Another run, this time hope I can finish it with necro protagonist

Firstly party composition:
Margus Necro: only wise choice here, he has improved stronghold, overpowered items and so on, just like Vagrant, he can become god at some point(though fighter>caster in EDE). He will be our only arcane caster, no mass invisibility might hurt(-4 saving throws, perfect against spiders), but making unusual but not too weak party means sacrifices ;/ had great rolls, he has 18/18/16/18/18/6 (really!)
Aragorn R/C multi: last run with vagrant taught me that CS is the most important ability in IA(or one of the most), fighting supreme gith or(yeah, he's not here this time) demon from JD was terrible, way too many reloads... slow level progression, low level spells(in terms of dispelling) and not many GR... but we'll manage, never used more than 3 GR in 1 fight, and this time I have Cernd+necro(wish!), stats are: 18/98 18 18 8 18 3
Geralt Kensai: perfect fighter, and as good damage dealer as monk(with 2h he can hit from behind other characters which will grant him longer life), best thaco of all characters, probably only he'll be able to hit supreme leader without CS or critical hit, I could only take him or RB, but since I hate RBs there was only one right choice. No armor is actually a good thing, I won't have problems like: use better armor but only +2 rings, or +4 ring and full plate(3 characters will need a ring +4 or gaxx!). Kensai must take care of all fights due to our lack of real close combat power, but when enemies are debuffed by necro and Cernd that probably is enough! 19 18 19 12 12 3
Tony Kakko Skald: perfect char! bards should have some more items only for them, for the armor is nothing special(it had permanent alacrity in IA5, right? That's too much, but some other improvements are welcome) He can have 3 protections(SS/GoI/SI) which occupies mages for some time, he can have 100% MR, which occupies mages for even more time and protects him from many nasty things(song+carsomyr+improved human flesh/almost anything else), can tank(SS+MI) and finally can cast II(+AC and +saving throws). Without him my next char would be totally useless I think... 1 more thing, he can play the note and has almost 1 round to act before singing again(so casting spells, or even fighting, he can use let's say monk's sword+3 that gives+1 APR and other thing in main hand), improved song(HLA) has nice area of effect, and greatly boosts every char! stats: 18 18 16 18 10 15
Chuck Norris Monk: one question: WHY?! Because I can! Probably the worst character in IA(since thief can swashbuckle). High AC, high thaco, low APR, only crushing damage... after some testing here's what he can achieve: -24 AC(lowest possible...), -15 AC(with 24 str), 4APR/10 with GWW, and damage: 1-20+6 from gauntlets+12 from 24str+4(fists are weapon+4)+4(song)=27-46 which is pretty nice, 98%MR(some rounds for mages to lower it!) and 50%DR... not too good, but on core he'll manage to help. 18 18 16 15 14 3
Cernd: why does auramaster have RRR? No idea, but I'll use it without hesitation! He's another perfect char! 3 druid items(staff+circlet+cloak), mass spells, IA, 100%DR in ToB(20 staff+40 his aura+40 hardiness from wish), epic HLAs, unsilencable( <3 )

Best thing in this party: Cernd/Necro/Skald/Monk don't need IH, and R/C can have ranger boots probably... Cernd can RRR, so many slots for 6 and 7 level for necro No problems with money/perma scrolls at all
Worst things: only 2 real fighters(+monk!), too many characters that could use only ioun stones... (4 then 3 after UAI)

What I will try:
-Samia and party=my best and favorite encounter pre spellshold, which will be much harder this time without 7'th level divine spells(creeping doom to be precise, it owns basically whole fight) and many GM+emotion(it could make 2 or even 3 enemies unconscious)
-Undead city- never really tried it pre-spellshold so maybe... though this party is probably not solid enough for the encounter ;/ (maybe staff+4 from Founder?)
-Firkraag but only after monk is 15'th level(fists are +3 weapon), had some problems with my Vagrant party even after underdark, but this run is basically to taste as much as possible and to see how godly can be the real Necromancer(+to compare if his plot is better than Vagrant's!)

What I WON'T TRY:
-trolls- they are simply too much for me, without creeping doom(perfect against vengeance trolls) and ADHW I won't be able to kill those little bastards before they suck out all my strength
-guarded compound- sorry, not with this party composition


Here we go:
DungeonBeGone
Circus, then walking around to get many places on map. Talky talky umar quests + golem, take Cernd, then Windspear, defeat everything that is outside the cave. Druid grove, kill Faldorn and first druid stronghold quest done.
It turns out that Rakshasas are immune to +1 weapons... I'll need at least one, which means: pay to shadow thieves and visit slavers. I'm not proud of this fight, once got pushed by summons so beastmaster attacked me in the middle of buffing, and second time, he got emotioned a second after creeping doom, so Cernd had to circle around not to get hit by the spell... Anyway, the fight is really easy, Tabitha can be killed by MM or Cernd's 6'th level spell.
Killed first vampire at night, then went to get amulet of power... still no ambush, strange a bit...
Interesting note: one can summon familiar to get additional 24 HP and just put it in pocket. This way 5 summons can be achieved, so for 1'st level spell it's a bit overpowered. Necromancer with additional 24 HP could look even more godlike late game, but I won't use this.

Dealt with vampire in docks, then tried to go out to temple district, but Suna wanted to kill us... I don't like this fight, no options to prevent being confused(-4 to saving throws, no means of casting chaotic command and so on, too weak gear... and I don't even have time to cast true seeing and something to interrupt the spell). Got lucky and 1 emotion took down both fighters and cleric(Cernd with AoP cast emotions almost instantly). Then R/C runs to lower corner with Suna, mage confuses him, Kensai and Monk rush for Suna, 3xflame arrow and she's dead, then true seeing from Cernd, slaying the mage and assassin(Monk used stunning blow and rolled successfully). Finally I have breach!
next whole Mae'var questline, Margus got 11'th level.
Wanted to go to bridge district, but got attacked by a hostile party, even though we had out spellbooks depleted, we managed to defeat them... though lost 1 breach scroll, because mage used it after Magrus cast stoneskin.
Decided to do Cernd's quest first, also bought 2 points of reputation(for 2700).
Personally I think that this quest should be expanded, I mean... what about the mage? What about the lich?!
Cernd left our party, so it's time to meet Ployer with Jaheira.
After the quest, dropped Jaheira and headed to the grove to pick Cernd, on my way there some orogs and 2 warriors attacked us, no problems, emotions+stunning blow=slaughter.
Picked Cernd, killed Rakshasas(no problems with 2 characters pounding and Tony singing right behind them well, maybe this party isn't that bad? But vampires will be a real nightmare... 3 characters can't be protected from level drain by any means... I'll probably have to use all scrolls during my fight with Orcus... but can't wait to fight 4 best vampires in WK using only necro. )
Interesting note: my R/C will have probably lowest level, and that means lowest dispel magic. Vengeance trolls drain strength but it can be dispelled, so he'll probably use the spell since it won't affect our other buffs
Chaos was as easy as usual, 2 characters casting THE SPELL, Margus running around to prevent being bit by insects, summons. Geralt got 10'th level.
Skinner's time. We need lots and lots of exp... also reputation points are important, I'll have to buy staff+3 to fight for Lilarcor... Or maybe rynn will be in Founder's body?
Now harpers, after first quest we said goodbye to Cernd, and joined Jaheira, we'll kill some harpers for her.
Hahahaha... Left Cernd in front of the entrance to harpers... Joolon got confused during the fight, left the building and attacked Cernd... who is hostile now time to reload...
These fights are perfect for low level parties, they grant cloaks of protection and rings too, some minor exp and gold.
In the end we got harper's pin, a perfect item for our UAI bard. Though bards have very high saving throws, this one will not have problems with them(saves vs spells are extremely important vs spiders and probably even versus Rakshasa Prince, though I'm not sure about the second one). Ring+4 can be used with robe of evil archimagi (we made him evil so he could use human flesh if needed).
Later dropped Jaheira, and picked Valygar to open the shpere, left him and took Cernd back. We'll take care of Valygar's armor, with harper's pin and the belt, he'll have 75% magical damage reduction. Sometimes we might need that.(Sometimes 100% MR will be enough(with some items and Carsomyr))
Info: silenced bards still can play(that's normal, they can't utter a sound but can use their fingers).
Now time to fight some De'arnise trolls an yuantis.
Yuanti mage was easier than before. Monk rushed to the room to trigger mage's protections and his 3 spells(slow emotion and something), then 1 fire elemental and 1 skeleton attacked enemies, while Geralt pounded them with 2h weapon from afar, and Margus+Tony showered them with MMM. Cernd used true seeing right after the troll was dead, to reveal invisible ones, then some fire arrows and melee attacks to defeat them, from time to time a skeleton was sent to occupy the mage for some time, then monk rushed to the room again and was confused(no big deal), meanwhile Cernd cast protection from fire on Aragorn and Geralt, who took care of the mage.
Forgot that it's easier to deal with yuanti having lower resistance, so unseeing eye now.
Gauths are extremely dangerous to our team... we need to use GM+emotions which is a perfect combination to defeat them. Also bought secret word scrolls for Margus and Tony.
Blind priests were much harder than the Eye... in the end Chuck got 11'th level, and is now immune to poison, which is great, since we'll soon fight slavers... I hate that fight, Kensai is the only one who can defeat the captain, and he's way too fragile, can't be protected from backstab, poison and critical strikes.

