I discovered IA a few months ago and have been enjoying struggling through it. I just finished EDE (IA 5) for the first time with a sorceror protag. It was my second playthrough, though I wasn't able to beat EDE the first time with my vagrant protag. I know it's a bit late in the mod lifecycle, but I thought I'd share my experience and give some feedback.

My first run through was with a vagrant protaganist using the party that Sikret had in his walkthrough. A few comments on some specific fights:

Kruin:

I normally relied on Imoen's remove magic for enemy buffs, and forgot that Anomen's dispel magic ability was more powerful, so in the Kruin fight I ended up having to wait out his buffs, which made the fight very challenging. Luckily, I had avoided using arcane magic until that point, so I didn't have any Cowled Enforcers breathing down my neck.

Supreme Leader:

This fight was really fun and really crazy until I realized SPOILER!


JD fight:

Unfortunately, I later found that the mage half of JD didn't drop for me at the appropriate place, so I thought it came in the TOB section and ended up SKing it in after beating Balthazar. The fight was still very challenging - I don't think I could have beaten it much earlier in the game. The time I beat it I got lucky and had 3 Death Lords spawn in a row after the initial spawns, so I was able to take control of the battle very quickly.

Expanded paladin stronghold:

The rune assassins were a great battle. It was really memorable to cast true sight and see ~20 stealthed enemies become visible all at once.

Finding the viper queen was fun, though the battle was a bit one dimensional once I found her.

Expanded Ranger quests:

These encounters were very enjoyable, though the plots seemed a little forced. The last fight in Good/Bad/Ugly could have used some different minions.

I completed all of SoA and ToB with this group but wasn’t able to complete EDE.

My second run was with a sorcerer protagonist. I also wanted to try the encounters in "The Four," so I installed that mod for this run. In honor of WoT book 12, my party was:

Moraine Sorceror (protag, good initially)
Perrin Vagrant
Matrim F/T (Dwarf, Evil, Longsword/dagger/club)
Rand F/M (Elf, staff/halbred/bastard sword)
Nynaeve R/C (dual at 9)
Jaheira (F/D) and then Bard (Thom)

I started with Jaheira initially and once my R/C had dualed and reached ~lvl 7, I dropped her and made a bard with the same XP. This meant I got the Ring of Wizardry from the Harper plot as well, but not the pin.

This party was much more powerful, or I'd gotten better tactically, or both, as I was able to move through the game much more easily. At the same time, having a sorcerer protagonist was challenging due to having low hitpoints and enemy mages with PW:K – in most of the fights, my sorcerer was used for buffs, later for wishing and ADHWs. In a few fights, she really shined, but the bard could have almost done the same thing and was generally more useful. A few comments about specific fights:

Asylum lich:

I don’t know how I would have beat him without a vagrant. My remove magic’s, even with the bard, were not powerful enough for his PFMW, and his AoE spells are killer in that small room.

Underdark:

Still very challenging, probably the most challenging area of the game given the linearity of this portion of the game. I separated the spiders and the drow for the first ambush, and it was still very challenging. Glad to hear this will be toned down.

Since I didn't have a druid, I cheated a little bit and CLUAd the guardian of the helmet (and later guardian of the gloves) at the appropriate time and place according to “The Four” readme, as I wanted to experience the encounters and try out the new items. The fight here was the appropriate difficulty and enjoyable.

The end of the underdark always seemed to me to be a little anti-climatic. The summoned demon is pissed he’s summoned, but then leaves after he kills his summoners? This might be a nice spot for a new boss encounter.

Post-underdark:

Chapter 6 was also much easier, mainly due to the ridiculous increase in power of the bard after getting his armor. The armor, and items from “The Four” (bard ring, gloves, and helmet) gave him a better THAC0 and AC than my fighters plus the ability to instant cast lots of buffs. His defensive tanking abilities were what let me beat Orcus before doing watcher’s keep, compared to it being the absolute last fight in SoA in my first run. It would be nice if Orcus had something besides his blood, especially since Hesperus doesn't seem worth forging.

Twisted Rune:

My strategy in this fight relied on the proper placement of people – SPOILER!


Expanded mage stronghold:

I enjoyed the variety of encounters in these quests, particularly the last battle (e.g. mini-EDE) with Pasha. The plot again seemed a little forced to me.

