Hi all.

I want some help with these guys in the tavern at the Docks. They are very tough. My party is:

Vagrant PC with proficiency in clubs and uses the +3 acid one from Trademeet
Valygar
Anomen
Jan Jansen
Edwin

Jan and Edwin can cast only 5 lvl spells and less.

That mage casts Remove Magic and emotion and abi-dalzim, and my characters die very quickly. The captain I cannot kill, he's scary. Help! My fighters deal very small damage to him.

I want another party member, but all NPCs are so weak. Any recommendation?

And where to find a permanency scroll or manual of elaboration or scroll of memory? I want a scroll for the club +4. It costs 50 000, is it worth it?

What weapons to buy?

Hi, Aro!

What are your party levels are?
IF you are not very far into the game, I suggest you swap Edwin for Nalia (she's a better mage and will be even better later). Yansen is better be switched with a custom sorcerer. Or you can switch him for Imoen in Spellhold later (she's a sorceress now, and a very powerful one). You also should take a one more fighter, I suggest custom berserker or a barbarian for two-handed weapons. Minsc or Keldorn are okay too, but they require a bit more skill to play effectively. To create custom characters, you should create a multiplayer game, than generate all the characters and, after cutscene has ended and "Item randomizer initialized" message has appeared, save the game, exit and move you saves from "mpsave" to "save" folder.


As for pirates, unless your party is around 12-13th level, I suggest you leave that encounter for now. Have you looked at "Suggested quest order" thread? It can help you to choose more suitable encounters for your party.

Since you have Jan, buff him with thievery potions and do some pickpocketing around the town. You should find at least two Permanency scrolls. This will allow you to forge a Treefolk's Arm club, it's quite worth it and will be a strong weapon for quite a while.


Do not waste money on weapons. You should be able to do the Lilarcor quest and the duels in the Druid Grove, which gives you nice two-handed weapons. You should also have different +1 or +2 equipment from earlier encounters which is enough until you able to deal with more hard quests like De'Arnise keep which will give you better weapons like Flail of Ages. I strongly suggest to give your Vagrant proficiencies in flails, while Valygar can handle the clubs. Once you forge Treefolk's Arm, keep saving money and components for the Phosphorus +4 flail.

Hope that helps. Just ask if anything else is unclear.

Gee thanx.

I did some pickpocketing with Jan and found only one scroll [...]

The quest order I saw, and it is good and I follow it, but there are no more easy quests. Everywhere I go my party dies quickly. Even Lilalcor fights are tough. I will win this sword, but no one in the party has stars in two-handed swords.

Two handed weapons - are useful or crap?
I think that Anomen is good with flails.
Isn't it cheating to make a multiplayer game and mighty custom characters?

I want to see the good stuff from item text file. Jan Jansen, Anomen, Valygar and Vagrant have very good items later. And I want a thief in party. Why is Imoen better?

Nalia looks weaker than Edwin. She can memorize very few spells.

Levels are vag 10, valygar 10, anomen 12, jan 11/11 and edwin is only 11.

How about the rings +2 and cloaks +2? Do I save money or make one-two? And where to make some money?

Well, the fights are tough but with some thinking and implementing an appropriate tactics you should have no problem with the Lilarcor fight, Slaver's Stockade and the quests of this range. If you can't beat them at all, I can suggest some hints. Pirates are a bit tough for you. When your mage have six-level spells to memorize Improved Haste and Protection from Magical Energy, that would be a good time to try out the pirates battle. This is also a good point for taking a sorcerer aboard. They can easily get access to the useful spells when they level up, so you can buff your fighters appropriately to the situation.
You might want also to lower the difficulty of the game. For tactical hints you can read some journals here on forum. Kerkes's ones are good, but be wary of spoilers in there.


They are extremely useful. IA has some very cool weapons to forge like Poseidon's Wrath. They are worth having a two-handed weaponry specialist in party. I recommend to take Minsc or Keldorn. They will get better exp, more closer to your party, since you are already made some progress with the game.

His a very competent fighter in SoA when under clerical buffs, but you will find that his usefulness as a melee fighter will grow weaker later in game due to the lack of warrior's HLA abilities.


No, it's not. Why would it be? Cheating is if you CLUAing yourself a big amount of money right away or experience or something else.

I am afraid thieves are somewhat weak in IA. Only swashbucklers could be useful. Traps are nerfed greatly since they are a cheesy way to win a fight, and thieves aren't exactly the best melee characters. They won't stand a chance against tougher IA enemies. Of course, backstabbing still has its uses, but one should use it more wisely. Not every enemy is killable via backstab. Imoen is a sorceress and having a sorcerer in IA is extremely important. Jan is a good supporting character (I've played with custom-made thief/mage myself in my first IA run), but he won't be as useful as a single-class sorcerer because he won't get to really high levels in a mage class which will leave him with a less amount of spellslots.


