Yes, I am treating my character as a Necro protagonist, so I do have the Amulet of Hades. Without it, I would stand no chance.

That's an interesting idea, to leave the Skeleton Warlords alive, though the problem is that you have to be very perfect with Protection from Magic Weapons or the Skeleton Warlords will kill you almost immediately if it lapses. At least if you kill them, you only have Firkraag hitting you for some time, so you can rely on Stoneskin for a bit.

Firkraag casts Lower Fire Resistance and then Improved Fireball 2 seconds later, un-interruptible. The first time it's not so bad, I go from 100 Fire Resist down to maybe 50, but then he does it again and again.

The real problem though is Greater Doom. It lowers everything (Thac0, Saves) by -6, and it lasts 100 rounds, and it stacks. And it looks like Firkraag does it until your saves are 8 or worse. When this happens, I cannot hit Firkraag or the Skeletons (apart from Critical Strike). So interestingly, there is no reason to wear things like Ring of Protection. In fact, they just make him cast it more, ruining my Thac0. So I think the solution is to not wear them at all so he only casts Greater Doom once or twice.

I will probably return to this battle when I reach the level cap and have the maximum number of Critical Strikes available. Maybe even post-Spellhold when I may have some other equipment available too. With the right rings, I can better manage my saves to reach precisely the point where he stops Dooming me. I forget where the Ring of Fire Resistance is, but that would also be a huge help, to be able to put off and on during the battle. Likewise with the shields and helmet that grant fire resistance.

Killer Insects are negated by an Oil of Resurgence. Don't ask how or why. You still won't be able to cast any spells though, but you can bypass that via scrolls (PFMW) or Contingencies (Improved Haste or PFMW). You could also use Elite trolls summoned by Monster Summoning VI, those help.

I can't remember my own Berserker-Mage solo run of the Ice challenge, but I think I used a lot of Elite Trolls there as well.





If you were playing on Insane rather than Core, the first time would've been lethal.




Greater Doom stacks with itself, and can be targeted on a character under Improved Invisibility.




I doubt anything will help you in this fight. And I doubt you will be able to pull it, despite all of the modifications. I think this is the breaking point of the challenge. Switching on and off fire res gear seems good, but vs greater doom stacking there is no cure. Plus, you can be buffeted unconscious and then fried via Improved Fireball of Red Dragon Breath, in which case you won't be able to react in any way.

Cleaned up some loose ends - Roenalls, Theshal, Ashideena. Tried Orcus, but he may be too much for me at this point. Foreknowledge would help, letting me refresh Spell Turning and Spell Immunity a bit faster and get back to whacking away sooner. Haven't tried using Alacrity in the battle yet, but it might help.

Supreme Golem in Watcher's Keep is ludicrously difficult for me at this stage. And as sort of a preview to the Epic Divine Encounter, it's terrifying. Somehow he's hitting me for 25 damage while I'm under PFMW and protected from Elements. Oils of Resurgence aren't doing anything, perhaps because they are interfering with another regeneration item. I can get him down to around 320 HP before my own HP is pretty low. Maybe Cat Figurine would help here, but after Ch. 4-5, I don't have to fight this guy anyways. He seems to block any Ch 2 or 3 parties from beginning level 3 in WK.

Might take a few more stabs at Orcus, Firkraag, and the Ice/Elemental Golems in the sphere. I think the latter is my best chance. Timing is the hardest part; the cold application disrupts spells, as does the Ice Golem's Ice Storm and other attacks. So it's really hard to time things. I basically need to unload all of my Ray of Fragmentations (including those in Spell Sequencer and Spell Trigger), plus Vampiric Touches, to get him down to 85/200 or so. Another Alacrity, Wish Rest, and repeat of the ROFs and VT and I should have him down to 25 or so, which I can reasonably deal in between Purge Magic's. From there it should be a walk in the park against the Elemental Golem.

Very exciting battle against the Ice Golem and Elemental Golem. Many things were key.

SPOILER!


Anyways, without the SPOILER!
it wouldn't have worked I don't think. Another purge was coming and I wouldn't have been able to save a round letting PFMW come via Contingency.

As for the next expanded stronghold quest, I did a couple of quick trial runs and I don't expect to be able to SPOILER!
. No idea if the stronghold quests would continue, but this is kind of the nail in the coffin for EDE.

If Pasha dies, the stronghold quests won't continue. You can keep him alive with lots and lots of summons, so I'd personally wait until I have the Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning or even Lord of the Underworkd (why not). Use Wish/rest as prebuff to summon multiple quantities of heavy summons, this will help in future fights as well.



Orcus should be fine if you already assembled the Memory of the Apprenti. A long fight, though, make sure you have at least 10-15 PFMW scrolls and enough improved hastes memorized. Spell Turning becomes unreliable as rounds progress simply because summoned vampires will eat it away with their Dominate spells. For that, you should have a couple Globes of Invulnerability memorized as well as all of the Spell Immunities you can. Refreshing Spell Immunity and PFMW at the same time is possible if you have Contingencies memorized (also, it's very wise to have a spare Chain Contingency as well). The rest of the 9-th level slots should be Absolute Immunity - Improved Alacrity does very little in this fight, I wouldn't bother memorizing even one. Don't bother with summons either.