Illithium quest done, now time for fallen paladins(reputation is 19).
Geralt got 11'th level. Greater yuanti time. Chaotic command on everyone, true seeing, max buffs(Aragorn got 24 str), Whisper spider died in less than 1/2 round, then 2xsecret word on yuanti, Geralt and Chuck with summons stand close to the snake to get him occupied, Margus breaches and then 2xlower resis, Cernd doom, Tony play, after dispel magic Aragorn rush to fight, Margus Cernd and Tony shower the enemy with magic, Aragorn tanks(having -13AC +prot. from evil, and Yuanti doomed= no damage whatsoever for 3/4 rounds!). In the end: no one was hurt except for Tony who was attacked by confused bear... Except for 1 healing potion nothing was wasted(all scrolls are in the body). Funny thing, forgot to renew haste after dispel.
Glaicas was not able to withstand combined power of R/C and kensai. Forged FoA+3, now I think I can fight the Keep Viper, the best thing in Kensai is that even if he can't use given type of weapon, he can! He'll use short sword+3. Yup, no problem here, resistances lowered, then doomed, 4 bears took care of him then(the bears are extremely powerful! Nice thaco and high damage output, in addition their attacks are considered +3 weapon! This means we can easily defeat greater carrion crawler (easily if we can make him attack R/C, because bears tend to die really fast.) )
Bought Mauler's arm. R/C is enough to take all these mists in sewers. Also checked slavers, the captains seems really susceptible to fire arrow, that is perfect Anyway, I've always took them from the front gate, so we'll do it this way in this run too.
Once you know what to use, shadow lover becomes extremely easy, wanted to try glitterdust and ray of enfeeblement on him, though even after his saving throws were lowered by 7(chant,doom,GM) he had no problems avoiding the effects.
Where to go now? We have 2 good options, Tor'gal or amber golem... we need some exp before dealing with slavers, more spells and better thaco(Chuck will become a bit more useful with 12'th level, having +3 thaco, though it'll still be mere 8, 6 with song... he'll have to get looots more exp to become the real CHUCK! (sad, he needs to be 25 level to get +4 "weapon", which will probably be some time after fights like troll king/queen and Teshal...)).
Amber golem took 1 reload, because Chuck was chunked by assassin... It's really bad, this means that slavers will probably be much harder than I thought... I had no idea that vampiric touch is that efficient against the golem! Still need more than 100k exp... maybe I'll do planar prison...

Tor'gal- no reloads, really simple fight. Firstly buff everyone with normal spells(bless/haste/chant) and R/C with protections, so that he wouldn't be hurt by storm of vengeance(should have used Chuck, he just stood for the whole fight, totally useless...), then run just with him, to get hit in the corner, meanwhile buffed bears approach trolls, then R/C pound golem, Cernd fight trolls, Tony sing and eliminate dead trolls if needed(MMM), then after trolls are dead, kensai attacks Tor'Gal(Necro breached him and then started to lower his resistances), Tony and Margus shower MM and MMM(couldn't hit even once...) and the fight is over. Tony scribed his RoF, and we got our first permanency scroll!
Tried Founder, but I'm a bit too weak, managed to defeat him, though 3 characters were dead due to SoV and no +4 staff, reloaded because it's possible that it doesn't show up because not enough characters are alive...
Decided to take promenade party with sorcerous Amon... Did it fair, no pre-casting weakening spells before the talk, GM was cast in wrong place and didn't affect the sorcerer, who managed to use improved mantle scroll but no problems here, so decided that reloading would be inappropriate here. Tony got level, better saving throws! But still no 5'th level spells, sad...

Done second shadow thieves' quest, Aragorn with AoP stood where the vampires spawn and the rest took care of the contract.

Next on the list is planar prison, no problems with imp(GM+all else), but forgot that if pounded too fast, EBH uses hardiness which makes her immortal for whole turn... After noticing that it was quite easy=pound till about 8/10 turn, then run away and when she starts casting, pound more. She was probably even stunned by monk(not sure, she was standing at some point not doing a thing for more than a round). Decided to take yuanti mage thralls greater yuanti and 3 minotaurs right after EBH, had bad luck with saving throws, and warriors were down, also Chuck died because he was held(monks should have some other resistances...). Warden took 2 our precious RRR scrolls, it is needed to cast breach right after RRR, because he can recast SI...
Shadow Jailor: buffs including 2xIH, no problems. We have nice levels but there are still no liches in random spawns, for me it's good, we'll have enough liches to deal with... I'd really love to have phosphorus when fighting slavers, and that means that Thax must die(he has the scroll, right?). This time it'll be probably much harder than with vagrant party... our damage output with normal weapons is much lower. OUCH! Forgot that even on normal difficulty skeleton lords are real killers when it comes to fighting naked characters... Anyway, Chuck will be able to solo 3 grandlords one day!

I hate spell shield bug... I'll have to use spellstrike to defeat Thax... and that means -3000gold ;/
With SS the fight was amazingly easy. I was prepared for almost everything, and could occupy the dragon for long long time. right after talking, everyone pound alongside 4 bears and joolon, about 3 second later Cernd casts death ward(the dragon uses 3 FoD and wastes a round), meanwhile Tony uses SS, and some seconds later Margus starts his first breach. When greater silence comes, Aragorn flees, then comes back, bears are located on 4 sides so death spell affects only 1, Tony plays and casts invisibility(another dragon occupying spell), when breath is nearing, Cernd uses PfLD spell, and has 1 heal spell(used it). I was unlucky with drop... nothing interesting.
Time for pirates and phosphorus Coordinator dispelled our magic at the end and that meant no IH... I was a second too late and he managed to waste AI scroll, though died before the spell took effect.
Forged phosphorus and ring +2, we need to save lots of money for druid's items and amulet of hades.
Defeated Bodhi, all party members are now about 1,3m.