Well, there are several points in favor of Nalia. First, she's dualled from thief, so she can handle routine thievery stuff like traps and locks very effectively. Secondly, indeed Edwin may seem to have more spellslots right now, but look at Nalia's ring upgrade Third, Edwin has very bad stats, which makes him very weak in terms of hitpoints and otherwise. And the fourth, Edwin is evil, and I would strongly suggest to go for the highest reputation to see all of the new content the mod adds, including special quests for the Vagrant protagonist. Of course it is not the issue if you are using "Happy" patch from easy-of-use.

To summarize the party stuff. You should definitely take a 2H-weaponry guy or some other kind of fighter. As for mages, one could win the game with Edwin - Jan combination, but it's not the most easiest one, I'll tell you honestly. The best combinations are Nalia + Imoen, but you can also play with Imoen + Jan (since you want a thief in your party).


You can make one-two certainly. When you return to Athkatla make sure you make some +3 cloaks for you warriors, for better saves mostly. Don't bother for your mages. Later, in ToB, when you made all other armor and weaponry upgrades, you can spent the gold to make ring upgrades. Saving-throws are always important, but there are plenty of other means to improve them or make your characters immune to different nasty spells like Finger of Death, for instance. You just have to learn to use them efficiently. Money is made via the usual means: selling stuff, picking up from strongholds. Make sure you use the most charismatic member when shopping (put him as a leader of the party temporarily), make use of "Friends" spell.

Your party is a bit too low level for the planar sphere. There are a lot of quests outside the city that could earn you a lot of XP and treasure. Trademeet is one of the best place but Firkraag dungeon is also a good place. Aran's quests are also doable on your current level.

Thank you critto.

My mages leveled to 12 and I set difficulty to easy and killed the pirates, those adventurers in the promenade and Lilalcor monsters and slavers in slums.

I read some spoilers here and also googled Improved Anvil. I found tons of spoilers on biowares forum and got some more permanency scrolls.
Maybe I should start with a different party? The vagrant looks powerful later on, but how about this:

fighter-illusionist gnome leader with wisdom 18
fighter-cleric-mage or only cleric-illusionist gnome - advice please
sorcerer with wisdom 18 because Imoen is too far away
a bard - maybe Haer'dalis? or custom

I read that arcane magic is very important and with smaller party they will level up quicker and I won't decrease difficulty with this party.

I think you should stick to your original party (or maybe make only one or two changes). Your vagrant will soon be able to summon Swanmays which are powerful allies. Single-class characters are strong in IA and things won't be easy if your only fighters are multiclass. Remember that multiclass characters gain HLAs far later in IA than in the vanilla game. Reducing the number of characters in the party so that they level up faster is also not a good idea IMO. Some parts of the game are much harder if your protagonist's xp is high and with a smaller party you may not be able to deal with the increased difficulty (this is partly why the IA readme recommends playing with a party of five or preferably six). Btw, I'm not saying your proposed party would not work, just it would not be so easy later on if you're not experienced in playing IA.

I agree with critto that you are better off with Nalia then Edwin. You need Reputation 20 to see some of the new IA quests later on (which give you lots of experience, gold and so on so it is not a good idea to skip them).

I really recommend that you do not rely on what you read on Bioware forum. Most of the reports you read there are unreliable and the main player who writes spoilers about IA there on bioware (saros) has proven himself to be a cheater and liar.

Stick to BWL and ask your questions from IA-experts here.

Good luck!

Thanks very much. But I have difficult time early in the game with my original party. I started the new team and it looks stronger, maybe because of stoneskins and mirror image. Blade levels up fast. I wanted two bards, but thought it over because of only one good armor for a bard later. Remove Magic is very good when my blade casts it, it helped a lot in the Suna seni battle.
Also made a cleric-illusionist because gnomes have very good saves and because it will level up faster than a tripleclass.
I read about sorcerer spell selection, just want to ask in this party is it good to pick all Necromancy spells because the illusionists cannot cast those?
Won't take Nalia or Edwin. They have low wisdom and Nalia is very weak in the beginning. Her ring is very expensive too and I think that the party will have to win some tough fights to get the artifacts for this ring. Even if Nalia gets it Edwin still has one more slot on each level. How about Edwin with the Happy patch?
Do you think that two fighters - fighter illusionist and blade - are enough?

Sikret, thanks about the info. But so far the bioware place is the place where I got most help. It also seems good for now - that guy mentioned about permanency scrolls and other rare items. The thing which he did not is what spells use enemies. I read his battle with the Pirates and he didn't have even one abi-dalzim cast on him, when my party was hit by some. Also he mentioned about monster resistances and tactics, and some were useful, since from those posts I took info to battle for Lilalcor sword. That Shadow was really creepy and the carrion crawler was bad too. But I will be careful, thanks for the warning.