The Supreme Golem in WK is a lot more harder than the EDE Supreme Golem. First of all, Helm's Supreme Golem (in WK) has Purge Magic once every 4 rounds. Second, he starts with some kind of earthquake effect, which the other one (in EDE) doesn't have. The thing which hits you back is called "Elemental Backlash", it inflicts damage of all elemental types on the attacker with each successful blow much like a regular (permanent) fireshield. So you need to refresh elemental protections as well as PFMW to have absolute protection...well, for 4 rounds before the next Purge Magic hits (or you could use elemental-protective gear). Thing is, as far as I remember, you need some good saves vs the Elemental Backlash or it has a chance of lowering your elemental resistances even further. And all in all, you shouldn't fight that golem as of yet. Sure, that is the only way to continue inside WK at present chapters, but you can wait until after Underdark when you will be given the opportunity to fight the Green Wyrm instead. The wyrm simply has better treasure, including some (possibly crucial) ingredients like for example the Ring of Air control, which is important to create the Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning. If your character is evil-aligned or has certain low reputation, however, then Helm's Supreme Golem will attack you on sight.

I didn't know SPOILER!
had a scroll of Chain Contingency. A nice find that will make me re-try a few more things before Spellhold. I do get worried that Spellhold and even visiting Cromwell afterwards won't get me much character improvement. My character is starting to "plateau", unfortunately.

Orcus is a huge pain. Partly because Chain Contingency (50% health) doesn't kick in fast enough with the amount of damage you're taking if your PFMW lapses. And partly because he also casts Greater Doom, like Firkraag, and won't stop until your Save vs. Death is 8 or more. If I unload my rings and cloak, that gets me to -4 (base 3, -3 for Amulet of Hades, -1 for Helm of Balduran, -2 from Memory of Apprenti, not sure where the last point comes from). At -4, I'm looking at two greater dooms to get me to Save vs. Death of 8. This would bring my Thac0 to -4. Which is not going to cut it against Grandlords and Master Vampires. May try Firkraag again, then give Orcus one more try before giving up and heading to Spellhold.

Have you tried potion of magic shielding?I think dragons and Orcus wouldn't cast doom if you drink it first.Most enemies have finite RRoRs,so keep refreshing SI:abj,Spell Turning and GoI to protect your character from being dispelled,then you have chance to attack.
Firkragg is just a small boss compared with Saradrex and Ancient Dragon.I suggest you remove xp cap,make a lv 40/40 F/M,then you would have a little chance to challenge those big bosses…

Potion of Magic Shielding worked well. I used two of them, two potions of Freedom and maybe 5 PFMW scrolls. Yes, Orcus has finite RRoR, but it's something like eight and it is difficult to keep up spell protections when you need to take every 4th round to cast PFMW. So he gains ground on you every 4 rounds. Additionally, due to the order spell protections are stripped, if you just have GoI left when he's out of RRoR, you're getting Breached. And GoI is the only one that can be cast from Spell Trigger. The major issue here was Chain Contingency not kicking in fast enough. In fact, it finally triggered when I was alone with Orcus and using Stoneskins to save on scrolls (he had some kind of elemental or magic damage that happened onhit that was getting to me).

Greater Doom is still an enormous headache. I think I can beat Firkraag with one Magic Shielding potion, but I hate to keep burning them this early in the journey. I was going to try Wind Master before Firkraag, but I plan to upgrade Jhor the Bleeder which I think will help me against that guy. No rush for his paltry treasure.

I also think that you will have decent chance if you remove the xp cap. High level remove magic is very important and high level buffs are important as well in the EDE fight.

Saladrex is easier than Firkraag simply because he doesn't have any "minions" to prolong the fight. A dead magic zone in there, but Saladrex can be harmed via normal weapons. Sadly criticals don't work against him.

To avoid being vulnerable once every 3.5 rounds you may cast a defensive Alacrity, which allows you to refresh Spell turning, GoI, Spell Immunity and PFMW at the same time. Then again, you may set the (Chain) Contingency to trigger on getting Hit. With so many enemies around, this will mean immediate trigger, a hit still will trigger a Contingency even if your character is still protected from magic weapons (as he should be).

You cannot upgrade Jhor the Bleeder before you kill Firkraag. And you shouldn't. The weapon is crap in v6. Also, the Windmaster can be defeated very fast with the right selection of elemental spells. He's vulnerable to acid and fire. Use all short-time casting spells. Comet may be even more effective than Dragon Breath. The quest order is - original MNORH quests - killing Firkraag - 1 week later Lady Vanya appears for Extended Paladin Stronghold quests, the second one of those gives you the final ingredient for Jhor the Bleeder's upgrade - the 48-th sided garnet.

Firkraag has the ring of Fire Resistance. The rest of his items are generally useless to a F/M, and he also cannot have any important item ingredients. However, the extended paladin stronghold quests (which trigger after his death) will allow you to assemble the Talisman of Greater Protection, which may come in handy in some fights. Not a very necessary item overall for a F/M. Basically, you can skip Firkraag altogether. However you shouldn't skip Orcus.

Firkraag dead, although like Orcus I'm not particularly happy with how it went down. I did manage to do it without using Magic Shielding or Icedust potions, but it took a bunch of tries. Improved Fireball and/or Red Dragon Breath seems to have highly variable damage (or maybe it's because my saves were 8 and I wasn't saving almost half the time?). Greater Doom sort of forces you to rely on actually making save rolls, but it's annoying to reload and just win via making saves.