Slavers, no problems at current levels and with phosphorus, even Chuck managed to survive.

Time to go to Firkraag's dungeon. Two groups of mists taken at the same time, rakshasa owned using PFMW on Margus. Rest of the dungeon was also easy(no tomb mist guardians and Samia ofc). Geralt got 13'th level, and now we will forge Cernd's cloak. Additional +3 to saving throws is extremely powerful, and he can still wear +4 ring to maximize protection
Now planar sphere, I have some bad feelings about that, even though Margus has 18/18 sometimes even 100% is not enough to forge apprenti robe...
Halflings were easy as usual.
No scrolls used during this fight, we beat all enemies without RRR.
Got robe of apprenti! After killing some trolls Margus has 14'th level and that means RRR! Shadow lord now?
First took down turmish barbarians and got manual of elaboration, now we can forge amulet of hades.

Shadow Lord dead, 2xRRR and breach took care of him.

Defeated sewer party-remove magic+GM+emotions took care of most enemies, then RRR+breach on mage and pound him till he's dead.
I can't forge amulet of hades before some vampire killing... that means screaming statue! Aragorn can't fight alone, so after first wave where he defeated enemies alongside skeleton warrior(Tony can summon 1) we really need to think about a good strategy... Using scroll of protection from undead makes this fight an easy walk, but I want to have as many scrolls as possible when fighting Orcus(the fight is quite long, so 3 characters will need a scroll or two). Casting pfld is instant, but vampires can dispel it faster than once a round ;/ warriors can achieve AC of -15 and -14, also one of them has belt(additional -4) and they're protected from evil(-2), hope this'll make them untouchable for vampires. Side note: Aragorn and Geralt when under IH can kill eminent vampire before he can appear

Finally! Chuck became a capable fighter! Enormous damage(something like kensai) and not that bad thaco+APR.
In the end fought using the scroll... Errr... shouldn't there be some exp for this fight? I mean additional... anyway, time to defeat Conster, fight was funny as usual.

Forged hades and another cloak +2.

Samia's party was awful! No creeping doom means we can't really fight them back... somehow managed to do that after many reloads... After GM from necro, Chuck has about 1/2 chance to 1-hit-KO Akane.
No vecna... I'm really sad. What now? Party is about 1,9M exp...

WK level 1 cleared, had to buy halberd+3 for 22 200. Should've gone there later, got only 4 noble trolls without vampires and some 5/6 golems+2vampires+mists in last room. Chuck died here, he's about 40k exp lower than everyone else ehh...
Now... Firkraag's time! Interesting note, bard isn't a caster! I mean, enemies don't silence him on purpose, that means almost 3 unsilencable characters in my team! (He'll always be out of silence's range.). We'll need to use another spellstrike scroll, for we can't afford rampaging dragon under PFMW and so on(got some scrolls of breach with me). No lower res, because we value our scrolls and want to use as few as possible. I think Firkraag has 3 waves of skeletons, only this much we can take down that is... Chuck will shine in this fight as third damage dealer! 1 more thing: I don't really believe that I can win this fight. The worst thing is that we can't run around under IH, because we don't want to be dispelled... And Geralt with his perfect thaco and damage can take down the dragon and his minions in seconds.

Tested how well our warriors can fight when with 24 str(potions) and it seems that Chuck has the greatest damage, being able to score 36 with critical hit(Geralt can deal only 34).
First try: got to second wave, then resigned because the dragon wanted to silence Aragorn... We have not enough distracters: invisibility, 2xSI, 2xspell turning, 45magic res on monk, summons.
Next try and another were total disasters, decided to postpone the fight. Defeated Pai'na for spider and ioun stone, cleared guardians and got dragon shield and sword, there Chuck got 16'th level. Also got horn of valhalla. Now it's time to kill Firkraag.
The fight was epic! Many buffs+3 skeletons, also MGoI on all(limited wish), spell turning+SI:Abj on Margus. Chuck went to talk, as soon as dragon turned hostile spellstrike+breach(Margus+Tony), Chuck swung to the corner, 1 skeleton took attention of warlords, and led them to warriors who took care of them, meantime 2x breachers+renewing SI or spell turning, then Chuck and Geralt attacked the dragon, interesting, he decided to breach and not to dispel our magic. Second wave was a disaster, Kraag noticed Aragorn and silenced him, also malisoned my characters, had to use mirror images and summons to occupy him. Margus got hit by improved fireball right after having his fire res lowered(to 50, so only twenty-something damage). After second wave, IH'ed Aragorn and Geralt, also Geralt and Chuck drank potions(24str), and decided to finish the dragon right after the third wave... it was a mistake! He managed to heal, and we were dispersed, without means of protection from skeletons... But after another heal the dragon was dead! And remaining 3 wlords were slain afterwards. My first pre-spellshold victory, and did it without cheating! (I mean, I could take off hades so that the dragon would try to silence Margus, and then put it on again, won't do this, too stupid for my liking.) Unfortunately no good drop, not even scroll of permanency! (And I thought I could forge staff of strength!). This means no other fights, anyway party has about 2,22M(only Chuck has much less) exp, so it's high time to set sails!

Also sold lots of stuff, forged druid potion, cloak+2 and ring+2, gold is about 140k now.

Got to spellshold by high charisma, lost dexterity, Cernd gained 14'th level. In the head room in spellshold there always were some yuantis if I recollect correctly, but now there were lots of spiders(good, this means more exp!). Geralt got 16'th level after riddles.
Small encounters, no problems. Lich was really awful, lords were taken in the corridor by summons+Aragorn and Geralt, while PFMW’ed Margus entertained the lich, in the end had to revive Geralt(3xADHW and not enough PFME) and the lich was killed by Chuck+summons. Interesting, shade liches have no LR spells, he cast only bigby’s hand.
Cat and librarian were surprisingly easy in comparison with that lich, but master vampire was awful, we can’t fight level draining enemies…
Mithril golem took us some reloads because of bad positioning, a nasty fight it is.
3 ambers: we emerged from this fight with high losses(I mean every last 1 character had less than 40% HP).
Irenicus: Margus entertains him and the rest fights, not much to say, RM and DM are perfect here.
Sahaugin challenge: even confused Margus could deal with the enemy.
Many people leveled somewhere here, so here are stats:
Margus: 16’th level
Chuck: 18’th level
Geralt: 17’th level
Aragorn: 12/13 level
Cernd: 15’th level
Tony: 18’th level

Killed the prince and obtained great gloves for Chuck 
Some minor killing in the underdark(quo toans(they have insane thaco! Chuck barely managed to survive having -15 AC!)), then beholders(I want to have GR for ambushes if I can…). It seems that elder eye doesn’t use his ray of antimagic(he has it, doesn’t he?) if characters are not buffed. Cernd and Chuck leveled here.
Dealt with beholders, but Aragorn still needed 40k exp for his cleric class… So I decided to defeat the drows. Strange enough, no problems here.
Balor: he has nasty ability to dispel protections and apply fear, so we decided to take him down with magic, 2xRRR then breach+2LR, and magic storm(insects are perfect here, unleash energy also works wonders, especially with aura cleansing).
That’s it for now, I’ll continue this run and update this post every once in a while.
Some thoughts:
Monks are totally useless in the first stage, they die-have high AC, can’t be hasted, low life and no +3weapons(it should be +1 at 4, +2 at 8 and +3 at 12(maybe +5 at 20)). Some testing proved that later my monk will probably be an ultimate damage dealer, on par with kensai, but it’s still a long way to go.
Bards are a bit better, they mainly stand and play(while monks stand and do nothing). Again some testing proved that late game my bard can turn into a skilled warrior with great abilities, nice damage, thaco, APR and undispellable 40% damage reduction.(no critical hit though, but still can play songs).