This two guys are great for IA, but they are not enough, I'm afraid. Their THAC0 progresses slowly and the won't have enough warrior HLAs or won't have them at all. Without warriors who can use Hardiness or Critical Strike or Greater Whirlwind game could be very tough. You should have at least one pure warrior (that includes fighter, ranger or a paladin classes). Make sure to pick up Valygar, at least. He's a great asset to have in IA.


You'll have enough money later in the game to forge it, trust me. And you will have to do the tough fights anyway, since that is the essence of IA As for the Wisdom, true, they don't have a good enough score, but that's why Imoen here is for She has a high Wisdom score.


Not all Necromancy spells could be useful. What are you planning on getting?

I don't know about another warrior in this party. Other characters will level up slower. And those pure classes do not have stoneskin and mirror image. Maybe the cleric-illusionist will help with thac0? I was thinking about chant and bless spells in minor sequencer. And my party leader has two strength increase special abilities.

Will Champion Strength be of any use? It gives very good bonus to thac0.

Will I need hardiness for these characters? I decided to go with spells for protection. And the greater whirlwind looks nice, but how about just improved haste?

I want to have Laloch minor drain, Skull trap, spirit armor, vampiric touch, hand of undoing and abi-dalzim in sorcerer spell picks. I read that anti golem spells are very good and decided to take the hand right away when my sorcerer can cast 7 lvl spells. Should I wait and pick another one?

Your characters will level up just fine. One of the good things about IA is it balanced when it comes to gaining XP for a 5-6 level party. With 4 members or lower you will get experience more quickly, and in some cases the game will present to you a tougher versions of different encounters. Even though your party seems to be more experienced in terms of XP, it still might be not up to the challenge. For example, if you will play through all the quests in "Suggested quest order" topic before sailing to Spellhold with 4 characters party , you will surely encounter a tougher version of the dungeon, and by tougher I mean tougher a LOT. So that is why having a 5-6 level party is recommended, but not necessary, of course.

As for increasing your party stats with buffs, it is certainly a good thing and you should definitely do that, but remember that sometimes you fight mages who has competent warriors at their side. This mages can strip you party members of their buffs and they will be facing these tough warriors "naked". If such thing happens, you might have a problem unless you have a competent warrior with good AC, THAC0 and hitpoints who can hold off the enemy while your mages or fighter/mages refresh the buffs.


Hardiness is definitely needed. Later in game you will encounter the fights that last for quite a long time. You might just have not enough protection spells to last through the encounter, while the strategic use of Hardiness could be a key to victory. Unless, your sorcerer is particularly lucky with Wish spell, of course. Improved Haste is super-useful, but sometimes you need to deal a lot of damage in a few rounds, that's where GWW and Critical Strike come in handy.

Also, I wanted say that these recommendations to equip the party with different types of characters (warriors, fighter/mage-type tanks, pure clerics and mages) come from the fact, that IA have different sorts of encounters that may or may not require a different skill set from your party members. Having all angles covered will give more choices in these battles, so that you can devise an interesting and successful tactic, implement it and receive a satisfaction of winning a battle. Later, when you are more experienced with IA and have an understanding of what awaits you in the game, you can try and play with more narrowly specialized parties, like mage-heavy party or divine-heavy party.


These all are good choices except for skull trap. Don't count on it much. You can definitely take it, but I would recommend doing that after you have picked a Vampiric Touch, Remove Magic and Flame Arrow. As for Hand of Undoing, it's a very useful spell in IA, but on the seventh level you also have a one of the most important spells in IA: Ruby Ray of Reversal. Make sure you have this one as soon as possible. When you are battling in ch2-3 you have a very short supply of that spell available via scrolls, so sometimes you have to decide whether to use them or save for tougher encounters. Later in game the amount of mages who use SI:Abjuration (which can be taken down only by RRR) growths, as growths their power. So you will need the spell to deal with their spell protections.

Yeah I know about those competent mages. Wanted to trick one of the Shadow thieves mages with Spell immunity divination, but he used remove magic. I decided to side with Bodhi because of reading that the party gets boots of speed from renal. They help a lot. Maybe I will use spell immunity abjuration from now on and will keep it running all the time on all characters. This will protect my party buffs, what do you think?

Thanks about sorcerer info. I will not pick Skull trap. My blade will have skull trap if it is needed. And will get Ruby Ray as soon as possible.

About those mages you mentioned - I have not met even one yet. All enemies use divination immunity and improved invisibility.

Why cloudkill isn't working? How about other cloud spells, are they useful in IA?

