
Note: when Time Trap and Time Stop effects end, all of the released by the Ice Golems spells will affect the PC almost simultaneously. These golems usually release a lot of Lowering Cold resistance spells, some Remove Magics too, a special ability called Freezing wind which causes massive Ice damage and also Slows the target without a saving throw.
I advise refreshing SI: A when the last Ice golem falls, under Time Stop effect, because, if a Remove magic hits the PC without SI: A running after the TS end, the Remove magic will dispel unerringly all potion buffs. Since PC had consumed 12 potions of Cold resistance(anti cold lowering res tactic), he had to protect this potion buff via SI: A , at least until the Ice golems fell.

TS ended. Upon PC were released(under TS) several Cold lowering res spells, several Freezing Winds, several Ice storms, Cone of cold spells, etc. Due to very high Cold res(750 total with 12 potions * 50, a Prot from Cold spell(100) and an additional Fireshiels Blue), the Cold Lowering res spells were insufficient to bring PC's cold res below 127(on character sheet) The only spells which had some effect on PC were the Freezing Winds, which Slowed him. PC activated ProMW, right before the last TS ended, and fell a little back so that he wouldn't be surrounded by the Coin and Gem Golems after TS ended. TS ended, PC was slowed by Freezing winds, but he was away from the Ice storms area of effect(so that his further spells woundn't be interrupted). Then PC cast IA, followed by Improved Haste *2(which negated the Slow effect), and then killed the Elemental golem with Criticals. The rest of the golems were easy.

Note: Green protection scrolls stack. Potions stack. All potions stack. Potions which set your THAC0 or AC to certain value also stack, but since they *set* it, and don't provide Bonus to THAC0 or AC, their effect is the same. However, HP bonus from Potions of Heroism or of Power will stack(meaning, if you consume 10 potions of heroism, you'll get 10 times the benefit of extra temporary HP).
Potions of (Cold, Fire) resistance, of Absorbtion, also stack. But on character sheet is displayed only 127 percent as maximum resistance. However, if a character consumes 10 potions of Fire res, an enemy has to lower his resistance by 500 percent in order to bring it to 0. My guess is that Lower elemental resistance spells last maximum 20 rounds, so consuming 10 potions should be enough, plus additional ProElements, ProEnergy, fireshield, etc. spells, to foil any lowering elemental resistance tactic.

The last red button: releases an Ultra golem and a Greater elemental golem.
The tactic was: Permanent Time trap/Time Stop and ProMW, plus Critical strikes with CF main and Scarlet off.
Focus: the Greater elemental golem.
The GE golem releases his Purge magics once every 5(?) rounds. However, they cannot take effect under Time Stop.

Note: if a character, under Time stop, attacks a frozen in time enemy, with Critical strike activated, he will get no Critical strike message or damage: the dmg will be regular.
However, if an enemy is immune to Time Stop effects, and a character attacks such an enemy under TS, in this case, Critical Strikes will work.

With the help of 4 ProMW spells(and another from Contingency), 3-4 Time Stops and 4 Time traps, and a lot of Critical strikes, PC was able to slay the Greater elemental golem.

ProMW is absolutely needed in this battle, due to Ultra golem's melee attacks, which tends to rend an unprotected character Unconscious. Also, due to his elemental damage attack, he may disrupt a vital spellcasting.

The crucial moment, was, of course, after the end of the Time Stop. PC knew that all of the purge magics will take effect almost simultaneously, so he waited and immediately paused the game after all Purge Magics had taken effect.
Then PC cast ProMW.
PC slowly refreshed his vital buffs(Impr. Haste, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Blur), while refreshing all of the time ProMW. PC had 4 more after the last TS ended, and one more in his Spell Trigger.
PC also consumed 2 potions of Absorbtion(additional bonus AC vs crushing -20 and 127% Elec res vs the Amber golem's Lightning shield).
With the help of 3-4 ProMW, PC killed the Ultra golem with Crom faeyr main and Scarlet off.
The rest of the golems were not very hard. PC focused on the Amber golems with Angurvadal long sword.

Note: Hesperus is a more powerful Slashing weapon, but there is a bug with its Sunray special ability on strike: after a Sunray is released, the wielder of the sword stops attacking the enemy, and even ordering him to attack the enemy fails: he must be ordered to attack a different enemy, or move, and then he resumes his normal behaviour. Thus, precious time is lost while trying to control this bug, and Angurvadal doesn't have such problems.

After killing the Amber golems, PC refreshed Mirror Image. With the remaining Mirror Images, and Stoneskins, PC easily killed the Coin and Gem golems.

The Orcish Horde was a test of endurance, nothing more. Enemies behave intelligently, mages have Ruby rays, but are low leveled, so here was a good place for SI: Divination and illusion buffs. The vital moment is the expiring of the Improved Invisibility spell, since it cannot be refreshed before expiring. Staff of the Magi provides with a good protection in this case, for a round or two, when II is finally refreshed.

The enemy orc mages were not very hard to slay. However, they apparently attack with undroppable +4 bullets in between spellcasting, and their attack rends the character Unconscious for 1 round. Orc warriors have good THAC0 and attack with normal weapons. Orc archers have +3 arrows at their disposal, and are not willing to waste them against a protected target(proMW, AI, ImprMantle). PC had 8 Impr Mantle spells memorized, 6 Absolute Immunities and 8 ProMW(plus one in Contingency and one in Trigger), and 2 ImprHaste(plus 1 in Contingency and 1 in Trigger). When there were little or no orc wizards around, PC used Improved mantle for protection. When there were many mages and archers, PC used Absolute Immunities or ProMW spells.
In a certain moment, the 8 memorized Remove magic spells ended(PC used them very sparingly btw), and PC had to attack the newly appearing Orcish wizards in melee with all of their combat protections running.

Maybe Huskar's lord armor would be of great help, but it disables spellcasting unfortunately.

The most notable fight in WK(and without question, the hardest one inside the whole WK) was the battle with the Ancient dragon.
A lot of reloading was done here before devising the always-working tactic.