Good writeup Sparrow! Your party kind of reminds of one I used with Necro, Auramaster, Monk, Blade, Archer and Riskbreaker. IIRC I got to a point where I only had a few enemies left in the SoA part and they all required +4 weapons to be hit. That got really frustrating as I just couldn't do enough damage fast enough - Spider Queen comes to mind, so I put that group on hold.

It's good to know I'm not the only one still currently playing IA in favor of a lot of the newer crappier games out there.

Interesting party composition Hideous! It was probably really hard sometimes without a real cleric, and I wonder whether archer class may be useful in IA? (Never used ranged weapons, only MMM and energy blades(slashing damage)) Actually I'm almost sure that my party can defeat the Prince, kensai alone can inflict enough damage to deal with most enemies, and soon my monk will have GWW so +-350damage per round Such parties are a nice experience for IA veterans(I'm not one of them), and maybe this journal will convince one of them to compose such team and share it with us(I loved Nicoper's ideas for example!).

At the moment Margus is dealing with the mighty one. I'll post another part of the journal somewhere before Irenicus fight, so stay tuned

Actually there is still a lot of guys playing IA now,
And there is one guy finish the IA in hardest level, with
Nec , F/M , R/C multi, B/M, Sor and Cernd
If you can understand chinese...
http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2282748666

Now he are trying to record a video with
Ranger， RB， Kensai， R/C， Nec， Nalia
Here is the video link if you can access
http://www.tudou.com/plcover/LHgSDCgYfE0/

Another guy finish the IA SOA in hardest level with
Nec, M/K (sk from fight to Kensai), RB, R/C, R/F and Valygar
If you can access and understand chinese...
http://trow.cc/board/index.php?showtopic=26876&st=0

We love BG and we love IA!!!

Nice to see that IA still enjoys some popularity.

I've tried to watch some videos from the video walkthrough, but this one (http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/FpsWX5EAKGc/) doesn't seem to be working. Do you know what might be the issue there?

[attachment=4103:_________.gif]
I'm not sure, It works for me.
maybe it's network issue
Tudou just like the Youtube in China, maybe you need to use some VPN to access.

Yes, I've figured it so as well. Found a Chinese proxy and it worked. Strange though that it'd happened only for one video. All others work fine from my Russian IP.

That's cool.
His battle log is also chinese, but you can distinguish the spell icon and understand his tactics
Have fun, but he update very slowly.@@

Yeah, I can follow the videos pretty well. Shame I only have rudimentary knowledge of the kanji, the language is way beyond me. Still, I'll try to follow the progress. I am at the d'arnise videos right now, where things start to get really interesting.

There are another two run
Ranger and Nec

http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_23371121.html


http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_22981312.html

have fun.

Thanks. Is there a particular order for these two playlists? They seem like an unsorted collection of various IA battles each.

I've watched some of the videos. Interesting tactics, for example I didn't know that an Amber golem could be petrified. Then again, I didn't spend ages to find out which IA monsters have certain IA vulnerabilities. Still, I must warn you that your tactics are not suited for an Insane difficulty playthrough, let alone an Ironman Insane one.

So, here we go again, second part of my run, and probably the last one due to some nasty bug/"anti-cheat" or however you call it and whatever it really is... (one can read about it at the very end of this post)

Second ambush: easy, and it seems that the mage doesn’t have 3xADHW… or won’t trigger it if killed by summons.

Minor encounters in drow city. Bought robe of evil archmagi(for bard, I’m not sure whether it can be found somewhere, so I’ll just stick to that one) and golem slaying rod(maybe I’ll upgrade it, that would give us 3 characters that can inflict more than 40 damage to golems per hit(-DR ofc), however mage has only 2APR…).

I’m pretty positive about this run, it can turn out that we’ll have easier time fighting the Prince than with my Vagrant team(though he had 12 IH’ed swanmays and they had great chance of hitting the enemy). From what I see one needs to have about -12thaco to hit the Prince(I have saves from this fight, and yes- some rakshasas spawn if you reload during EDE ), and having bard in my party means 4 characters that can achieve something like -15(bard+monk+R/C) or -30(kensai!).

Deirex’s tower: no problems, ring of ram to push him away, then beat till Geralt is dead(3xADHW even though he had 192HP!), resurrect him and pound again. Btw Cernd with CL interrupted his spells. Skeleton lords are no problem for us atm. Saved the boy, and then noble efreeti, contingencies with AA and 3xLR, Cernd had 3 creeping dooms, and 5 CLs, so no problems. Cernd leveled and got smilodon as his first HL. I had an idea to kill Dracolish way before his PFMWs are deplated… but I’d need 2 auramasters(+upg. circlet) and 2 mages, to have more implosions, CLs and other offensive skills(fists of nature!).

Slaughtered whole drow city after demon quest, Margus got 18’th level and took 6’th level spell as HLA. We’ll need many IH in case the dragon dispels us, and since we won’t defeat him using only magic, we’ll need to survive his… 7? PFMW and put our staves to good use.
Adalon is dead, Geralt got level and took hardiness for his 1’st HLA. 3 other characters are close to level up! Finally some HLAs, but I want CS and GWW for Chuck, however he’ll need to have some 2 hardinesses first, not to die at spot…
Hardiness proved useful right after the pick, when fighting kuo-toa prince. He had another permanency scroll, great!

After killing some drows right under the surface Tony finally got his 20’th level! He picked improved song. It has enormously great effects, and much wider range! Next to pick will be UAI of course, he needs some saving throws(evil archimagi robe), then we’ll take flute, it can cast GoI, which is always useful (no GM, no slow, and +1 round for us when mages cast RRR or other spell debuffing things). +to MR is also welcome, having 21 level he’ll have 75% MR(Carsomyr+robe+song).
Perfect! That’s just what I was aiming for! My buffed Kensai now has thaco of about -24! And it will drop down Supreme leader won’t be able to avoid our attacks.

So much gold, so many components… and yet we won’t be able to forge a thing! That stupid Kruin! There is a… let’s say bug, which I always used when fighting him, but not anymore! If you trigger him in the forest and run away, then come back, he’ll try to charge you alone and unbuffed! So just slaughter him and play with the golems. This party is my best one so far, and I’m not going to use such methods again! (I don’t consider myself as a good player, so don’t be surprised that I’ve figured out some useful bugs to help with some enemies, I’ll mention them here and try to play as fair as possible, though I’ll drain all enemies possible out of summons(well if it’s profitable only, for not fighting ghost spider for like 2 turns just to make 10 lower spiders spawn is really tiring)).

A-maze-ing time! I’m really going to try 2 auramasters with next run to defeat the dracolish with magic! Maybe even PW:kill works on him (2 auramasters=Cernd+protagonist in IA7). There are spells of level 6 and 7 that lower resistances(he’s lich AND dragon, so he should have some MR).

OK finally we got here… somehow he seems more powerful than last time and he can silence us, he has some greater doom spells, 3xFoD, constant improved alacrity, he hits really fast… all buffs are dispelled APART FROM undispellable, so Cernd can quickly cast DW and he has many! If my last journal is correct he has 7 PFMW! And he has some stoneskins too! However he’s a weak dragon! We managed to kill Firkraag having much less power! Anyway he’ll die today! For the second time
Errr… WHY!? Why CL doesn’t damage him?! And maybe it’s because of his PFMW but implosion has no effect whatsoever…

The fight was really interesting, I have a tendency to reload if something goes wrong, but resisted the temptation this time! Geralt died at some point, had to be resurrected(luckily had 1 instance of this spell!) and Cernd had so many levels drained that he became useless… Even though managed to survive all his PFMW(dunno how many he had this time) and defeat him without problems in the end. Even level drained, my fighters could and did hit him hard. Chuck got the kill, and right after that Aragorn got his 15’th level as cleric(used skeletons from Margus and Tony).