I also got many times the message that some items cannot be used with Use any item. My Blade will have this ability later. Can you help me what powerful items can be used with Use any item?

Of course, it will. But do expect enemy mages to try and bring you SI's down with Ruby Rays as well. So it is a good idea to have two or three memorized, especially for spell-casting duels.


A wizard on the Slaver's Stockade should use SI:Abjuration, I think (unless I am mistaken). Have you been there yet? Anyway, you will encounter such mages, don't worry

They might be on certain occasions. But do not expect them to be an ultra-powerful


Mostly, those are the IA items that are class-specific (ranger flails, BioWare NPC items, and such). Blades are very powerful on their own in IA, so giving them an ability to wield a lot of class-specific equipment would make them god-like and would destroy the balance.
I think there was a topic around here somewhere that had a list of such items. Try searching for UAI or "Use any item".

In Firkraag's land you will meet a mage that use SI:A. But there are several other mages in Chapter 2/3 that use this protection combo.

I tried some of them but they usually do not work. I think the reason is that they can be used in a cheesy way.



Most powerful standard items and most of IA items (maybe all of them?). As I remember Holy Avenger and Staff of the Magi are both not usuable by UAI.

Thanks. I asked about those expensive powerful upgraded items and which are usuable with use any item. I tried to search this forum, but got some error message that it was password protected and got nothing. I looked on the biowares forum and there a bard was equipped with that awesome cloak +4, but I want to ask is it possible or is the guy there cheating to use it? And can you post some links to this forum where use any item is discussed, or I may forge something very expensive now and then not be able to use it later.

Yeah remember that mage in the slavers, but killed him very quickly with melee weapons, so he was no problem. I guess that other mages will use protection from magic weapons maybe so it will be hard.

Thank you both about the cloud spells. I will not pick them with my sorcerer then. Good thing I asked or I had to start once again from the beginning.

Sorry, I can't seem to find it on a quick search. When I find it, I'll post the link. It is definitely here, on IA forum. As for Cloak +4, no, it's no cheat. Cloaks can be worn by any character, there is no restrictions on them. If some class may not use the item or only a specific character may use it, then it is stated so at the bottom of the according item's description. Read them carefully.


Yep


No problem. If you are facing a necessity to make a spell-pick and not sure if the spell might be useful, don't hesitate to ask. It's better to equip the sorcerer with the most useful spells and leave the experimenting to a mage with customizable spell-book.

Actually the only +4 cloak in the game is Cernd's upgraded cloak. Since it is part of his personalised equipment other characters shouldn't be able to use it. Although I don't know if it is usable with UAI (IMO it shouldn't be if it isn't already).

Oh, sorry, my bad. I've mistaken it with +4 rings. Indeed, the only +4 cloak is Cernd's. I think it's still usable with UAI in v5, though.
Here's that topic with the list: http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?...hl=use+any+item

Thank you critto for this topic. The gold for reputation increase is also good to know. That cloak is not mentioned in the forbidden list so my blade can use it, this is very good.

I think I have enough info for now, and have more knowledge and will play a little more and write a little less.

IIRC you won't be able to find all the ingredients to upgrade Cernd's cloak unless Cernd is in the party. You shouldn't plan your strategy around forging the upgraded personalised items for other characters to use.

Quite true. Any attempt to use NPCs' personal items on your protagonist is plain cheat. I have blocked using most of those items even with the "Use Any Item" ability. However, even for some of them which are still usable with the UAI ability, you should most certainly resist the temptation to abuse the possibility (if you want to play legitimately).

Automatic saving throw pretty much ruins this encounter.

Also, how is Imoen too far away? You don't need 18 wisdom until your mage/sorcerer hits level 18 anyways, and Imoen joins around level 14.

Gnomes can only roll 17 wisdom, but that doesn't matter either since a multi class wont get wish for a long long time regardless. By then you can use +1 wis +1 cha Bhaal's tear, or you can use mad lum's machine.

Also, level 12 mage is still very early in the game, and pirates are doable on core if you have a balanced party. You seem to be asking a wide array of questions that are relevant to many parts of the game you haven't even reached yet. I think you'd have a much easier time learning everything from personal experience if you made a more powerful party, for example the party Sikret used in his v5 thread, except with better stats. It will still be challenging.

I think Sikret said sliding the bar to easy is not a cheat, but imo it ruins alot of encounters. They're not just slightly easier, they become NOTHING like the way they were originally.

I recommend Core difficulty, regardless of your playing skill. If a battle is really too hard for some reasons, decrease it to Normal and try win it then. If you do, increase again to Core and replay battle again..it improves your gameplay if you play on Core, and it is possible.
Easy difficulty is simply too easy, IMO.