At first, PC used illusion buffs and SI: D. Due to PC's high level, the dragon's Remove magics were unsuccessful. But they always dispelled PC's Mirror Images, and the dragon successfully lowered PC's fire res, so PC had to always keep ProElements and ProEnergy running, and fireshield red, and the fire protective items...Volcano, Supreme Shelter, Helm of Brilliance, Ring of Fire control. However, this tactic was not successful, but still helped me find out several things:

Volcano's axe description says that it grants 25% fire res, but it actually grants 50%.
The Improved Dragon Helm obviously does not confer bonus +45% fire, cold and elec res, but rather *sets* these values to 45%, if they were lower.
Potions of Fire Resistance's effect is dispelled unerringly by Remove magic.

So the final tactic:
PC consumed 8 potions of Fire Resistance before the fight.
PC buffed with Fire and Cold resistance spells, and Impr Invisibility, via a Sequencer(I needed all of my 3 lvl slots for Remove Magic spells)
PC also buffed with Mirror Image(8 memorized), Protection from Evil(5 memorized).
PC summoned an Ogre via a wand of Monster summoning.
PC cast a Magic Missile on the Ogre, thus triggering his Contingencies: ProMW, Impr Haste, Globe of Invulnerability and ProMagicEnergy.

Note: this has to be done this way. If a contingency containing ImprHaste spell triggers under Time trap or Time Stop, the ImprHaste takes effect after the TS effect ends, provided the PC is in the same place where the spell was cast(i.e. no moving under TS)

PC entered the lair.
Using the Eternal melody armor, PC was able to lay 7 Time traps in a strategic place.
This strategic place is near the entrance, and the traps are literally upon each other.
PC switched armor(Vecna) and approached the arch.
Ancient dragon appeared, gave his speech, summoned his minions: an Elite Nishruu, a Noble Efreeti, a Salamander prince.

The Elite Nishruu, besides being immune to magic(like a regular nishruu), also was highly resistant to plysical damage. Plus, it attacks with Normal weapons, so ProMW, while protective against all ofher enemies inside, will not help vs the Nishruu.
Plus, his attack, in addition to spell erasing&so, also removes elemental protective spells.

The Noble Efreeti lowers Fire res, and also has some other dangerous spells, plus protective spells(stoneskin), permanent Improved Fire Shield, and also is a great fighter.

The Salamander prince has permanent fire shield, and...that's about all there is for him. He's not a bad fighter either.

The place of setting the traps is cruical: they must not be near the place where the dragon is. The Nisruu has to trigger the traps, while the Dragon cannot approach PC for melee. The dragon does that by himself: the Salamander prince and Noble efreeti at their spawning points, when frozen in time, in combination with the relatively narrow archway, do that by themselves.

This has to be worked out several times, but afterwards, can be done every time.

Isolating the frozen in time Nishruu, PC killed it under 4 Time traps(no more activate even with 7 laid) and 2 Time stops, using GWW attacks when possible(a total of 6 were spent). TS effect was absolutely permanent.
Afterwards, using another 2 Time Stops, 2 ProMW and the Poseidon's wrath, plus a GWW attack, PC killed the Noble efreeti.
Note: Ancient dragon's melee attack rends character unconscious for a round. The Time stop must be permanent, so if the Dragon manages to incapacitate PC, that's it. So, ProMW is essential.
Besides, ProMW must be refreshed in such a manner, that it is still active after the 4th and last TimeStop.
The Salamander prince can also be killed under the last TS. If this isn't done, however, it's no such big deal, he may be killed after TS ends.
In the last seconds of the last TS, an Improved Alacrity spell was activated. Then casting order is this:
Fireshield red(cast time 0)
Remove Magic on dragon(0)
Avoid Death
Evasion
Greater Evasion
Hardiness
SI: Abjuraion(casting time 1)
Spell Turning(cast time 3).
Usually in the middle of this casting TS ends. The released by the dragon spells, breaths and abilities rain upon PC. They do absolutely nothing, except breaking PC's concentration and he loses his Spell Turning.
PC gets buffeted, suffers several Lower Fire resistances, dragon fear, remove magics. Also Greater commands and similar spells,
Due to very low saving throws(evasion and gr evasion stack), save or else spells and effects are resisted.
Due to combat pre-buffing with fire res potions, the Lowering fire res spells do little.
Due to newly-activated SI:A, dragon's remove magics are negated.
Dragon breaths do nothing due to high fire res.

Note: If a character enters protected with Deflection, Turning, Trap, GoI and SI: A, first, his SI: A will almost expire when the TS effects end, and secondly and more importantly, under TS, the dragon will release at least 5 or 6 Ruby rays and several Breach spells too, immediately dispelling PC's protections after TS ends. In addition, Turning/Deflection/Trap are absorbed by enemy's Efreeti and Salamander Prince in close combat during TS.
That's why PC entered protected only with GoI. It doesn't get removed by pounding fireshield-protected enemies in melee, and also, its short duration hasn't expired when TS end, thus it provides PC with 1 Ruby Ray protection.

PC survives all spells and effects undamaged.
Dragon activates Stoneskin.
Afterwards PC casts Spell Turning(total 8 memorized, 2 already wasted).
Salamander prince(if alive) appears to do melee. Ancient dragon ruby rays.
PC activates critical and GWW, slaying the Prince in 2-3 strikes.
Ruby ray in the meantime hits PC, removing the still-running Spell Turning.
PC casts Remove Magic and Mirror Image.
Dragon refreshes stoneskin.
PC refreshes proMW and IA.
PC casts Ruby ray on dragon(casting time 1)
Dragon casts Ruby ray, removing PC's GoI
PC casts another ruby ray.
Dragon casts another Ruby ray, removing SI: A.
PC activates Trigger with GoI, Spell Deflection and ProMW, refreshes Improved Haste and casts SI: A
Dragon in the meantime Breaches. Ha-ha.
Dragon ruby rays afterwards. PC in the same time casts Spell Turning(casting time 3).
This Ruby raying-Spell turning casting is repeated 2 or 3 more times.

PC has at least GoI and Spell turning running when the Dragon decides to stop raying and starts to fight in melee, occasionally buffeting and breathing on PC.

My guess is that the dragon checks if his remaining Ruby rays are sufficient to remove all of PC's spell protections. If not, tre Dragon stops raying. I think so, because, while my GoI and Turning were still running on top of SI:A, the dragon didn't ray me. At the second the GoI expired, the dragon(apparently with 2 ruby rays left) tried to pierce through my spell defences. But PC's aura was also clean, countering this move by casting Spell Turning(6-th or 7-th turning cast in this combat).