No drop whatsoever… NOTHING! Kundane and HoU(scribed)… I’d like to kill supreme golem instead of green wyrm, but it seems that he might have some items of great value(boots of ranger for example, ring of air control, I’m not sure which items he might have).

Right after 6-th chapter is triggered we visit our friends trolls. Having phosphorus and halberd +4 I had no problems(only that I had slightly bad timing in casting, and right after 1 breach(less than a second) king activated another hardiness, so I had to use 1 scroll of breach). We got malakar and belt of 19 strength, which is nice! (Chuck has it now and he hits really hard!). Btw I was almost sure that vengeance trolls spawn two times(after king and after queen is dead) but they appeared only one… Anyway we had good AC and only 2 characters were hit once.

I really want to get 21’st level with Geralt to have ***** in halberds, it’d help us immensely with Kruin’s golems. 14 golems might be hard even for my party at the moment… But Geralt still needs like 150k exp! What can be done? Grave lich, demon knights(hmm, an interesting item they have!), masterbrain and new locations only…

Lich killed but at what cost! DU is extremely bad, it has no uses really… even 1 step taken by lich means it won’t take effect, it has low damage and so on… 4DU and 4 implosions are not enough to take down grave lich… I was extremely lucky, after 3 rounds used ring of ram, and so Geralt could deal something like 20 damage to the lich before another PFMW, then 3xADHW killed Cernd and Tony, so no more ways of dealing damage, tried my last effort: PW kill… and it worked!
Killed everything in new locations, but it still was not enough… Defeated demon knights(no hardiness on warriors=no breach, SS+IS+MI+GoI=breaches and so on on mages(=no dispel magic)).
Geralt still needs about 15k exp so we will fight mind flayers. Cernd got level here and I took natural restoral. Then Geralt, Margus(IA as hla) and Chuck(hardiness).
Master brain was easy, even managed to get all 6 golems!(4 gem).

Finally we’ll deal with Kruin. Hah, insects managed to hit him=3 rounds without spells. The fight was a bit chaotic, took place on 2 fronts: Chuck pounding Kruin and Aragorn tanking golems. Kruin has like 4 hardiness’… in the end managed to defeat him(Chuck is perfect for tanking! His MR makes im almost invincible against Kruin’s spells!) and even get all 12 golems in one fight! Though in the very end Aragorn died(no more iron skins and forgot to drink another potion…) so had to be reviewed in the temple for 1400gp. HoU is really weak ;/ I’d need to be able to cast it like in a second to make it useful, and casting time of 7 is way too long… 3 with amulet, vecna and foreknowledge(where did I find first scroll with that spell?) makes him(with IA ofc…) deal damage almost as fast as fighters without CS, so nothing really worth noting, he’d better shower the enemy with RoF(no stupid- range=touch), and also being unable to hit greater elementals, ultras and supremes is a real shame…

Finally some forging: Ioun stone, Cernd’s staff(probably I won’t use it that much till ToB), 3x ring+2, wave. Gold is 350k, and we run out of rings! That means… Yes, probably that means that we’ll pound one nasty lich… But I’m not sure how it’ll work when only Cernd is able to withstand skull’s spells… Nope, firstly we’ll fight some other enemies, like Alhoon or Teshal. This is the best part of the game probably, we can fight against so many interesting enemies, gain so many powerful items

Right after first lich is dead decided to go for Vecna. First fight was easy, 2xcreeping doom+fireballs took care of enemies, then some pounding. Now time to defeat the mind flayer. I wonder how often does the golem purge… anyway we’ll probably get as many minions as possible(he gates them really fast!)

Nope. 4 golems. I was even willing to reload a save before entering the area due to greater elemental golem… Dispelling specific protections?! Pulling enemies? Well that was unpleasant in the end had to pound the golem in the corridor, and run away with Geralt when purge was nearing… Margus kept everyone IHed while dealing with Alhoon.
Outstanding drop. Scribed wish, got girdle of +25%magic damage reduction, protector of the second, periapt of proof against poison, and some other things. Sadly we have no physical power to take down Teshal and his skeletons(no +4 weapon for Geralt and Chuck has still only 22’nd level…).

Now we’ll go for windmaster, steam elemental prince and maybe Umar Bitch, sorry Witch. Oh and human skin for bard. Since we’re in the sewers we’ll also kill the second lich… and maybe we’ll try Kangaxx, however Cernd with aura cleansing might not be enough to protect Geralt from imprisonment.
Now the fight against the lich was much better, Margus finally becomes a real mage of immense power! And having Cernd means that they can take down almost every normal enemy! Implosions + PW:kill=certain death!
In the end decided to try Kangaxx… the fight was an interesting one, though really short, Geralt solo’ed him, while he was casting imprisonment on trolls and RRR on Margus.
Steam elemental and Wind master killed using the same tactic. Now we’ll defeat Umar Witch, then probably second mage stronghold quest(last time I played with necro I did only the first quest, so no idea what might await us here, but Vagrant’s quest were muuuuuch easier when done later(ultra golem? No thanks!))
Umar witch is dead, no problems here, however Chuck died at the last stage(had resistance lowered and got hit by 3xADHW(Usually I don’t care whether he is in the nearest area of a mage due to his MR so…)). We got lots of exp, Chuck can easily solo enemies such as gem golem or skeleton warlord.

Why is it so cold down there? I have no idea… second room looks kind of hot, whatever… Easy fight, got 5 gem golems from elemental!
Well… I think that I’m supposed to fight with Pasha and not against him(why did I think he’d be a rakshasa?). Enemies look kind of weak, though they all can gate minions, we have some means of protecting Pasha, so I hope that he’s weak and won’t kill my precious elemental golem! (maybe others gate minions too, but only golems are easy to kill without any risks).

Ehhh, gated golems disappear after elemental is defeated… so we killed gem and coin(we feared that Pasha could kill elemental alone, he has great thaco and APR, though really low damage). The fight itself was really interesting! OK, but what now? I’m hoping for some continuation of mage’s quests…

Forged memory of apprenti, then decided to defeat spider queen. She had no chance, though was really durable, Aragorn and Geralt had to pound her for some rounds to kill her. Cernd got level here.
Now it’s time for second level of WK, lots and lots of experience here! No problems whatsoever.

Third level: DARN! Green wyrm has ring of air control and boots of woodlands… that means we have to kill him, not the golem… Maybe next time with Auramaster protagonist we won’t need those items(or other, weaker randomized things will be in possession of the dragon). Now some forging, noble spider and djinni.

Well… someone doesn’t want us to forge those items, his name is Limak, he looks like F/M/Cand he seems really weak even for unbuffed party… His brain says that he’s M/C, well… maybe, but his skills as warrior seems rather superior to this multiclass… His brain will be wasted unfortunately, because it’s worth 1GP…

Squirreled away. Prime assassinators are great source of gold exp and rings, as I’ve noted in the beginning, I’ll need many +4 rings and they will provide most of resources needed for this. This time last fight was much easier(during vagrant’s journal my paladin died), we rushed the place with Cernd and Margus under IA, showered enemies with FA, debuffed them, 3x dragon breath, and right after GR from Pitre we slaughtered everyone.(Noble spider summoned next to crossbowwoman entertained her for the whole fight).

Forged cat figurine, Poseidon and last +2ring.