First quest from Vanya was more challenging than I expected. Two mages strip protections fast, so at least one needed to be dealt with quickly. Guildmaster didn't seem to activate most of his protections - I went right for him after killing one mage and he went down quicker than the Master Assassins. Spawn kept going for a LONG time; I thought it was linked to the Guildmaster or mage but it may be a property of the area itself. Golems stopped appearing when Guildmaster went down, but it seemed like assassins kept coming. Wasted about 5 PFMW scrolls, but I think I got that many or more from the mages.

I am worried that if I don't do Wind Master, I'll lose the chance after I initiate Vanya's next quest, so will give this another shot. Feels weird to do it with a vanilla +3 bastard sword, but that should work better than a good flail given his resistances. In testing, a potion of Freedom seems to eliminate the wing buffet and unconscious stuff and allow me to swing constantly during it. I've burned 2 or 3 of these so far I think, hopefully this will be the last one as I can use Cat Figurine post-Spellhold.

Wind Master ended up being easy via spells, and the other enemy there was no challenge for a fighter with PFMW.

Played around with the mage stronghold and realized you can have a much easier time by

SPOILER!


So that's done. Old Ones quest should be do-able with this char. Also forgot that I had Guarded Compound unattempted thus far.

You cannot trigger the Old One quest until you get the Scholastic Cloak in Spellhold's Library.

Looks like Old One quest requires you to be in Chapter 5, unfortunately.

On the plus side, just breezed through the Guarded Compound and found Jhor the Bleeder! Did not know this item was randomized. Was able to upgrade this to the +4 IA version, which is awesome. Might give Chaos another try (funny he's providing the most difficulty pre-Spellhold). It's him and Twisted Rune as the only things I have left to try (and the Supreme Golem in WK, which I may try for kicks, but I suspect I won't even come close).

My deepest sympathies to Loren, who had to wait at Trademeet for at least a month before I got there to slay Chaos.

Went back at the Supreme Elemental Golem again and... not happening. I can't get more than 4 damage per hit on him (usually 3). From the looks of the code, he Heals within 60 seconds of going under 300 HP. So while, under absolutely perfect circumstances I do think I could deal 300 HP in 10 rounds, it seems extremely unlikely. Besides, I'm itching to get to Spellhold at this point. Watcher's Keep, The Old Ones, and the Twisted Rune can wait until my return.

Spellhold not bad. I can see how it would be tough on a party just over the cap, but for my character it wasn't particularly difficult. Liches dealt with in the usual way, PFMW against the Cat (I think I remember it having some nasty on-hit effects).

Mithril Golem was the biggest challenge, and I thought about skipping him. Summoned Noble Spider and some Trolls to allow me to get some Jhor hits in (Critical Strikes, too). He seems to have few attacks per round, or he doesn't always dispel on hit, as I could sometimes refresh Stoneskin for a few rounds in a row without bleeding. Planetar got a nice Heal to me, and if I was smart I'd have had her heal the Noble Spider (who battled admirably for a couple of rounds).

Irenicus wasn't too bad. He took a few rounds to show himself, and there were at least a dozen Asylum Scouts in there by the time he did. Taking them down after he died was a little nerve wracking (first time I've run out of Critical Strikes that I can remember) but I had just enough PFMW and AI to not waste a scroll.

It's interesting to know how did you get Irenicus so fast. He is under Spell Immunity Divination, Improved Invisibility, multiple Absolute Immunities and is a higher-leveled mage than your PC, meaning that your Remove Magic won't work. Did you use CC: triple KWW?

He either didn't cast AI, or I disrupted it if he was hardcasting it (as opposed to a scroll). His behavior was odd... he stayed invisible while multiple groups of Asylum Scouts appeared, and they all went after Wanev and crew, since I was under PFMW. Then he appeared to cast some kind of spell, probably RRoR but I forget precisely, and I started whacking away and was able to get him to near death and his exit speech after one more round.

Underdark not too bad. Mind Flayer final battle was a little tricky with the purges. Hardest battle was definitely the Demon Knights since you have 5 of them RRoR and Breaching at once. Very hard to keep protections up, especially amidst all of their damaging spells too.

Adalon casts Minor Spell Turning (cheater!). Seems completely unmodified by IA though, she really behaved pretty dumb and I killed her quickly.

Kruin not too bad, I think Warlock fell to one hit (!!), and the rest of the crew was easily dispatched. One Alacrity to refresh buffs, but Kruin ran out of RRoR quickly and I was able to finish the elementals, their spawns, and Kruin, within the last two Spell Immunities I had. Forgot he had PW:Kill which cost me one reload (was saving my spell to respond to Comet if needed, rather than to drink a potion).

Finally got to the battle I have been dreading this entire time... "Lavok's Postmortem Request". The six Balors all cast Greater Doom, dispel at level 30, cast lower resistance, strip protections with Ruby Ray, etc. They all wear fire shield blue and red, so even if I manage to isolate one for a moment, I'll be taking a beating from the fire shields.

Oddly enough, if you get out of their line of sight, the Lesser Force thinks you won and spawns the next wave (Grandlords). And if you get out of their sight too, you get the rest message and he spawns the beginning of that next battle. Of course the Grandlords and Balors are still wandering around, so this isn't really a viable strategy.