The dragon uses several ProMW, which were either countered with Remove Magic or Breach(3 breach spells and 8 remove magics total).
The dragon activated several Armor of Faith spell. Apparently, Armor of faith cannot be removed with Remove magic: it has to be Breached. My Breaches ended, so I used a Wand of Spell Striking 3 times. Removing Armor of Faith is vital, because, PC didn't do enough damage while the dragon was Regenerating.
Thanx god, the dragon had only 1 Heal spell.
While the dragon switches Regeneration(cannot be removed either by Remove magic or Breach), my tactic was: GWW attacks with only Crom Faeyr. It dealt enough damage to actually harm the beast(11-13 crushing, 2 electrical per strike).
PC's proMW were enough to slay the beast, although he was ready to activate a scroll if needed.
PC also ran around a little, when his ProMW wasn't active and he had to Breach the dragon with a wand.
PC also had to refresh Stoneskin once and SI: Abjuration one more time.

SPOILER!


Saros's experiences from the entrance of Suldanesselar till Gromnir's death:

Saros wasted a lot of time to transfer the important bulk of his treasure to WK, 1st floor containers. The rest of the items were sold.

Saros also assembled the Noble staff of Air. Lacking permanency scrolls, he couldn't yet assemble the Noble staff of fire. He also upgraded 10 Cloaks of Protection +1 to 5 Cloaks +2.

Inside Suldanesselar, Saros found no real resistance. He used his Improved Alacrity + protection removal spells + criticals to quickly slay the Drow fighter/mage, Raamilat. Because of this, Saros was able to loot 4 scrolls of ProMW from his corpse.
The Noble rakshasa, accompanied with Horrid Rakshasas(all dispelling elemental protective buffs on strike), had mixed melee attacks, and once the elemental buffs of a character are dispelled, the Rakshasas immediately release powerful AoE spells(Dragon's Breath, Horrid Wilting). In addition, Horrid Rakshasas melee attacks are considered to be magical(at least +4), while the Noble rakshasa attacks with Normal weapons. Meaning, no Improved Mantle or ProMW will offer protection from all their attacks. Fortunately, Absolute Immunity does. The Noble rakshasa has more than 1 Absolute Immunity, so high-level remove or dispel magic is essential too.

The Black dragon was relatively easy. No pysical resistances, so fell to a couple of powerful attacks after spell and combat protections were dispelled.

With the Permanency scroll found in these fights, Saros travelled back to Athkatla and assembled the Royal Elemental Staff(I suppose this weapon is gonna be great with GWW attacks).

The rest of the fights inside Suldanesselar were easy.

Irenicus on the Tree of Life fell exactly under 1 Time Trap and 1 Time Stop. He even didn't have time to cast one spell(except for starting contingency). A nice move btw, since PC in Hell still received the scrolls from his body. 5 Absolute Immunities are a good add-on.

The Hell trials were apparently unmodded. However, the last battle was.

Irenicus summoned: A Baalor, a Demon Lord, a Noble Marilith, and an Elemental golem.

The first time the battle was tried under Time Traps and TS. Not too good, though. Enemies are immune to TS, all except for Slayer Irenicus.

So the strategy was:
Summon Planetar.
Spell Protections running: in addition to long-lasting buffs, ProElements and ProEnergy(some of the monsters lower Fire res, don't know who exactly, didn't read), SI: A, Spell Shield. No Fireshields.

Note: the Noble Marilith and the Baalor run their own undispellable Fireshields, as does the Slayer. If a character who's Fireshielded is engaged by Fireshielded enemy, his spellcasting will be interrupted due to collisions in between fireshields(a bug?). Anyway, if an *unprotected* by fireshields spellcaster is engaged in melee by a fireshielded enemy, his spells will not get interrupted by the Fireshield's effect.

So, the fight started. PC's contingencies triggered, thus granting him GoI, ProMagEnergy, ImprHaste, ProMW.
PC cast IA while enemies killed PC's planetar. PC had 6 total IA spells remembered.
Under IA, PC cast 3 Rays on Slayer, and 4 on Demon Lord. The unremovable spell shield bug was apparently active on the Demon Lord, since none of his protections were removed.
PC cast Remove Magic and started pounding the Noble Marilith(who had summoned 2 other Mariliths). Marilith cast ProMW, PC cast Remove Magic, Critical, GWW, attack with only Hammer of Thor. Marilith was unable to survive this round.
The marilith had to fall due to his Ruby Rays on PC. No other enemy apparently had Rays except for the Slayer.
PC killed afterwards the Baalor, using another Improved Alacrity and similar tactic as described above, with refreshing ProMW.
The Baalor fell in the middle of IA's duration. So, with the 2 fireshielded enemies dead, and the Slayer with no Fireshield(3 Rays + several Remove Magics), PC cast Spell Deflection and Spell Turning.

PC used Improved Alacrity for combining Criticals and GWWs and focused on the Demon Lord with Criticals. He fell after a couple of rounds.

PC refreshed SI:A and started hitting the Elemental golem with Criticals.

PC kept his ProMW active, spell protections also active(with the help of a Trigger: GoI, Deflection, ProMW). PC also refreshed ImprHaste(2 total remembered, 7 total ProMW remembered, 1 Spell Defl remembered). PC killed the Elemental golem with Criticals.PC refreshed SI:A.

PC was relatively low on Criticals(11 total) and GWWs were 12-13, plus one WW. But still PC killed the remaining Gem and Coin golems with Criticals(3 used). An unwise move.

PC focused on the only one left: Irenicus. Apparently, Irenicus' regeneration rate was too high for even my 25 str, Hammer of Thor main and CF off(10 apr with Impr haste and gauntlets of extraordinary spec). PC just couldn't hurt him fast enough. With no pre-laid time traps in safe areas, and ProMW almost gone(1 left) things looked bad. PC summoned a Noble Djinni and a Noble Spider. The Spider summoned more spiders. Irenicus killed the Spiders, but the Djinni kept him well occupied.

PC focused on Irenicus with GWW only with CF, and the damage was still not enough. So finally, PC used his last 3 IA spells to apply 8 total combos of Critical + GWW + Hammer of Thor only attacks. This worked.

