Guidelines:
1) this topic is for reporting and discussing a playthrough as a Fighter/Necromancer multiclass character. IA was modified such that he will be treated as though he was a single-class Necromancer. So he will get the Mage stronghold quests, can forge and wear Amulet of Hades, can get Wish Rest, etc. Additionally, if some encounters give better rewards for a character with a full party, he will get those better rewards.

2) please do not comment on how certain strategies or tactics would not work in other types of games. I'm more than happy to comment on tactics in your types of games in your own thread.

3) I am very happy to hear any comments on different tactics I could use with this character under this game setup.

4) I plan to run an exploit-free run. That is, no abusing engine bugs, infinite exploits, etc. My general rule is to ask myself if the BG game designers expected something to be possible, or if they would patch it out if they could. If the latter, I won't do it. Obviously this is subjective.

How to set this up
I am very much an amateur coder, but with a tool like Near Infinity, you can quickly begin to figure out (and alter) the scripts in BG2. In order to set up the expanded stronghold quests, the game uses a "ScriptingState" with a value for one's kit. This is because it seems as though the code cannot look for a player's kit, it can only look for their class and alignment. So there's a bunch of code that says something like "If Player1 is a Mage, and not a Fighter, and not a Cleric, and not a thief, and ScriptingState1 = 7, create Marvella". It's as simple as removing the line about "and not a fighter". Occasionally this code can be found in scripts that determine monster loot, so I removed it there as well.

An alternative to this, if one doesn't want to get into scripting, is to use ShadowKeeper. Create a Necromancer to begin the game, change it in SK to a fighter/mage and adjust initial HP and proficiencies and saves and Thac0 and such. And then when you approach a portion of the game that looks at your class, make a save and adjust in SK to be a plain Necromancer. You can't level up until you switch back to fighter/mage or you will mess things up though.

Sometimes the game looks for the number of party members you have alive. Usually it wants 4 or more, and if it sees that, it will give you a different (better) reward. The best way to remove this is in NearInfinity since it's hard to know when these events may occur, but you can just do a blanket search for something like "If NumInPartyAlive GT" and find those lines of code and remove them. The non-coding way to accomplish this is to simply find these instances in Near Infinity and just ensure you have 4 useless (but alive) companions in the next room while you go through these points.

Though I am very amateur with my coding abilities (both within BG and beyond), I am happy to offer advice or suggestions if someone has a creative idea for a run they'd like to make. For example, in another thread there was a proposal of a Kensai/Auramaster, which can be done via NearInfinity or with some tricky use of Shadow Keeper.

Journal (pasted together from past posts):
At the moment, I have 3.6M experience, so I am really looking to hit the 11.9M cap before heading to Spellhold. Getting level 6 spells was probably the biggest game-changer so far, as it allowed me to throw on PFMW and give myself enough time to deal sufficient damage in battles. I also used, for the first time in my BG career, Protection from Normal Missiles. It worked very well in the Slaver Ship, blocking arrows not only from the 4 archers but Captain Haegan's axes as well. He did melee me though.

I have Flail of Ages +3 and one +3 Morningstar. My current motivation is to forge Phosphorus +4 so I may tackle some challenges requiring such weapons. I need 2 permanency scrolls and one more +2 Morningstar to make this happen.

Quests of note that I plan to do next:
- Sphere
- Planar Prison
- Temple Ruins

At this point I think the biggest issue I will have is getting a scroll of Wish. I suspect many later battles will require many more copies of spells to be cast than I can memorize at once. Getting Wish will be the final enhancement to the character, and we will see how far he can advance from there.

The Sphere is proving to be a challenge at this point. With only three castings of level 6 spells available, I am forced to use one for Improved Haste and two for PFMW. The Greater Bone Golem and 2xGem and 2xCoin golems in the time machine ended up taking a lot of my potions and scrolls. I am down to one PFMW scroll, one Improved Mantle (which I'd really like to save to scribe in my spellbook, but haven't yet because I need another level before I could cast it from there), and one Absolute Immunity. I have three superior healing potions, one extra healing potion, and two oil of resurgences.

Lavok was challenging, due to his ability to PW:Kill once he finds a good opportunity. I am not used to multiclass FM and their lower HP than a dual class. Eyeballing my health bar, I'd think I was OK and then would hear the spell being cast and by then it's usually too late. Oil of Resurgence, which I almost never use in other runthroughs, was actually quite key here. It allowed me to recover from Lavok's intermittent damage spells (Vampiric Touch and Acid Arrow, I think) without using too many one-per-round actions. So I could refresh Haste and Stoneskin while recovering from his spells and staying out of PW:Kill range. It's always cool to find uses for things I never have before (see above with Protection from Normal Missiles).