I suppose I can finish up Watcher's Keep and get Crom upgraded and the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization. That will at least ramp up my damage as much as I can, but I suspect this whole endeavor is futile. At least it's not a required battle, I guess (though the Carmine Ioun Stone would be very nice to have!)

Looks like they might only cast Finger of Death via their "Chain Contingency", in which case if I can get them to all fire it off at the same time, then chug a Magic Shielding potion before the fingers get to me, perhaps I could continue the battle...

You won't be able to get the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, since you have to defeat the Ancient Dragon first. But I don't see how you will manage to do that.

As for Balors, you could win a round or two before they can start casting offensive spells or Greater Doom. Potion of Invisibility will force them to cast True Sight the first round of the battle, multiple Breaches under Alacrity with reduced casting time of 4 will force them to focus on defensive buffs rather than offense, and unlike a dragon, their aura is not permanently cleaned so you could kill some in the meantime. Combining Critical Strike + Greater Whirlwhind attack will allow you to whack at them with any weapon at its fullest potential, so pick the weapon with the greatest damage output. You can also trick them into wasting a round by not starting the battle under Spell Immunity (but under Alacrity) and cast Spell Immunity Abjuration immediately after they all start chanting for Breach. Also, you could have 3*Skeleton Lord + Greater Djinni + Noble Spider before the fight starts.
Also check if the Balors are immune to Cold. If they're not, you could get them into an infinite fireshield backlash damage and kill them that way.

I can't drink a potion of invisibility *and* be under alacrity to begin the Balor battle... I can't kill the last skeleton lord of round 1 while invisible (unless maybe I get it to Near Death and have some summons finish it). Keep in mind the Balors have around 160 HP and 75% physical resistance, so best case I can only take down one in a round. And I should add, I didn't waste HLA slots on Whirlwinds - I wouldn't be this far if I did that. Maybe if the timing works right I can be invisible to begin the fight, then cast alacrity after they've all committed to True Sight (if they all do this).

Fire shield backlash is not something I'm interested in pursuing. I'd honestly rather cheese my guy up to level 40 before I tried an exploit like that.

Anyways, probably going to pursue WK instead. May be some improvements I can get from there before heading back to the sphere... I'm thinking for example of the Ring of Gaxx +5 which is only missing an ingredient from the WK demi-lich I think. Extra 10% magic resist may help with the fingers of death, depending on what level of magic resist the balors look for before casting Lower Resistance.

I'd add that in the upcoming IAv6.1 we've fixed all the resonating shield bugs so I wouldn't employ that as a long-term tactic either.

Cool. Is there a list of other 6.1 improvements either already completed, or in the works? From what I saw, it seemed mostly oriented towards EE compatibility. Anyways just curious - I can't update in the middle of a playthrough anyways, but just curious what else I can get excited about :-)

You most definitely can be under Alacrity and Potion of Invisibility effect. Casting Alacrity will take almost a round with no reductions to casting speed. Supposedly you have 2 from the Memory of the Apprenty which you cannot remove. Foreknowledge can be triggered after the Balors appear (Chain Contingency containing Foreknowledge, trigger on hit, trigger via LMD targeting self). Amulet can be taken off temporarily (re-equip after Alacrity casting is finished). Do that while the last Skeleton Lord is on 1 hit to get maximum effect of the Alacrity. Since it has already been almost a round, chug a potion of Invisibility, it will be gulped almost immediately. And you will have your alacrity still running.

If you can't do that, then use Ilbratha's Mirror Image as prebuff. It will just as well trigger the Balors' True Sight casting. If you sold Ilbratha, now is the time to remember where and whom did you sell it to.

I think you cannot kill the demons anyway via fireshield backlash damage, since they have at least 50% innate resistance to cold, brought to 100% with the fireshield. And you cannot dispel just one of those - it's either both or none.

As I said before, use multiple powerful summons, this should help against the Balors. If you don't have the Greater Djinni, then yes, go and look around in Watcher's keep. Also do Orcus for the Skeleton Lord.

Relying on something like magic resistance vs FoD is, well, not a sound tactic. Shapechange to Iron Golem under Alacrity while the Balors shower you with FoD spells however, is. You may try that.

I've listed all major changes in the relevant thread. Mostly it's a maintenance release, yes, but we did add some new stuff the majority of which is ported from IAv7 development branch. We expect Monk to be a solid choice now in IA, for example.

Further testing on Balors: while they do mostly adhere to spell rules, their fire shields and stoneskin are cast upon spawning.

They have more than enough Ruby Ray (5) and Breach (4) castings (each).

They will only dispel invisibility once via Remove Magic, and the rest of the time via True Sight.

They will remove magic every 4 rounds.

They will Lower Resist if your magic resist is over 30. They will lower fire resist if yours is 50 or more.

They will randomly try to paralyze you or cast chaos if you're not protected from such. They have some kind of fear aura.

They will Greater Doom every 2 rounds, relentlessly, until your Save vs. Death is 9 or worse. Then they will let off a Chain Contingency of 3xFinger of Death. Then they are done with both Greater Dooms and Finger of Death.