Illasera fight: tricky Illasera. My guess is that she's a high-level F/T, since she didn't cast spells, but rather used(and had) scrolls. Plus, she came under SI: D activated, totally invisible, remaining invisible after each attack.
PC protected himself for 20 rounds(I guess), trying everything possible: remove magic, True Sight, etc. No AoE spells remembered, but I think that they would be useless anyway.
Now I understand that Illasera had Mislead on her, hiding her Misleaded image somewhere far away in the woods, so that I couldn't remove her permanent Invisibility. I guess that Farsight or Wizard Eye(or with a larger party, scouting around) would be of good help.
Anyway, her Mislead waned and PC cast IA, killing her with GWW+ a couple of Remove Magics + Criticals. She had some nice scrolls, including 2 Absolute Immunities.

Gromnir fight: his Ancestor protects him. The Spell Shield on Karun the Black was unremovable, so PC just Stopped Time 4 times and killed: first, the mages, second, everyone except Gromnir, third, the Ancestor, TS ended, PC killed Gromnir with Criticals.

Too bad, the Roranarch's horn is nerfed. Immensely nerfed. So I used it to forge the Staff of the Ram +6. Also, were forged(in addition to the other Cespenar normal upgrades available), 6 Improved Cloaks of Protection(so that PC is never out of ImprInvis or ImprHaste spells)

Note: the Dragon Bane disappeared from PC's pack when he entered Pocket Plane. I don't know what happens here: is it a quest thread(halberd being stolen), or simply PC doesn't match certain requirements in order to forge the Dragon Lord halberd, or simply a 'punishment' for my cheesy style of play.

The newest adventures of Saros.

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed with ToB so far. The only exception is Draconis.

I've played Ascension, and I find Ascension ToB to be a lot more harder so far, compared to ToB IA 5.0. Illasera, Gromnir and Yaga-shura battles are IMHO much tougher in Ascension. Maybe, combining Ascension and IA 5.0 somewhat will make these battles more challenging.

So, Yaga-shura's fortress.

PC bought everything valuable from a frendly merchant in the Forest of Mir.

PC also met with some Improved fire giants. Surely, they have improved melee abilities, but are otherwise weak.

So PC stormed the Marching Mountains fortress.

Inside, there wasn't much real resistance for PC. However, here are some tips:

Elite Fire Giants each carry 1 potion of Magic Shielding. That's why they better be killed under previously activated Time Stop(as PC did).
Brennan is Immune to Time Stop, but is otherwise nothing special or hard to kill.
The Axe of Unyielding +5 has been nerfed a little.
The Ravager +6 is unnerfed and thus is one of the best weapons for a warrior.

Yaga-shura: In the first fight, PC applied Ascension tactic. Meaning: killed the Lieutenants first. Much to PC's surprise, new Lieutenants spawned. After a while, another set of lieutenants spawned. PC reloaded and went for Yaga himself. With the usual Imroved Alacrity + GWW + Critical + Breach/Remove Magic, Yaga-shura fell in exactly 4 rounds. The rest of the enemies fled.

If Yaga-shura had the same resistances as he has in Ascension, this tactic would've been impossible and PC would have fo fight all enemies together.

The Oasis: a little improved fight, because the vanilla archers are replaced by Gem golems, there are 2 captains + the general, 2 high-level F/M and 2 high-level clerics. PC, however, had contingencies with several protective spells, including Spell Defl, GoI, Impr. Haste, ProMW,cast IA, cast his 0 time casting buffs, and also SI:A(casting time 1) released 6 ruby rays(3 for each Battle Mage), cast Remove Magic, and afterwards Stopped Time.

Under 3 permanent Time Stops, PC killed almost everyone of importance(all clerics and F/M, the general, his 2 captains, and several other Pikemen.

1 TS was left just in case. Gem golems were killed with Criticals.

Note: Pikemen have(and will consume) potions of Fire Giant Str almost immediately. Since these potions are vital for my PC(with such a potion + the Girdle of Lordly Might, PC will always have 25 str for 10 turns with any weapon), PC stopped time and afterwards killed the rest of the Pikemen, thus collecting 4 or 5 more potions of Fire G str.

Note: Battlemages each carry 5 scrolls of Protection from Magical Weapons, and a scroll of Improved haste. Killing them quickly this way, allowed my PC to collect 10 additional ProMW weapons, which may prove vital in the final fights.

Note: Impr Haste scrolls are vital(as are Invisibility scrolls, but there is enough of those) for forging additional Improved Cloaks of Prot +2. Cloaks of Prot +1 are abundant, as are Laeral's tear necklaces(amnish guards random slots, and other enemies random slots). Gold, with Wish from a wise character, is also limitless(a little patience is required, and assembling valuable wands via Wish). So, the only limitation is the quantity of ImprHaste scrolls, and so far, PC has found 10 total. 1 was written in spellbook, so PC has already forged 9 Impr Cloaks of Prot.
These Improved Cloaks cast Impr Invisibility and Impr Haste(as if cast by 20 lvl wizard). This frees my PC some vital 6 lvl slots(no need to memorize ImprHaste anymore), which are better occupied with ProMW spells.

Amkethran quests were unmodded. With one exception: the Smugglers shoppe is no longer the best place to rid of all your valuable equipment. Having seen all of SoA and ToB shops, I may say that the best place to sell some equipment is Reira in the city of Suldanesselar: she offers the best prices possible. Second place holds the Svirfneblin merchant in Underdark.

Anyway, PC bought everything valuable from the Smugglers, including the Rod of Reversal.
PC also took Malla's soul Stone from Vongoette and killed the lich. He was unmodded.

PC stormed Abazigal's lair.

Draconis: well improved, maybe the best improvement I've seen on him ever. Took me 2 reloads to find a proper tactic:

Draconis in his human form summons Invisible Stalkers(cannot harm my PC even without protections on). However, Draconis is not a bad F/M. But he couldn't survive my Improved Alacrity+ 3 Ruby Ray + GWW + Remove Magic/Breach for his Hardiness. He fell in 3-4 rounds.

Dragon form: well protected, but doesn't cast SI: A from his starting contingency, which makes him vulnerable to Pierce shield and pierce Magic. However, he likes to cast Spell Turning and Ruby Rays.

It was a wizard duel: PC had almost permanent Improved Alacrity(6 memorized), and Draconis, naturally, has always cleaned aura. Draconis ruby rayed, but PC kept his spell protections active, and also ProMW running. Unfortunately, Draconis lowers Acid Res., and PC fell under Acid Breaths.

Second attempt: PC forgot to buff with ProMagicEnergy and Draconis killed him with CC: 3*ADHW. Ironic. I've killed him many times with the same CC...