I read somewhere that forging Robe of the Apprenti is based on chance and once attempted, if failed, is locked in for the game. I disagree with this design choice, especially for someone playing through with a mage for the first time – it takes quite a bit of real time to get to this point in the game, and losing on the chance to forge such a powerful item for the protagonist would be very frustrating – the 3 spells per level were very helpful, especially in long battles such as EDE. One way to address this would be to tie in the forging chance to the difficulty level. For example, if at core, you still roll to see if you forge it. If at easy, you automatically get it, assuming you’re a mage. Luckily, I was able to forge the robe and experience the Limak encounter.

Overall, I'd rate the expanded mage stronghold as slightly more fun than the expanded ranger stronghold.

Hell:

I ended up keeping blackrazor sword. That sword is absolutely amazing, even compared to some IA weapons, and was the best general purpose longsword for my rogue. Too bad its not +4.

Yaga-Shura:

A very difficult fight. In both runs, I only won because of luck and never felt like I had any control. The randomness of the spawns, sometimes immediately on top of my protagonist, knockback of melee characters, and high damage output of the enemies, made this a very hectic, and not necessarily enjoyable, fight. I would be interested in hearing specific strategies for this, besides reload until you get lucky in doing enough damage.

Sendai:

A bit too easy at this point in the game. Actually, not challenging at all. Hopefully, she gets improved, perhaps with occasional respawns of her guardians or severe buffs to her final four guardians.

Abazigal:

Challenging, but only because I wanted to kill both guardians. Having a sorcerer protagonist meant the salamander spawns appeared right on my most vulnerable character. SPOILER!


Balthazar:

Not challenging at all.

EDE:

Sorceror, 31: Mem of Apprenti, Staff of Magi/Golem Slayer
Vagrant, 33: FodW/Foebane, Aeger’s Hide, GoLM
F/M, 23/20: Dragon Lord/Poseidon’s Wrath/DoTC, Asylfreund Chain, Talisman of Greater Protection, Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength
F/T, 23/26: Blackrazor/GoA/TA, IHF, Indigo Ion Stone, Girdle of Fire Giant Strength
Bard, 40: EM/Sunlight/Gloves of Spell Weaving/Melodic Fury/IRoG/Amulet of Master Harper
R/C, 39: HoT/FoA, BoRL/Great Wyrm Armor/Amulet of Power/Belt of Inertial Barrier/Improved Dragon Helm

A fun, very challenging fight, and very long – luckily, the unsuccessful attempts “only” took ~45 minutes each, but the successful attempt took closer to 3 hours real time! I think “epic” is an appropriate description. I did find “my true friend” to be very helpful as a tank, though he didn’t end up surviving. I had accumulated 6 wish scrolls and at the end only having 1 left at the end due to getting unlucky with refreshing abilities. Is there any way to modify Pasha such that my remove magics don't affect him? I also used 3 charges of the resurrection rod during the battle to raise fallen comrades.

What I eventually did for the battle.

SPOILER!


Comments about The Four:

I found the items from “The Four” to be very powerful in the mid game. I didn’t try the robe, but I think I would have been OK using it. There really was no disadvantage to using the gloves (or by extension, the robe) - besides Dracolich, I can’t recall any place where anyone really needed high saves vs. death. All of the chain contingency 3xfinger of deaths went for my fighter/mage, not my bard or sorcerer.

I probably won’t try another run through until v6 comes out. Thanks a lot for a great mod and a memorable experience.

That's because you hadn't installed the hotfixes. Right?

The ring is already removed from harper plot in IA v6. The ring's description says "It was originally commissioned by spellcaster <CHARNAME>, apparently at great monetary and personal cost." It wouldn't make sense to have another copy of this item in the harper quest.



As you may already know, the bard armor is seriously nerfed in v6.

This tactics won't work in v6. A cutscene will fix the locations of party members before the battle begins. In general Twisted Rune is a lot harder in v6, but we have still managed to win it in our tests for v6.



We discussed this concern with IA testers and finally decided to allow a good-aligned necromancer protagonist (with 18 Wisodm) to have 100% chance to forge the robe. One main reason for this change was that having the upgraded robe is a prerequisite for the new set of quests in the expanded stronghold.