Key vulnerabilities: if you can survive the Doom/Finger of Death onslaught, it looks like you only need to last 20 rounds until the Greater Dooms expire. At that point, you don't have to worry about them again (I think), and your Thac0 is back to being good enough that you can actually hit them. Until then though, you're still going to have to worry about a bunch of fire-based attacks (even if you stay out of range of their weapon hits). The major problem during this period would be staying close enough that at least one of them is in view (else you trigger the Grandlords), but somehow saving against their paralyze, fear, and chaos spells. Potion of Magic Shielding only lasts 4 rounds at best, though I guess if somehow it's timed perfectly, that makes just 5 of them needed to live through this.

Hmm, I doubt that these Balors are such a major problem. If you could send me the game modifications in PM which avoid Sikret's anti-solo "tweaks", I could get to that point and try them out myself. And all other shaky victories as well, like Firkraag for example.

I still haven't tried summons, nor some special equips (Dragonslayer sword for immunity to fear, Shield of Harmony for immunity to Confusion, which I guess just leaves me vulnerable to the Paralyze ability while I'm Doomed).

It's possible I can keep them looking at summons until the Dooms run out, who knows. I think it's feasible if indeed they will stop casting Greater Doom once they've loosed their Finger of Death contingencies.

Hopefully I'll have some time to give it another go tonight. It's pretty easy to mimic my setup for this particular battle by using a few tweaks within Shadow Keeper if you have a Necro protag save near that point.

If you can get all six Balors to let loose their Chain Contingency, and block all of them with SI:Necromancy, you can actually have a bit of a prolonged fight. This is pretty hard though, since they tend to spawn all around you, and they drop the Chain Contingency at a bit staggered time. If they all happen to spawn on one side of you though, you can head to the other side of the screen and have enough time (with the decreased casting speed of 2 from robe, 1 from amulet, and 1 from Foreknowledge) to throw up the SI:Necromancy. If you're sort of in the middle of them surrounding you, you're dead if you wait until you see one before casting. And if you cast it before you see them, you're only going to get maybe 4 of them, in which case you're likely dead when they do the last one or two.

Still... if you survive this, it does appear that:
- Dragonslayer prevents the Fear effect
- Shield of Harmony prevents the Confusion effect
- Potion of Freedom prevents the Paralyze effect (and is either not dispelled by Remove Magic, or they don't bother casting it)

So after all this, the major threats against you are Fireball and Incendiary Cloud, as well as the accompanying Lower Fire Resistance. Incendiary Cloud can sometimes be escaped without damage, and sometimes hits you right away (often killing you).

If there are threats beyond those spells, I haven't seen them yet. But that may well be it; it may be a physical battle at that point onwards. Which we're in good shape for, with -24 AC and very good Thac0. I think the play would be to wait out the Dooms, so as to be able to equip something else to attack with (Dragonslayer can't hit them, as +2). Alternatively, you could equip Equalizer in the main hand and attack with that for the Confusion immunity, with Dragonslayer in the offhand for Fear immunity. But at that point, AC may have you getting hit too much.

Recast Vital Energy could help here:
- one "Mental Agility" would make SI:Nec have a casting time of 0, so I could get a little better at drawing the Finger of Deaths and responding with that.
- Regeneration (and 50% HP boost, frankly) would be extraordinarily helpful as I then try to survive the fire attacks.

As far as I can tell, I sort of have my way with the last Skeleton Lord and can accomplish quite a bit when he is the only enemy remaining. I also haven't tried looking for a Wish Rest here, but that might help as well.

I also think my Chain Contingency and Contingency of defensive buffs might not be the best idea... I may be better off with summons instead. Balors just strip buffs so fast...

1 Incendiary Cloud, 5 Sunfire, 4 Fireball each.

The "normal" 10-round regeneration is not enough. I need the long-lasting one (or two!). Increasing HP by 50% is somewhat helpful, it doesn't stack with items that add HP though. But it allows me to shuffle items essentially without losing HP.

Tricking the Balors into the Chain Contingencies (by removing cloak, ring+4, and ring of gaxx), then re-equipping them once the Contingencies are fired, seems more reliable than trying to squeeze off a Spell Immunity, even with -5 speed which should make it instant (but doesn't).

I made a save with 1 long regeneration and 3 party regenerations, and tried it a bunch of times and it just wasn't enough (along with a potion of superior healing every round) to keep me alive. The most I can keep is 40 Fire Resist and 30 Magic Resist without them lowering it (I could theoretically get up to 45 fire resist actually, I think). It's close to keeping me alive, but they have a tendency to release the Sunfires essentially all at once and I can't quite live through it. They have 8 attacks at -6 Thac0. My AC is -16 to -19 after all of the dooms, so they should hit probably 4 times per round of 8 swings. In testing from this saved game, when reloading the "order of operations" puts me at normal speed (whereas with the initial playthrough, since my Boots of Speed were applied before the Potion of Freedom, I am at Hasted speed).

Maybe Tenser's Transformation to get enough HP? I am literally just walking around and chugging potions.

My own testings

It seems that I lost my IA v6 saves folder when I transferred to the new PC. I only got my old saves from IA v5 experiences and early IA v6 solo tests.

No changes to the original install whatsoever, although I tried to make PC immune to silence. Somehow, didn't work.