Third attempt. PC protected himself from Magical Energy and also drank 10 potions of Acid res before the start of the fight. PC has about 200 of those(bought each available in the game), but also, these potions can be assembled via Wishing.
To remove the protection granted by these potions, only a successful Dispel or Remove(or Purge) magic must be cast. Breach will *not* remove a buff from a potion or from a Green Protection Scroll.
Since PC was always well protected from Remove Magic with SI:A, Draconis had no chance to lower his Acid resistance this time.
However, Draconis managed to break PC's concentration once and PC lost Improved Alacrity spell.
PC wasted all of the Breach charges from one of his Wands of Spell Striking. PC simply kept his memorized Breaches to be used under Improved Alacrity in conjuction with Ruby Rays, if need be. Plus, PC has many Wands of Spell Striking(wished and non-wished).
Draconis fired a good Trigger in the middle of the battle. But it couldn't save him...

Hi saros,






Ehm… saros, I really hope you are kidding here.

A “normal” F/M/T can solo Ascension’s ToB in no-reloads mode until the very final battle with the right tactics.
I can’t even immagine what a F/M/T without the EXP cap, EoU components and the powerful weapons/items of IA could do…







Actually you can kill Ascension’s Yagashura in less than 4 rounds here, since his resistance drops over time

Yes, in fact, many classes can solo Ascension on a no reload. I've managed even to successfully solo a Wizard Slayer on Insane Ascension with relatively few reloads. Thanx to great equipment, of course, which has been nerfed/removed in IA. Both mods are great, I admit as much. Ascension cannot compare to IA, concerning the WK and SoA encounters: in IA these are a lot more harder, challenging and interesting. Well, maybe except Tougher Demogorgon in Ascension.

I simply mentioned that Ascension Illasera and her goons are a lot more powerful than IA Illasera. Also, in Ascension Gromnir's group were some very tough characters, which are not present in IA.

You're probably right about Ascension Yaga shura, but still, the IA one seems a lot more fragile, even in the first rounds of combat.

And now, the latest encounter, Abazigal. Now, I have to say, that IA Abazigal looks a bit tougher than the Ascension one, or at least their armies are of equal strength.

IA Azi seems tough, at least until one knows what to do. Here's how my F/M/T devised an always working strategy:

Buffs were normal. Spell Turning was summoned from the Book. Spell Trap from SoTM. Prot from Elec was cast. Illusion buffs also. Impr Invis and Impr Haste from a Cloak. SI: A was also present. PC drank 8 Wish created potions of Cold Res and 4 Wish created Potions of Absorbtion in order to add 40 bonus crushing AC modifier(vs Golems inside), and to foil any Cold or Elec lowering resistance tactic of enemies. A potion of Fire G str was also consumed.
Azi gave speech, contingencies trigger(SI:D). Mine too: ProME, ProMW, GoI, Spell Defl. PC cast Sequencer(pro Fire, pro Cold, Remove Magic), then attacked Azi. His True Sight casting was interrupted. Azi cast ProMW. PC cast Pierce Shield, removing Azi's spell shield, and killed 2 Salamanders. Azi cast Hardiness. PC cast Pierce shield, removing Azi's GoI and killed the last Salamander around. Azi cast Stoneskin. PC released a Wand of Spell Striking Breach charge, removing Azi's ProMW, Stoneskin and Hardiness.
Using a ProMW, 2 more Breach charges in the right time and melee, PC forced Azi to transform, with minimal spell losses. A CC was shot by Azi with 3 FoD spells, which filled some of the PC's lost spells(1 ProMW, 1 SI: A and Proelectricity: should've replaced that spell after casting with either Breach or SI).

Azi transformed. An Ice and Ultra golem appeared to assist him, and also, a Frost Salamander Prince. Azi started buffeting, shockwaving, Ruby raying, etc. PC's tactic:
ProMW active at all times.
Impr Alacrity( five memorized):
Defensive buffs activated. Spellstrike on Azi(cast time 1, sixth 9 lvl spell). Remove Magic on Azi(Azi stoneskined almost immediately and kept raying). Spell Turning, Spell Deflection, Spell Trap, Spell Shield, another Turning(spell protections get dispelled all of the time). In between spell protections were cast ProMW, Stoneskin, Evasion, Gr evasion, Avoid Death, Hardiness, SI: A, GWW and Critical. IA ended, but not GWW and Criticals, so PC killed the Salamander prince with their help.

Note: right when PC saw the Ice golem, he pulled out the sword of Arvoreen from the pack and equipped in in the off hand. Not only the Ice golem shoots Freezing Wind, but apparently Azi also has some sort of Slow effect with no save against it. The sword was the only weapon that could aid me and I could still recast my ImprHaste. Using Free Action scroll(or Golden Cat figurine) would deprive me of the option to refresh my Impr Haste.

With Volcano main and Sword of Arvoreen off, keeping all protective buffs active(Azi lost the Raying battle), PC slew the Ice golem. Very slowly. No luck with the special fire damage from the axe.
Then PC cast Teleport field.

Note: PC was cornered. No chance to reach Azi. PC had to make some room. Killing all enemies was almost impossible. Telefield was the easiest way to scatter around the Amber golems so that PC could reach Azi for melee.

Azi had very few protections. He kept buffeting PC , but PC kept approaching him for melee. Finally, the rest of the enemies surrounded PC while he was near Azi.
With an Improved Alacrity, PC got rid of Azi's defences. With the Answerer main and the Sword of Arvoreen off, PC quickly slew Azi.

The newest adventures of Saros:

Sendai's enclave.

Nothing much worth mentioning inside. The Slavemaster was improved, with lots of resistances and Hardinesses, and additional tough summons - warrior spirits. No big deal, though.
The Drow were improved too, but not much.
Odamaron has some allies now(Skeleton Grandlords, Greater Bone Golems), but is otherwise a pathetic lich.
Dyatha is unmodded. So is Ogremoch.
The drow captain with the Bowstring of Gong is improved: he's now a good F/M. Nothing scary though.
The mind flayers & ulitharids are maybe one of the most pathetic monsters in this mod.