Decided to tackle the old ones, maaaaany reloads till I could do it right(though some chaotic way). Margus doesn’t really need improved cloak, so we’ll just sell our reward. My tactic: in CC PFE, foreknowledge and spell turning, then cold+fire+stoneskin from sequencer, next turn PFME, PFMW and GoI from sequencer, drink potion of invisibility, SI:Abj(because dispel magic), then summon djinni from ring, alacrity(watch out for larloch!), build our protections again, noble spider and PW:kill.

Guarded compound: the fight was really easy, Margus under improved alacrity is almost unstoppable. Ouch! Greater elemental golem hurts badly… managed to summon all his minions(3 ambers!) before we could kill him. Chuck died again(was a target to golem pounding after djinni was propelled), reviewed him from scroll(Cernd, because Aragorn was busy tanking). No good drop… note: Margus can solo 2 amber golems using larloch, larloch disruptor, RoF, vampiric touch and HoU.
Teshal: this fight can be done pre-spellshold or so I’ve heard, that’s why it isn’t challenging at all at this stage. We got Staff of rynn here.

Hmm… it seems that we need scroll of time stop to start new quests connected to mage stronghold…

Forged boots of ranger lord, 83k gold left… it doesn’t look good! Time to collect money from our stronghold. Oh, and FoA+4! I wanted to save as much money as possible, haven’t forged the truth, cloak +3, no warblade, no supreme shelter, no ankheg armor(+dragon helm+SS=100% dr to almost anything), but we still lack lots and lots of gold… 3 rings +4(and gaxx amongst them), monk’s amulet, gauntlets, lord of underworld, halberd of dragon slaying, necro’s ioun stone, hammer of thor, elemental staff(bard’s weapon+his source of power), amulet+2… 4 pairs of boots of speed, 2 belts, maybe even ancient dragon armor.

We’ll kill twisted rune now, just for fun, they stand no chance against our party. Ehhh… Margus is the greatest mage that exists in these realms, however a beholder can make him totally useless… We had to hide him from that enemy on the other side of the room, the rest of the fight was probably just like in my Vagrant’s run.

Haha, forgot to report to the father of the saved child in windspear, we got 45k exp for each party member.

After selling lots of things gold is back to 210 000. I see only 3 other things to do now: Bodhi(easy), Firkraag version 2(it’s the same as in Vagrant’s run, yes?) and 3’rd level of WK(I really want to get to 4’th, so many nice things there!). We won’t fight Orcus for some time, though having skeleton lord at our side is really tempting. I wonder where can I find timestop spell… Think it was in ancient dragon’s lair, fighting him with Vagrant was a nightmare, but here with 2 unsilencable characters(Cernd buffs and Margus debuffs) it can be much easier.

Bodhi: nothing to mention here. Drizzt died, and some evil mage wanted his stuff, I’m sure that we wanted to rule the world with these powerful items, so we just sold them to the just clerics at watchers keep, the mage tried to imprison us… that was really evil, one can never believe them…

Forged monk’s gauntlets and one ring +2(soon we’ll make some +3 rings!).

3’rd level of WK, boring slaughter, enemies here are extremely weak but give enormous amounts of experience. Forgot that in last room the demon summons 5 warlords, but no problems anyway, we got the book! Chosen of Mystra, we can research a new spell now Great! I sometimes think that now as I have nice party and tactics for most enemies it is a bit too easy, however I’m too afraid of insane level, so I will pass for now. Maybe will go through IA again with druid when IA7 is out, and then we’ll see whether insane would be tempting or not.

Sold lots and lots of stuff and gold is back to 280k. Morid helped us research a new spell, recast vital energy, cast for the first time: 8 options, each is extremely good! And mental agility seems to give +1 to casting speed… RRR and breach at instant speed?! Mwahaha, now ancient dragon has no chance!

Limited wish quest done, what now? Probably I’ll spend some time in WK level 4, nice exp and things. We need to get to last level of WK, kill ancient dragon and obtain timestop scroll…
23 golems defeated, elemental golems are tougher than I thought… 12 RoF couldn’t bring one to injured… Reported to elves, but didn’t go to their city.
Time for guildmaster, we want his minions’ rings!

Errr… I’ve noticed that improved bard’s song is NO MORE IMPROVED! I have no idea why, but it turned to normal bard’s song… No wide range, no bonus to AC, no MR bonus… WTF IS THIS! I haven’t cheated, so why? My save from before Why is it so cold down there is not defected, but trying to import bard to my latest game doesn’t help… Well I’m really mad at the moment!


EDIT: it seems that importing bard from times when he had no HLAs works, and he can use improved song then... I don't like using shadowkeeper or such things, but I need to add him experience and spells he had memorised. Sorry if you feel disappoined with my behavior, but I took bard so that he could use his song, and not to be totally useless(normal song has area of effect of about 10 feet, while improved, when once heard can't be unheard.)

I can't really understand from the context, what had happened exactly. Could you clarify? Where did you try to import your character?

Right before facing the guildmaster I've noticed that bard's song isn't improved any more, so I decided to see at which point it happened, unfortunately I had only recent saves and those from many days ago. Loaded one from the beginning of chapter 6, where my party was about 4M exp, and then my bard had his song improved, so(after dropping all his items ofc) imported him to my latest save(copy the save to mpsave and launch multiplayer game, kick out bugged bard and put that with 4M exp) but it turned out that now even his song is bugged! The only chance I saw was to pick this HLA in the most recent save and see whether it is permanently "disabled" in my game, so I've imported the bard from save where he had like 150k exp, added enough using shadowkeeper for him to get HLAs, picked improved bard's song and it worked... well, hope that I won't have to do that any more...

Hmm. That's weird. I can try to give it a look at the end of next week, to see if I find something related to this bug. If you have an appropriate savegame for me to investigate, that is.

Some problems again, won't fight Sendai and Prince for some time probably, because I hate going through same fights(won fights that is) for the second time...

Bard was repaired and he works as he should for the time being. Before guildmaster I wanted to level up Cernd(26’th now), so defeated lord Roenall or something like that, 6xsunfire +3xdragon breath took care of everyone beside mage and the leader himself. After that forged second +3 ring.

Guildmaster: this time I was too afraid to prolong the fight, so only 6 master assassins and this means only 8 rings+1 (since coordinators had 1 each). Even invested in scroll of protection from poison for Geralt. Guildmaster left only amulet +10MR, we probably have now all components for improved amulet, so I’ll forge it. Blades of energy are really great, Margus could take down some assassins using them! However they deal some more damage than in description(shoud be 5-9+4 from bard, and Margus could deal 16 damage).

Killed Zarathustra and company(cowled wizards), Margus can achieve -12 thaco with partial tenser and energy blades, which helps pealing through skins.
Sold lots of stuff (even 200 potions of healing) and gold is back to 450k. Now we’ll deal with supreme Gith.

One note: I don’t really like wishing for rest, having 2 djinnis seems a bit like cheating to me, so I won’t use it in major fights until in really dire situation.
Supreme leader: he has 3 or more hardiness skills! And his extreme healing skill… Anyway, he had no chance against Geralt(I’ve picked him especially for fights like this one, having -29thaco he hit about 3/4 times). After second hardiness wore off, all 3 fighters activated CS, however on injured he activated third hardiness… and on near death used comet(Aragorn had constant 95% fire res, and Geralt 40% so he could endure it), however it didn’t really helped him.

Demi-lich: pounding with Cernd and Aragorn, no problems. Also tested here one thing: mentali agility IS cumulative… it means that it’s overpowered as hell… it took me 0,2 round to get to both golems and destroy them using HoU and RoF.
Saladrex was much harder than last time, we had only 2 characters that could use normal weapons, and in the end only Geralt could pound the dragon since Aragorn was running in fear(2xgreater doom+remove magic). Anyway, we got all components for two belts, which we’ll forge right now.