However, I was able to beat the Ancient Dragon and all his minions with a solo F/M/T from IA v5 (high-leveled, although that really doesn't matter much).

Same tactic for beating him can be applied vs Balors.

Unfortunately, the tactic is way too cheesy. I consider it a pure cheat and was forced to use it only because the enemies cheat even worse.

Example: My silenced F/M/T mage level 36 is running around the Ancient Dragon silenced under Spell Immunity Divination and Improved Invisibility, and Absolute Immunity. No enemy is of high enough level for remove magic to work on PC. However, on the 3rd round of the battle I get the divine message *Illusions Dispelled*. Out of nowhere. No explanation how or why.

The Ancient Dragon uses Greater Doom whenever possible. His CC contains triple ADHW so no reason to lower save vs Death for 3*FoD. He has two sequencers loaded with disabling spells, but even after firing those he still continues the Greater Doom barrage on PC. He will lower fire resistance even if it's below 50 (I tested with 40).

So the *tactic* for a no-reload victory against both the Ancient Dragon and the Balors (on Insane) is summoning multiple Greater Djinnis by re-inserting again and again the Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning in a gem bag (it gets recharged that way). Yeah, I know, blatant cheat. Never mind enemies having even worse cheating scripts. Yet this is allowed by the game engine and I didn't have to make a Necromancer-Berserker multi via ShadowKeeper or anything far more drastic. BTW even winning that way vs the Ancient Dragon was not easy at all and cost me quite a lot of time. Djinnis are most efectively guided via multiple Farsight spells. And unlike any other summon, Djinnies can be called even by a Silenced character.

You may try the same with the Noble Spider figurine and the bag of holding. I think the blue one should work just the same way as a gem bag.

It's really bad I don't have a close save with a Necro PC and playing up to that moment is kinda redundant. I simply don't have the time right now. So @blastermaster: If you can send me your save game and your game modifications I may do some more testing. Balors should be easy, really. You should definitely try to focus them on defensive spells the first rounds, that's all. After 3 or 4 are dead, the rest should be not so hard. Yet if you lack GWW attacks things may not be so easy, then again you can still have a sufficient number of APR using the Black Blade of Disaster. Not only is it the most damaging weapon in the entire game, it also is considered wielded at Grandmastery, which will allow you to equip another decent +4 or +5 weapon offhand and have 9 APR with Critical Strike.

3xRegeneration, 1xLong Regeneration, Tenser's Transformation, gets it done.

With the resistances mentioned above, this allowed me to survive a full round of sunfires or fireballs, and between the regeneration and heal potions, I was able to heal back up each round. Eventually they run out of fire spells and dooms, and I begin exhausting them of their Breaches. This cut into my PFMW scrolls a bit, since they were pretty good about only firing one breach at my protections (rather than 5 or 6 of them doing it at once as I'd hoped). Once they run out of Breaches, I could protect myself and work on killing them. With my saves back to normal, I was able to equip my preferable weapons (Death of a Thousand Cuts, Crom Faeyr) without fear of Paralyze, Chaos, or Fear.

Once dead, the Grandlords weren't difficult, as expected.

Spent a little time refreshing my memory about the Lesser Force battle. He casts Purge Magic every 3 rounds if you're using PFMW or Stoneskin, but he doesn't if you're just using Improved Haste. Recast Vital Energy regeneration may be key here again, though there is no way I can hurt him to Near Death three times, along with killing his sets of Bone Golems, during the time the short or even "long lasting" version is active. I expect this portion of the battle will be difficult, but nowhere near the trouble I had with the Balors. For now though, need to call it a day. Moral victory in getting the Carmine Ioun Stone into my inventory, hopefully tomorrow I can manage to escape with it.

The best defence is offence.If I were to play this game,I'll set spell sequencer:3*lighting bolt,spell trigger:3*lower risistance.Cast IA,RVE for 1 mental agility,when Balors appear,cast 2 RRoRs and 3 LR(including spell trigger 3 LR) to 3 Balors each,move and attract them stand in a line,cast LBs to kill them, then there will be only 3 balors left,it will be much easier.If you are lucky enough,with RVE or wish rest help,the 3 Balors left will die soon…
Anyway,the whole procedure still rely on a bit luck…But you would like to try this way after been tortured many times…

I really don't like strategies relying on luck, and unfortunately this one does. Plus, I doubt you can repeat that on Insane difficulty.

@chaser: haven't tested it, but I think spells like Lightning Bolt will have little or no effect on the Balors because of their innate resistances and high hit points.

@blastermaster: I found an easy way to beat these Balors, it may be applied to other tough and unbeatable (otherwise) enemies you may encounter, but it's borderline cheating. Since we are playing IA v6 solo however, with all of its *anti-solo modifications* present, I consider it fair enough. Found the strategy in my test vs the Ancient Dragon. Unfortunately its main feature is getting great quantities of powerful summons (like the Greater Djinni) by constantly refreshing the item which summons them (in this case Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning) via re-inserting the item in a Gem Bag or blue Bag of Holding. Still, I didn't have to mod my game via Shadowkeeper in any way, right ?

As for the Lesser Force, this is probably the time to waste 5 Barbarian Essence potions. You should have enough by now anyway. Still, if I were you, I'd replay that Balor battle on Insane to find a much more sound tactic. Unfortunately, I have only my v5 saves at present, which means no Necromancer PC saves at all. If you could send me your save game and in-game modifications in a PM, I could test the Balors until I find a more reliable tactic. BTW, I wouldn't mind getting a Firkraag save too, seems that win of yours also requires some serious polishing. No offense.