Sendai herself:
The statues and drow support are unmodded. Meaning: very easy to get rid of. And it's good to kill all of the drow fighters and mages before killing the last of the statues.
Sendai without the statues: summons a Gem, a Coin golem, and her Pet.
The Pet has good resistances, nice melee abilities(didn't notice what they were exactly since my PC was under permanent ProMW), and a powerful Roar which deafens everyone in its area of effect(no save). I tried a scroll of Neutralize poison(says that it cures Deafness), but either it didn't work, or the beast deafened me immediately(it was still alive). The Pet and the Golems were killed with Critical hits.
Fortunately, mainly relying on Breach charges from a wand and the Answerer main-handed, PC succeeded to both interrupt Sendai's spells and dispel her protections. Sendai apparently has very low AC, but after several hits with the Answerer, she's an easy prey. PC had his ProMW casting failed a couple of times due to Deafening, but this wasn't essential for the fight.

Note: maybe Remove Curse or Neutralize poison(scroll) after killing the Pet would've solved my problem with deafness.

Balthazar, the Chosens of Cyric and the Ravager were unmodded.

Now, however, PC has met with his greatest challenge so far, the Rakshasa prince and his army(I don't know if this is what they call the Epic Divine Challenge).

Notes on this fight with a solo(so far).
The Rakshasa prince has very good resistances(at least 100% to elements, poison, acid, magical damage), absolute(I think) immunity to magic, including Dispel and Remove magic, attacks with melee attacks that dispels spell elemental buffs(much like other Rakshasas), regenerates at high speed, and apparently uses Absolute Immunity.
Also, in the start of the fight, he summons 2 Ultra golems and a Supreme golem.
In the subsequent rounds(over a certain period of course) the Rakshasa prince gates 2 Noble Rakshasas.
One Noble rakshasa, on the other hand, has the ability to summon periodically 2*Horrid Rakshasas.
Also, the Rakshasa Prince uses a special ability called "Universal Purge Magic", which obviously dispells all character buffs, no matter where are the characters on the battlefield. I think he uses it once every 10 (?) rounds(or maybe 15, or even 20, not sure completely).
The rakshasas, of course, all have Abi-dalzim's horrid wilting, the Noble ones have also Dragon Breath, and they all have Remove magic spells. Thanx God, no one has released Breach yet(so I guess no one has it).
The Rakshasa prince is surrounded by a Repulse field, which apparently serves as a powerful Fireshield, dealing (I think) magical damage to any who deals any damage to the Prince, and has also other features, which my PC has so far saved against every time.
Also the Prince shoots Sequencers when PC is vulnerable, those sequencers contain Greater Malinson + Emotion spells.
The Prince also tends to use CC with 3 ADHW when PC is vulnerable(after a Purge Magic).

The Supreme golem has no Purge Magic, but has good melee abilities, summons Elemental Golems over time, and also has his own Fireshield, which punishes each successful hit with powerful elemental damage from(apparently) at least 4 types(my guesses are Fire, Elec, Acid and Cold). Plus, he has great physical resistances too(even the most powerful hits deal 2 or maximum 3 damage per strike to him). He doesn't regenerate.

The Ultra golems summon Amber golems, and have good melee abilities, otherwise they're weak.

Keeping PC alive is not a big problem. I have collected 71 scrolls of Protection from Magical Weapons so far, have 8 more memorized, and I usually shoot(after a Purge magic) a Trigger with ProMagicEnergy, ProMagicWeapons and Prot from Fire(thus negating AoE rakshasa spells and all melee attacks). The big problem is how on earth to hurt the Rakshasa Prince so that he starts using his Absolute Immunities.

Problem partially solved. The only option so far:
Potion of Fire Giant Str consumed(PC have 35 of those total, and also 13 potions of Cloud and 13 of Storm Giant str
Spell Immunity Abjuration active: while my PC's spell buffs cannot be dispelled by enemy Remove Magic due to PC's high level, the potiion buffs will be immediately dispelled, and I need my str at 25 at all times.

Staff of the Ram main armament(deals 8 or 9 points of Crushing damage per strike to the Prince, plus 1 point of Piercing damage, so total 9 or 10 per strike).

Combo: Improved Alacrity + GWW + Critical(Rakshasa prince wears a helmet, but he has very low AC, so Critical is essential to ensure that every strike hits)+10 strikes. Critical + GWW+ 8 strikes. Critical + GWW + ProMW + 10 strikes.
Usually, 1 such combo is enough to bring the Prince to Injured, and he activates his Absolute Immunity. Under its protection, the Prince regenerates fully, and PC has to resort to the same tactic again, and I don't really know how many AI does the Prince have. Even if I have 7 memorized Improved Alacrities, and use some scrolls: Spell Trap(also from SoTM) + Power Word Kill in order to refresh my Improved Alacrities without resorting to unreliable Wishing, still, refreshing of vital HLA is impossible, and I would probably need a lot more than 20 Criticals and 20 GWW+WW attacks in order to slay the Prince. So the final tactic(somewhat resorting to chance) would be:
Having 5 Wish and 2 Improved Alacrities memorized.
Keeping ProMW active at all times(8 memorized).
Hitting the Prince with the described above combo.
Watching out for Universal Purge magic: my aura must be clean so that immediately shooting of lifesaving Spell Trigger is possible.
Reloading the Spell Trigger afterwards.
Activating Spell Trap.
Wishing for Rest.
If none of the 5 Wishes grant me the needed Rest, I will try to recharge the Wishes with the help of PW: Kill scrolls(14 total assembled).
If none of this works, PW: Reload is the only option I can think of.

For now, the greatest problem is balancing my spellcasting and surviving after a Purge Magic.
After getting rid of the Purge Magic and the Prince, I think I can easily handle the rest of the enemies.

BTW: If anyone knows: Does killing the Supreme golem and the Ultra Golems weaken the Rakshasa Prince or no? Because I can kill them without much problems(just watching out for Purge magic is enough).

A very important discovery!

I don't know if anyone has reported this yet, but here's how my last attempt to kill the Rakshasas and Golems turned out:

The odds are indeed overwhelming. However, the Rakshasa prince himself had provided me with the solution!

Apparently, his Repulse Field spell counts as a 9 lvl Fireshield spell. Meaning, that a character who is protected by Spell Trap, can(with 4 strikes) recharge four 9th level spells or lower. Afterwards, since the Spell Trap is consumed, it must be recast. But this is totally irrelevant since this strategy provides me with(an already cast) Spell Trap, and other three spells. This is, in fact, an ultimate spell recharging reserve. This means endless Wishes too, which on the other hand means assured Resting when HLAs are all used up. This of course means: no need to save HLAs for later, or ProMW(and also no need to use scrolls), and also means almost permanent Improved Alacrity(boy I already feel like a Dragon).