This is interesting. Once v6 is out, I'll be also interested in hearing players' opinions about these two strongholds. Several more small and mid-size new quests are added to the mage stroghold; whereas a big quest (The Ancient Secret of Suldanesselar) is added to the expanded ranger stronghold in v6.



Yes, Sendai's enclave will be drammatically improved in v6.

Your Remove magic doesn't affect Pasha, but your Dispel Magic does.



Rod of Resurrection is omitted from the game in v6.

Many more occasions on which you will need good saves are added to the game in v6.



You are welcome. And thanks for the feedback.

It's not really that hard, once you get the hang of it. The earlier battles with liches are interesting for their defensive approach. You can fight the lich effectively even without Vagrant, you just have to place your buffs carefully to make your tank immune to the dangerous effects. Plus, you can use Chain Lightning to disrupt their spells. The v6 version introduces several new features to enrich the pool of tactical solutions when dealing with liches, as well as several improvements to liches themselves, which make them tougher and less predictable opponents.


In v5, the idea is to attack Yaga-Shura while keeping his forces at bay. I do not remember the exact details, but, apart from certain changes in v6, I imagine there shouldn't be that much difference. Now, if you look carefully, you'll actually see the pattern of how the enemies appearing. You have several types of enemies. Lesser fighters - they are just a mob; you can ignore them, or kill in between the main forces just to keep population at bay. Lieutenants (fighter, assassin, f/m, cleric) are quite dangerous together, especially when they keep coming and you do not dispose of them. You should definitely beware of the enemy cleric (he casts SoV, which brings a lot of pain; several magic missiles should help to interrupt him) and f/m (he can strip your mages of their defenses, plus he has a bunch of magical protection himself, which makes him quite durable). And you got Elite Fire Giants and Yaga-Shura himself. They are the most dangerous enemies, with whom you should deal first. Fire Giants pack quite a punch, plus they can throw your characters around. The best way to deal with giants and Yaga-Shura is elemental damage (spells, Poseidon's Wrath, Vagrant's axe, Hammer of Thor, etc.). If you can keep your mages under Improved Alacrity constantly (by timing its duration), you can dish out a lot of elemental magic, as well as strip F/Ms of their buffs, disrupt clerics with MM and refresh PfMW in order to keep your mages immune to the physical damage. Whereas your fighters should just stick together and attack enemies as they come, starting from the most dangerous ones. This battle is a good place to use several Barbarian Essence potions in addition to usual Hardiness in order to improve physical resistance significantly.

@Sikret

No, I did not have the hotfixes installed. I wasn't aware of them at that point.

It seems the bard armor nerfing is justified. One non-cheesy thing I will miss is the (real life) speed at which he was able to buff people before battles.

The conditions you outlined for the Robe of the Apprenti seem fair.

Re the Rod of Resurrection, I believe the upgraded paladin bracers from the original game could cast Resurrection once per day as well. Will the Wish option for resurrection still be present?

Critto mentioned barbarian essence potions - would it be possible/desirable to remove the hardiness icon from the potion? I found it distracting more than useful, as I wouldn't necessarily notice if hardiness HLA had worn off. The same was true for most item buffs giving minor resistances, actually.

Thanks again - looking forward to v6.

@Critto

Thanks for the advice re Yaga and the Asylum lich. I tried the chain lightning interruption in a few places and couldn't get the timing right, but in the end I didn't need to. I'll keep it in mind as a good tactic for the future though.

As I mentioned, I tended to underuse my sorceror's offensive capabilities, mainly due to my melee fighters abilities being sufficient, though not necessarily the most efficient, to win most fights. A good example was the Chromatic Demon fight, who I beat down slowly instead of blasting with spells. I've got a save near Yaga and may try the fight with your outlined tactics. I tried to save all of my barbarian essence potions for EDE and so never used them.

I think that was already done for v6.


Well, I don't think you need such a big amount of BE potions for EDE, unless you're planning to make all of your party members completely immune to physical damage

Maybe once one has beaten the whole mod a few times using very rare consumables beforehand is an OK mindset I bet you use potions of magic shielding against the drow in the underdark as well

I wanted to make sure my odds of beating EDE were as high as possible, nothing wrong with that, eh?