For some reason, I never saw this post until now. Your theorycrafting is unfortunately not helpful here as the Balors don't cast any defensive spells whatsoever (save for a Spell Trigger they activate at some point). But you've already come up with two or three ways you'd win the battle, namely using an insanely leveled character, using fireshield collisions, or using infinite noble djinni summons via some weird exploit. Please feel free to move on.



It's a Fighter/Necro multi. You know, kind of like a Fighter/Illusionist multi, but not as good (Improved Invisibility would be so helpful in so many of these battles!).



In general, my weakness in this mod is knowing when enemies can be blasted by spells and killed very quickly. This is an interesting idea. The Balors have 90 Magic resist and 50 Electricity resist and 160 HP. So it would take 3 Lower Resist each, and the RRoR to strip their spell protections. While this is going on, they will have Doomed you and will be firing out Finger of Deaths which may disrupt one or two of these.

Lightning Bolt does 10d6 or an average of 35 damage if not saved. The Balors will save about 70% of the time. So you're looking at about 23 damage from these lightning bolts before their electrical resist comes in. So you need maybe 10-12 lightning bolts to actually kill them. They probably will not stand in a line that long, and you're now looking at:

6 RRoR
6 Lower Resist
1 Spell Trigger
1 Spell Sequencer
7-9 Lightning Bolts

Might be possible if everything is insta-cast due to Mental Agilities.



"Borderline" cheating. I love it.

Lesser Force should not require barbarian essence potions. Most of his damage comes from the Dark Magic Aura he has which does 1d8 damage without save every time I hit him. I would need at least 120 physical resist to begin healing from his hits enough to make a dent in that. My plan for the barbarian essence potions is to really load up on them for the final battle, if I can make it there, since it is going to take me a very long time to kill the 3 big guy golems in there.

I won't be sending you any save games because I have no interest in further conversation with you. Sorry. I tried to be polite but your outrageous views on cheating and your constant demeaning of those who play in a different way than you have brought me to my limit in tolerance.

I also didn't see my own post until now, thought it was deleted by the moderators of this forum. Otherwise I wouldn't write the second post with much the same info as before.
As I said before, demons can be forced to go on defense ASAP. You just have to win the first round in which they should all cast True Sight. I explained how you can be under Alacrity + Invisibility potion effect. You also have to be standing close to all of them in order for some of the Breached balors to actually cast PFMW the second round and thus waste it. Again, you could've created a powerful mage character of your own, without even bothering to cheat in Alacrity or anything. I had such a character in my early tests of IA, it was a level 18 Berserker dualled to lvl 31 Mage (at xp cap). 31 level multiple Remove Magicks will definitely force the Balors to go all out defensive, constantly refreshing PFMW, if you keep in melee distance. Their top priority if PC is within melee range is casting PFMW if they're not currently running one.

Naturally, a B-M will have a great trouble vs Dragons (Grave Liches are not such a big deal, early ones are solitary while late game ones can be easily overtaken via powerful summons/spells). Also, you would miss the Expanded mage stronghold. On the other hand, you will be playing without Shadowkeeper or any other game file modifications.



You could've created a F/I with immunity to silence, I frankly believe this modification to the game to be more fair than modding a multiclass Fighter/Necro + allowing him to wear powerful items reserved for solo characters (Amulet of Hades).



There is a mod called "The Four" which is compatible with IA and allows you to obtain a pair of gloves which decrease casting time by 1. Can be only used by evil mages though.

Your own play can be called as well "borderline" cheating since you did so many things not originally allowed by the mod's designer. We all draw the line somewhere. For Sikret, for example, cheating is even if you disperse your party members to fight a powerful entity rather than keeping them all toghether to be slaughtered. I didn't call my recent victory over the Ancient Dragon (via multiple Greater Djinnis) a great tactic, because it isn't. But somehow the game engine allows it, while at the same time it doesn't allow creating a multi Fighter/Necromancer, nor does it allow for such a character to wear the Amulet of Hades. My victory was IA v6 legitimized, while yours (with your necro/fighter PC) are not - because no such character exist in IA v6. Still, I didn't call your style of play cheating, did I? As I said, we all have to draw the line somewhere. You don't like where I do that, nor do I for that matter, regarding your playthrough. Still I try to be helpful.

As I remember, a Necro PC gets 25+ Barbarian Essences in total so you could still waste 6 for this fight. This way the melee hits you receive from Bone Golems will more than enough compensate for the health loss from the Lesser Force's aura. As for the EDE, don't worry, even if you skip hard encounters like nuts I still don't think you will get there even with that character. Probably if the xp cap is removed, then you could have a chance. Still, even if by some miracle you do, 20 Barbarian Essences should be enough to win.

No need to save me save games. I had started my own Insane testing with a solo Necromancer protagonist, without any external modifications like Shadowkeeper, and will have a save game at the Balors after a couple more days. If you haven't given up on your playthrough or changed the rules by that time...I really hope you can finish this challenge one way or another - quit with honor or miraculously win EDE.