I previously thought that my character refreshed his spells with PW: Kill scrolls. After testing, I found out that PW:K scrolls, if cast by the protagonist on the protagonist(with spell trap on of course) will not recharge any 9th level spells at all!

So now the big question is: do I keep the Rakshasa prince and his unlimited spell recharging combo, or do I kill him. More testing will be done, and the results will be written down here.

Another thing: Apparently the Supreme Golem's 'Elemental Backlash' is also a 9th level Fireshield, which can also be used for spell recharging.

Universal Purge Magic will take effect immediately even under Time Stop, and will dispel all spell/potion/scroll buffs on all characters and ally summons, except for Improved Alacrity, and the 'undispellable' buffs like Potions of Barbarian Essence or Scroll of Protection from Level Drain.

The Rakshasa prince takes a normal amount of damage from an ImprHasted character with 25 str, Black Blade of Disaster main handed, and the Answerer off-hand, after a couple of Critical stikes(afterwards, the Answerer keeps his AC high enough for my PC to hit every time, and BBoD has the best weapon damage output in the entire game).

I would like to install some screenshots, so I want some help to show me how it can be done here.

Anyway, I've just successfully completed the Epic Divine Challenge for the first time.

Note: This tactic still works with reloading. I haven't perfected it yet.

The initiating of the fight is a very crucial moment. With quickly pacing, the PC can determine the spawning point of the Rakshasa prince, and his golems. This is absolutely essential for this tactic in a no reload game. You see, the battle is more like counting of rounds and spell durations, if it weren't for the Prince's Purge Magics(a total of 5).

Using one of the containers in the Pocket plane, Aerie, Haer'dalis, Jaheira and Minsc(summoned and disbanded, neutral NPCs), PC managed to summon the Ultra Golems and the Rakshasa Prince in such a manner, that the Prince wasn't able to reach PC. PC quickly ran away in the SW room(first pocket plane challenge room), followed by only the Supreme golem.

Here I could post some screenshots to show how this can be done every time.

Also, the Supreme Golem doesn't need to follow PC: he can also be trapped in between neutral NPCs and the large Ultra Golems, much like the Prince. If he follows, it is better for him and his summoned golems to be killed without additional buffing: especially NO SI recast and NO Spell Trap, i.e. no spell protections(I think that they trigger the Universal Purge magic if cast on top of many other buffs). Only necessary buffing is allowed: ProMW(while the Supreme's still alive, I think that his melee attack actually lowers elemental resistances by 10%),ImprHaste and illusionary buffs: blur, mirror image, invisibility.

After the Supreme and his other golems were dead, the PC forced the Prince to use all his Universal Purge Magics.

This tactic had been made solely to twist the game engine: PC continually buffs with useless buffs, casts Spell Immunity on top and waits for an Universal Purge Magic. I have to work it out perfectly: I am still not aware what combinations exactly force the Prince to use Purge Magic, so I did a couple of reloads here.

With the 5 purge magics of the Prince used, PC casts the important buffs, Spell Trap on top and rushes right in the middle of the Ultra Golems, Supreme Golem(if still alive), and the Rakshasa prince. This is also essential, since later, when minions surround the PC, he may be unable to reach his targets for spell recharging/melee.

The game is now a spell duration and round duration count:

Note: When PC is under Haste or Improved Haste effect, the game splits each round in two. Meaning, that ProMW will last 8 End round: Autopause messages, Spell Immunity will last 40 End Round messages, ProMagicEnergy will last 400 End Round messages.

Note: Rakshasa Prince and Supreme golem are surrounded by 9th level permanent type of Fireshield. The Amber Golems, summoned by the Ultra Golems, are each surrounded by a 6th level permanent Fireshield. So, each successful hit on the Rakshasa Prince or the Supreme golem actually recharges 9th level spell or lower for the duration of the Spell Trap(i.e. 4 spells total). But if PC hits the Rakshasa Prince only once, he will still have 21 spell levels, meaning that if he hits an Amber golem afterwards 4 times, he will recharge 5 instead of just 4 vital spells(the spell trap itself + 4 sixth level or lower spells). Since in this combat the most used spells were: Protection from Magical Weapons/Energy, Impr Haste, Spell Immunity(6th and 5th level), and Spell trap, Black Blade of Disaster and Improved Alacrity(very seldom, 9th level spells), it is actually most beneficial to use the Amber golems for spell recharge often, since this way is regained an additional spell.

Protection from Magical Energy stacks. This is somehow irrelevant, unless the PC gets hit by the Rakshasa prince(lowers all resistances, magical and physical by 25%), but still, this meant: no moment of expiration of ProMagicEnergy(via recasting of ProME spell), as is with the other Protection from different elements type spells. For instance, I used green scrolls of Prot from Fire(12 hour duration) to ensure that there will never be a moment when I'm unprotected from fire(many Dragon Breaths). But I also was normally protected from Fire via the wizard spell in case I'm too absent and forget to recast SI:A.

Protection from Magical Weapons must be recast immediately after every 7th Autopause: End turn message, so that it doesn't expire. The count for the time of the next refreshment begins immediately.

An eye must be kept on SI:A. It is essential to be refreshed, since if it's not, my PC would lose some of his spell buffs(like Black Blade of Disaster, Spell Trap too I think), and all of his potion(Fire Giant Str) and scroll(greem scrolls of prot from Fire*2 and Elec*2) buffs.

In between refreshing ProMW there is time to be cast 2 spells(or to use 2 items). Don't forget that 2 messages 'Autopause: Round End' mean 1 actual round. As we all know, aura cleansing requires 1 round(2 messages).