Geralt got +1str from Lum’s machine, so he has 23 now with items only, Chuck has 23 from his new girdle too. I’ll also forge another +3 ring(third). Gold is almost 300k, low, really low! Think I can tackle Orcus now, but firstly we’ll do some selling.
Ancient dragon has not enough PFMW spells. He has maybe 4… The fight was extremely easy… at first (1 mental agility) debuff the dragon and efreeti, then acidify the second one, summon djinni(to occupy other 2 minions), play PFMW->breach for some time while everyone pound(Cernd and Margus used energy blades, they had really good chance to hit the dragon!), even regeneration couldn’t help him. At some point the dragon healed completely, soon after that he was brought to seriously wounded, then cast regeneration again and firestorm, so we had to fight under the rain of really hot… things, however we weren’t discouraged by that, less than a round later the dragon bites the ground. (He had 3x ADHW, so Aragorn barely survived(had belt +25% magic damage resistance) but Geralt had Poseidon so no worries here). We finally got our timestop spell! Mwahahaha!

Hmm… it seems that to make last key Morid needs bones of skeleton grandlord… I see only two options: this specific item drops from one of grandlords during Orcus fight(since we need to defeat him in order to get LoU), or some enemies from other keys(there are some fights, right?). Oh, golden key makes 6 skeleton grandlords appear.

The time has come! Chuck can solo 3 grandlords now! 1 GWW takes down 1 grandlord. We got grandlord’s bones. Wooden key: WOW, that was a bit unexpected And Lavok’s post mortem request, hope it won’t be as hard as Vagrant’s.
Vanya’s second quest also done. Time to get our bottle of wine from… HER! We’ll also defeat the dragon and greater elemental+rakshasa. Nope, defeated the dragon, but house of something was left untouched. Forged Crom, now Aragorn has permanent 25str and Tony has 24. 4 attacks and -8 thaco(will be much better) can finally make him a fighter. Also I’ve decided: he WON’T cast spells during EDE, he’ll have great wyrm’s armor.

Lesser force: wave of skeleton lords eradicated in less than 2 rounds, but then… Mwahahaha I love it! Not that the assault of 18 FoD can do any harm to us, worse thing is that those balors can cast PFMW and we can’t dispel them(which means only breach works and not before 2 RRR/other spells are cast, apart from PFMW they probably cast some other spells, that’s why…). Errr… changed buffs and balors changed tactic… managed to defeat them, though… now we have to fight(unbuffed) against many grandlords This is getting worse and worse! My tactic works against demons(the key is to defeat 2 each round, right after spell is fired Margus breaches 2 of them and we pound as much as possible).

Wait… what?! Lesser force is a really nice enemy, luckily we have some help(will we ever know who helped us?!) but when near death our enemy pushes us away and summons like 5 greater bone golems… He has purge magic too! Hmmm, interesting, really interesting!

Got to second golem wave, his let’s call it “improved wing buffet” deals enormous damage! I don’t know what’s the source of it, but if it’s physical, then like 68 damage(on insane) would hurt really badly!
Geralt could solo the force using Poseidon and CS(30 damage per hit, less than 2 rounds and next golem spawn). We got a component for a really interesting ioun stone for Tony, so time to get ruby of the gods(ehh, and it’s so valuable, I’d love to sell it).

Did some major selling and gold is 566k now, however it’s merely half of what we need… Forged great wyrm’s armor, ring +4, ring+3, ring+2, ioun stone. Decided that I have not enough gold to forge golem slayer and it’s the only moment I could use it really(facing 30 golems in WK only with Margus). We have mere 220k gold, and need: another 2 rings +4(not enough gold and +1 rings atm), Chuck’s amulet(where is the last bluestone necklace?), LoU, gaxx and dragon slaying halberd. Oh and as many boots of speed as possible… that’s a LOT of money ;/

Fought 30 golems, they nearly depleted our summon resources and spellbooks, but we got 15 gem golems! That can help our finances a bit. Aragorn with about 6 iron skins, -24AC and belt -4AC to crushing is an excellent tank! He could withstand grandlord(yeyks, recast vital energy has some cons…) about 3 gem golems and 3 elemental ones pounding him!

Horde: emotions and stuff, in the end noticed that the orcs give some minor exp, which is why thousands of cloud spells would work better… but I’m lazy and won’t try to reload.
Undead ambush: 3x mental agility dealt with both liches(interesting, how will I destroy remaining 4 graves?).

Globes: did 3 red(Margus can solo in 0,3 round one ice and make second one injured), all green and blue, also 2 purple. We’ll come back here later.

Forged 2 rings +2, ring +3 and ring+4(only gaxx and one +4 left!), we have no more +1 rings and about 106k gold… It doesn’t really seem good, with so many other upgrades we need! And I’d really like to buy some potions(of strength mostly)…

Time to defeat Orcus, we’re more than prepared for him now. As I remember he casts silence which is not aoe, so he’ll only target Aragorn, summons vampires and 2 waves of skeleton lords(or warlords? Anyway, no problems with them), has some PFMW which may be breachable and may not(last time had every mage silenced so only dispel magic worked). He’s so weak that as usual we won’t use any barbarian essences, they’re to be used during EDE, so we won’t even have them in eq.
Err… something is not right, he cast grave silence… And his PFMW is unbreachable ;/ However he can be easily dispelled by Cernd who had 30’th level(3 times in a row). The fight is unchallenging at current levels, activated only 1 regeneration from RVE and my party had more than 50% hp all the time, so we really would only waste barb essences.

Defeated prince of undead and became Lord of Underworld! Gold is 16k now… How could I forge everything except one +4 ring during my run with vagrant?! Anyway, we have a new powerful ally using slashing weapon, so we can destroy amber golems with ease, and that means… last red orb.

Tactic was probably the same as when fighting with vagrant: Aragorn gets hit by purge from elemental, and smilodon entertains him, while Aragorn runs for his life till purge from ultra, then everyone on ultra(3 rounds max and he’s dead) 1 amber is summoned, then hack and slash greater elemental(Aragorn had -34 AC against crushing, so no problems here). Still the golem managed to summon 5 minions! 2 amber and 3 gem.
Defeated 4 master vampires, didn’t want to risk, so Aragorn solo’ed them, only one master survived to summon second wave and died seconds later.

I’m reading Vagrant’s journal and have some thoughts, that team was designed for mass physical attack, however couldn’t take down ultra golem before second purge using the same tactic… so, my new team proves to be better in damage dealing! (well we have kensai… I think that having 2 of them would make my team even better(or 3 kensai without bard and monk! MWAHAHAHAHA)). Loaded a save from EDE and it seems that prince has something like 70/80% physical resistance, and about 50HP regeneration per round… some calculations: 6 hits from Kensai(has 7APR, chacacters having -14 thaco could hit without critical, and Geralt will have about -30) which means about 60/70 damage… he could solo the prince! And 3 kensais? That would make the fight way TOO easy.

Having a monk can be really helpful. In elven city we could avoid purge magic because Chuck under whirlwind is twice as fast(could run far enough so that it only dispelled him). Noble was killed in 1 round(dangerous dispel magic and I forgot to put some of these spells into my spellbook…), then after 6 golems were summoned we got rid of the elemental one.(energy blades are perfect for amber golem killing!).

Defeated 4 grave liches without wasting a single scroll.