Let's keep it civilized, people, it's just a game)

Ended up using a handful of RVE before the Lesser Force battle began, to help me get through him and the first wave of Greater Bone Golems without using Stoneskin or PFMW (either of which would trigger a Purge Magic every 3 rounds).

Used the rest before the second wave, same way.

Before the final try against the Lesser Force, realized he wouldn't purge SPOILER!
, so that made it not too bad. Should have done that in the first place.


Only thing I'm skipping in SoA at this point is the Twisted Rune. May give it a shot, just for completionist purposes... but I am getting eager to put a hurting on Irenicus too :-)

The exploit where item abilities are refreshed once they're placed in Bag of Holding has long been fixed by TObex. I don't understand why its not in Anvil. It has far better implementation of numerous features which Anvil tries to emulate in a rather crude way.

ToBex seems to slow down my machine considerably (even with a fairly new laptop). I think it's rather clever how its functions are approximated in IA by scripting states and a whole lot of If statements. For a potential newbie coder like me, I for one enjoy the ease at which I can follow the coding behind the enemy Artificial Intelligence in IA and Baldur's Gate as a whole. I have no idea how one hacks a .exe file with something like ToBex. Command prompts scare me.

It's funny though, I thought I noticed the opposite behavior of summoning and one-charge-per-day items with bags of holding... namely that if I rested with a depleted item in one of those bags, it would NOT get its charge back overnight. So for the last few years I have religiously avoided ever putting a depleted item in one of those bags. How ironic.

What slows down my machine is what Anvil makes out of baldur.bcs file with anti-cheat measures, not TobEx.

Hah, yes, that's a hell of a file.

Supreme Leader is harder than I expected (forgot about those "Anti-Inquisitors" and their ability to strip protections; usually I fry them quickly). At this point I think it makes sense to finish up SoA and get some bonuses from the Hell Trials and early ToB (Foebane!), and revisit.

Good Lesser Force tactic,much easier than I imagined.

@ Krell:


I review the mage team thread by another Chinese player I mentioned before,he killed 5 Balors with CC*9 ADHW···It seems Balors are vulnerable to magic energy too,so throw up all damage spells can definitely kill 3-4 Balors quickly.

In some Chinese forums,players always take delight in talking about exploits,such as abuse Cloudkill,such as using the gem bag bug,it is a common thing.To be honest,I used some exploits in my necro run(utilize some AI weakness),that`s the first time I play IA.In my vargrant run,I didn`t do it and found it more pleasure without exploits.Anyway,different players have different ways to play this game,just don`t bother each other is OK.

This is the first time I hear about the bag of holding issue. Could you clarify?


This is the only way as far as I know to implement proper item restrictions to a particular NPC. BG2EE added an opcode for that, but it won't work in ToB. I don't know if there is an exe patch for that made by the community. And not everything is done by scripts in IA. I've implemented a patch for the summon limit that updates the executable. The same was done for monk's fists in the upcoming IAv6.1.

From modder reference:
TobEx fixes an exploit where players could instantly restore the charges of rechargeable items by putting them in a bag and then taking them out again.

From the technical perspective, TobEx modifies usages for non-stackable items with charges such that:

Items in a store with usages of 0 are no longer loaded with usages of 1
Putting items in bags no longer recharges the items, unless bit 14 of STO V1.0 Header offset 0x10 (Flags) is set, see below.
TobEx adds functionality to bit 14 (Toggle Recharge) of STO V1.0 Header offset 0x10 (Flags). For bags, setting this bit will allow items to be recharged when placed in the bag. For stores, setting this bit will prevent items from recharging when sold to the store.
The buy and sell prices of items that recharge now take into account the fact that they recharge.

In the same line of tough, you can flag items so they aren't able to cast spells on improved invisible enemies without wonky workaround used now, externalize item restricitons to a simple .2da file, make mirror image not protect one from area spells, fixes a bug when custom NPCs get innates back on rejoining, pretty much whatever you want.

That's an odd tactic, unless they fired off some Lower Resistance first. I don't think the Balors had Magic Damage Resistance, but they have Magic Resistance of 90. So while the ADHW will do full damage, only 10% of them will actually do damage.

In terms of utilizing AI weakness, that seems par for the course. Knowing that enemies are always scripted to True Sight first, or cast Ruby Ray a couple of times, etc., is often how battles are won by low-level characters.

Looking through the scripts that control AI, the vast majority of them detail behavior that will occur 100% of the time under given circumstances. I think this mod would increase in difficulty greatly if enemies were less predictable and had say 50% probability of doing a given action and 50% probability of doing something different. Although I realize in some instances, there is only one thing they can do effectively (i.e. Ruby Ray if you are under PFMW and SI:Abj and other stuff).

Critto, it looks like a ton of Baldur.BCS is oriented towards managing high-end item ingredients, rather than who is wearing what. Maybe that could be cut, while keeping the scripts that control items intended to not be used with UAI.

Those checks are doing the same job as the checks for usability items, basically. I won't remove them because it's a part of original Sikret's work. If you feel that these things are slowing down the game and have no intention of cluaing the ingredients and/or items into your game, feel free to cut them out.

As for TobEX, I am aware of many of its advantages. I will check it out but for now I can't promise implementation of this into IA in the near future.

Of course strip their protection and Lower Resistance first,here is the link:http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2282748666#/pn=87