Spell Trap must be used when PC's short on spells. My PC used no Ring of Wizardry in this fight(instead RoP +4 plus the Improved ring of Gaxx, great saves are required), so his vital buffs were(after the Purge magics were all used up):

ProFire ProCold ProAcid ProLigtning from scrolls(I have collected all of them, used 2* each scroll)
ProFire from spell.
8 memorized Spell Immunities(5 went for enemy Purge magics)
7 memorized ProMW, 71 scrolls in quickslot
1 memorized Impr Haste(9 Impr Cloaks can be activated for the Supreme golem solo if he follows, actually no more than 4 are needed)
1 memorized ProMagicEnergy(and 20 scrolls in pack, 1 used in the Supreme golem solo)
A lifesaving Spell Trigger with ProMagicEnergy, ProFire and ProMW spells.
7th and 8th level spells were almost useless in this fight. I used ProElements and ProEnergy to lure the Rakshasa prince to use Purge Magics, and afterwards I erased the used ones(this way preventing them from regaining with Spell Trap combo - I didn't need them anyways)
2 Spell Triggers memorized(just in case, didn't use them either)
9th level: 3 Impr Alacrities, 1 BBoD, 3 Spell Traps.

The rest of the spells are irrelevant. Although I used several times Prot from Evil, Blur and Spirit Armor, I find those spells not very necessary for this fight. Stoneskin was recast just once, when the Purge magics ended.

Important equipment: 10* each Green prot scroll(fire 20, just in case), 35 potions of Fire G Str, Staff of the Magi(Spell Trap if anything goes wrong), 14 scrolls of Spell Trap in pack.

Weapons: The Answerer, Hammer of Thor, Scarlet Ninja-to.

The fight:

No purge magic! Good. PC focuses and kills the 1. Supreme golem(in this case already dead), 2. Ultra golems(with recasting vital buffs and refreshing spells via Spell Trap when needed). The rest of the golems are irrelevant, although 3 Amber golems were near PC. Great!

PC focuses on the Rakshasa prince. First, hits with the Answerer main and Scarlet off, and Str 25(Fire Giant Str Potion 22, Girdle of Lordly Might +3). When Rakshasa prince's AC is weakened enough, PC transfers Answerer in off hand, and casts Black Blade of Disaster. The BBoD deals enough damage, while the Answerer with 2 hits per round keeps the Rakshasa prince's AC high enough for hitting successfully.
Buffs are constantly refreshed: ProMagicWeapons and SI: A are the most important. Of course, ImprHaste(1 memorized) is important too, but it's no big deal to forget to recast it for a round or two, since it's not that vital.
Rakshasa Prince was brought to Injured. He casts Absolute Immunity. His AI cannot be dispelled by any means, so PC used the time of expiration(4 rounds) to refresh his spells via Spell Trap.
When the Prince's AI had expired, so does the effect of the Answerer. Meaning, PC holds Black Blade in his main hand, Answerer off and has almost no chance of weakening the Prince's AC until the duration of the BBoD expires(18 rounds total). Here maybe a good place to use Montolio's Cloak, but since I forgot his Clasp somewhere in Athkatla, I couldn't assemble it. Also it would be a good time to switch the Circlet of Golden Flowers for the Helm of Balduran for a while(again, for THAC0 bonus), but without the Cloak, this proved out pointless. So I used additional Spell Traps, recharged all vital spells to max and waited for BBoD to expire. BBoD expired, I used the Answerer main and Scarlet off, much like the previous time, and then switched(again) to Answerer off and cast the refreshed via Spell trap Black Blade of Disaster.

This tactic had been repeated 12 more times. The Prince has 12 Absolute Immunities: the first 6 are cast: 2 at Injured, 2 at Badly Injured, 2 at Near-Death. The second 6 are also cast in the same manner. In the meantime, PC refreshed continuously his buffs via Spell Trap, the Prince and some Amber golems. Finally, the Prince gave his defeat speech and left with all of his army.

Frankly, my main concern was how to deal with the rest of his army, but it seems like I worried in vain.

Note: This is a long and ungrateful battle, but since I already know all of its principles, it woudn't be hard to be repeated, just very, very annoying. When I have 10 free hours, I maybe will.

Note: I don't know if I can beat IA Mellisan, but I'm at least going to try. Anyway, I doubt that anyone of you thought possible for a solo to reach this far, just playing with what's inside the mod itself(no external program or CLUAconsole cheats)

Note: The bag of holding recharging bug works for some of the items(Improved Cloaks of Protection), but I don't use it.

Hmph. Seems like Mel was unmodded, totally vanilla. Not even Ascension...well, then it seems that the toughest fight in the whole game is the EDE. I guess that this concludes my testing of the mod, folks. It apparently can be won by a solo F/M/T with exploits on Insane, probably in a no reload insane game too (with lots of attention, of course). It (may) also be won by a F/M/C(in this particular case, use of The Answerer in EDE is impossible, but there are other buffs that will be used which increase THAC0 and damage, most importantly Aid, Chant, Holy Power and Righteous Magic).

Thanx Sikret for making such a great mod! Keep up the good work, Sikret! I am absolutely positive that the next version will be impossible to beat with a solo character.

I followed your progression every once in a while to see how you would cope with certain encounters. Very creative, but I personally won't use some of the solutions (such as NPCs in the EDE). All in all, a very nice job and an interesting read.

One question. Does "Insane" really matter over "Core" if you still always use negation spells such as stoneskin, mirror image, protection from magical weapons and protection from elements? I would think that foes almost never hit you, so melee damage doesn't do much and magic and elemental damage is mostly negated as well.

No, it doesn't matter really most of the time. Only to some extent: for instance, if a character with a lot of hit poins(200 or more), wearing the Ring of Fire control, consumes a Potion of Magic shielding after a Purge Magic in the EDE, he will still die on Insane difficulty, while there is a fair good chance that he'll survive on Core difficulty. The 'Insane' difficulty has been set so that it would eliminate any luck factor: for instance, I won't consider it a clean victory if my character takes a lot of damage on Core and still manages to win a tough fight.

Insane difficulty literally means: a second of distraction in an important fight and PC is dead. On Core, things are not that final, there will be a couple of rounds maybe while PC will still be severely hurt, but alive.

I would, however, admit that I leveled up always on easy 'till lvl 10 (for max HP), and also scribed spell scrolls on easy(because of the lack of Int boosting potions).



About that: It wouldn't be a problem to continually refresh 4 spells while being under their permanent effect: SI: A, Impr Alacr, ProMW, Spell Trap, waiting for the Prince to use all of his Purges, but usually, due to low videoram of my machine (8 MB) and high concentration of monsters around my PC, and the fact that all of the Rakshasa start casting Horrid Wilting or Dragon Breath after Purge(additional burdening my low ram), the pause sometimes does not immediately take effect (some sort of a lag), and it takes effect a couple of seconds later. So PC usually dies after 2nd or 3rd Universal Purge Magic.