Sold everything possible and gold is about 244k(we’re left only with components for items, items that we need and potions, also some scrolls(like 30 PFME, 11 PFE, 4 wishes)).
Forged gaxx, now it’s time to face Irenicus! Party that will defeat that weak wizard is at present:


Margus: 7,85M exp, level 27, AC -14, 141 HP
Scarlet Ioun stone, memory of apprenti, LoU, 2xring+2, scholastic cloak, rod of smiting
all proficiencies

Geralt 32 level 4hardiness 8CS, 255HP -11AC
Indigo ioun, talisman of greater protection, improved gaxx, ring+2, cloak+2, girdle of lordly might, staf of ram, Poseidon

Chuck Norris level 33, 5CS, 2GWW, 4hardiness, 146HP, -17AC
Gauntlets of devastation, mask of king strohm III (hahaha lol ), amulet+1, ring+4, ring+2, cloak+2, girdle of cloud giant strength

Aragorn level 22/19 5CS, AC-15 HP 158
Great wyrm’s scales, gauntlets of extraordinary specialization, improved dragon helmet, amulet+1, 2x ring+2, cloak+2, boots of ranger lord, girdle of bluntness, Crom and FoA+4 offhand

Tony Kakko level 28 -6AC, 127HP
Robe of evil archimagi, gauntlets of weapon skill, helm of balduran, harper pin, 2xring+2, amulet+2, belt of inertial barrier, phosphorus and scarlet ninja-to offhand

Cernd level 32 -2AC 106HP, 3 natural restoral, 10 FoN
gauntlets of dexterity, circlet of the woods, amulet+1, cernd’s cloak, ring+3, belt of stone giant strength, staff of Arundel/Oak of high forest +4(forgot that forging gaxx means no second ring for him)


Haven’t done demogorgon because that would make our one merchant disappear and in ToB there are too few to waste them!
Slayer: no problems, should have prolonged the fight to get more golems from elemental, but decided to do it quickly, only 1 gem spawned.

Illasera: lol

Saradush minor quests, mainly slaughter with Aragorn.

I’m starting to think that it is possible to forge everything I need with the amount of money we can get in ToB! Forged dragon lord and Thor, gold is 6k. We’ll still need +4 ring, staff of strength+5(for Tony, 25str means +1thaco which is of great importance!), since we don’t have 3 bluestone amulets we’ll forge Cernd’s circlet, rest is just boots of speed.

Gromnir: this fight is way too easy, the mage has no idea what he’s doing, casts improved alacrity and does nothing for example(uses his sling), his ADHW couldn’t do us any harm, Gromnir himself was really easy, even though we couldn’t breach him.
We’re perfect elite fire giant killers! They have 0 electric res(Aragorn could deal 90damage with hammer of thor, so I think that it’s 0 or less than 30%), Cernd and Margus use energy blades, warriors pound and Tony plays, then giants have MAX 1 round of life.(I mean they drink a potion and second later are near dead).

Marching mountains, no problems here, even without sleep we managed to defeat all enemies. Nyalee defeated fast, then just running away. Forged ring+2, ring+3, foebane +5 and paladin bracers.

Once I’ve told that I won’t use wish-rest until in really dire situation, such was during Yaga fight. Prepared bad spells and was not able to take him down, luckily last wish was for rest(certainly could reload and prepare better, the fight isn’t a really demanding one, but it’s long and I don’t really have patience for such things). There is an ultimate spell that opens our way to victory… and we had not enough spells like that in spellbooks, also had no time to recast bark skin, and other AC reducing spells, so all the time someone was propelled before we wished for sleep and with only 3 real fighters(Tony had to fight spawning soldiers) it could turn really awful, Yaga has way too many potions and such. For my party Yaga is probably harder than the prince lol We won’t be propelled from him, he won’t be able to deal serious damage to us, no other enemies will spawn

Amkerthan(or whatever is the name of the city) can be reached from WK without visiting oasis, however we’ll play fair and try to win this fight normal way(not that we have choice, so much exp and gold is stored there!). Hope our enemies don’t have fire resistances(so that Geralt could dragon breath them to death just like Yaga’s soldiers with dragon lord!). As mentioned in Vagrant’s run, clerics are susceptible to electricity… It is probably much easier to win this fight with Vagrant(Captain Jack Sparrow took attention of about 1/3 of the army and since he was invincible wielding Judgment day, we could relax and watch the slaughter).

Ehhh… it seems that if we talk to demogorgon we can’t shop any more… so we’ll defeat the prince of demons now(this fight should really be improved!). We have almost 9M exp now. Forged last +4 ring(Margus and Cernd don’t need them, so 3 is enough).

Ok, oasis done, Cernd and Margus start with alacrity(Margus has partial tenser, foreknowledge and troll when see enemy contingency), we summon spider and djinni, then fight, Aragorn and Chuck were propelled up, and Geralt down, general along with 6 golems decided to go down, so Geralt had to deal with them all without help(Cernd healed him when needed), Chuck and Aragorn had to deal with 6 golems and 2 mages+priest(last priest chased Cernd for the whole time). RRR+breach and no problems, though on insane that would be extremely hard fight!

Mercenaries seem to be infinite and they give armors too.

Draconis: forgot that we can’t prebuff and didn’t even prepared spellbook(spellstrike) however he didn’t cast PFMW so died really fast.

Abazigal: human form=dispel+pound, dragon: my predictions proved to be right, Necro can “give him hell”, even without Cernd(alacrity interrupted by salamander) he managed to defeat his brother(4x comet+about 13FA +8larloch+about 14acid arrow, had even some sunfires but wasn’t necessary).

Forged hindo, montalio(now Aragorn can achieve -20thaco with both hands, so more than 1/3 times he’ll hit!). In the meantime forged also 2x boots of speed(why? Why not 3? Where was the last pair!(Vagrant had 4 characters with them)), and FoA. It seems that tenser from scroll doesn’t work as it should,(I don’t get bonus thaco) so instead of forging staff of strength we’ll forge royal elemental staff. (resistances+great damage could be really helpful!)

I was a fool, sold spectral brand without knowing that when improved it becomes something of great power! Spectral brand will help us defeat web golems and deal some damage to the Prince! (+10 thaco!)

Darn! Spectral sold in first city, so lost forever, also to forge noble staff of fire not +3 staff but martial staff+3 is needed…

Also I have some problems with computer and to load a save I need about 10 minutes, so it’s a no-reload game since hell(well only because I had luck and got magical sleep during Yaga fight).

Bad things happen… attacked a group of drow, but suddenly second one joined the fight, and I was almost defeated, later forgot that Odamaron is a lich, and not demi-lich, so didn’t prepare enough remove magic, and had to fight till his pfmw expires(luckily killed him a moment when he started another one from scroll, and so we got 2 from his body!) Good thing was that I had prepared freedom spell and Geralt was imprisoned so I could bring him back. At the beginning of the fight everyone was silenced and Cernd ran away in fear, so things looked really terrible…

This is the end, I probably won’t finish the game for some time, got problems not only while loading(10 minutes) but entering many areas ends in an error(can’t enter Sendai’s room for example). Though of importing party and just a fast rush with ctrl+Y (kills enemies) but it works only on party members… Sikret that was really not funny… It means that I would have to redo whole ToB probably(only if importing characters doesn’t make some items disappear(for example if you import Vagrant to a non-vagrant protagonist game, his stuff vanishes))(oh yes, reinstalation doesn't help)

Oh yeah, after testing: LoU and MotA disappear, same for Great wyrm's scales...

Edit: if someone wants to, I can give my saves to them, also if You can defeat Sendai, Balthazar and go to pocket plane, then send me back my save here I'd be extremely happy! (Since Sendai is not a big deal, and I really want to see how this party can cope with the prince)