I am terrified of the engine room of the sphere, because IIRC it has TWO groups of Greater Bone, 2xGem, 2xCoin, and they tend to come to each other's aid when you engage with one of them. EDIT: I am at level 14 mage, almost level 15, which brings no growth in level 6 spells (nor access to level 8 spells). I may have to revert back to pre-Sphere and level up before coming back. I don't see how I can manage the engine room otherwise, unless those groups are able to be battled separately. Or perhaps I can just go in there invisible and avoid them entirely; their loot and experience isn't terribly necessary given I'm only leveling up and equipping one character.

In fact, the group(s) in the power core can be tackled separately. I think the reason you have to fight them all at once with a large party is because one of them ends up within some distance of the other group, triggering their help. With my solo character, I was able to keep them hemmed in the narrow passage they start in, and face each group individually with rest in between. Additionally, thanks to the narrow pathway, only two of them can attack at a time, so I was able to comfortably refresh stoneskins, only using PFMW when I needed to refresh my Draw Upon Holy Might. Still, each group takes long enough that my Improved Haste runs out and I must finish the battle with plain Haste.

Things continue to go well and be fun, though I am constantly haunted by the choice to multiclass rather than dual class from a level 9 fighter. The dual class just can't get a great Thac0, even for chapter 2 and 3 enemies. By my math, Tenser's Partial gets him to 7 Thac0. Subtract 1 for Specialization, 7 for 25 strength (DUHM), 4 from weapon enchantment (when I'm able to get Phosphorus), 1 from gauntlets, 1 from Helm of Balduran, and you're only sitting at -7. By the end of the game, maybe -11 or -12, when you're able to factor in a nice Ioun stone upgrade, a slightly more enchanted weapon, etc. On the plus side, a level 9 fighter would get to level 33 mage, I think, and make for a very potent Remove Magic and perfect defense against the same from virtually every enemy in the game. If the dual class could get to around -17 or -18 Thac0, he could hit things like Greater/Supreme Golems every time (I think they have around -18 AC). That would make the choice a no-brainer in favor of dual.

Thought I was ready for Samia at 16/16. Was not ready for Samia at 16/16. Likely going to wait for level 9 spells before trying to tackle this one again.

Comet was super helpful for Samia & co. Breach on Chak, attack Chak (with one hit on Legdoril each round to ensure no Deva summoned), Comet to disperse the crowd. Keep Pro:Fire up, as well as Spell Immunity to ensure you're not having a comet land on your head. Spell Sequencer for Stoneskin and Pro:Fire is super helpful.

Umar was a major pain. The imp quickly overwhelms with summons and must be killed quickly. I didn't think I could strip his spell protections fast enough, so I just whacked away at him. One round to remove his first Stoneskin, one round to remove his Contingency stoneskin, and once I see a hit go through after that, I activate Critical Strike to take him down before any other defense could be raised. Had enough swings left on Critical Strike to take down one Whisper Spider too, which was nice. Exit the room to better position myself, refresh some protections, take down the Whisper Spider and focus on stripping away Umar's defense. Umar's summons seem unlimited, at least in some of my failed tries, and could be a source of a ton of experience and gold for a post-Spellhold party. Once Umar is dead, there's still around 8 Skeleton Lords and Warlords, plus Minotaurs, to be dealt with. Three scrolls of PFMW were used to survive.

Thax (shadow dragon) was exhilarating. Went in with full buffs (Pro:Acid, SI:Abjuration, Spell Turning, Stoneskin, PFMW, Mirror Image, Improved Haste, DUHM). Contingency set to Stoneskin upon 50% health. And just whacked away. Phosphorus until Thax cast PFMW, then moved it to the offhand and equipped a plain Morning Star in the main hand. Back to magic weapons a bit later, then unenchanted until Thax died. Ended up having 8 HP left at the end of the fight and paused to find the closest route to escape the death cloud just in case. If I had Mage level 20, I'd have gotten an extra skin on each Stoneskin cast and would have had a much more comfortable fight. If I was mage level 17, I don't think I would have succeeded since I'd have had one less skin each time. Either way, I made one significant mistake in not using Tenser's Transformation before the fight. I wouldn't be casting anyways, and the extra HP would have been a nice buffer.

So that is one major obstacle resolved, now that I can craft the Amulet of Hades and be immune to this silence business in the future. Next step is to do the bard and fighter strongholds, grab myself a permanency scroll and craft up Memory of the Apprenti to really kick the spells into high gear. Currently at 7.88M Experience (21 Fighter / 19 Necro), so will soon be at the point where it's just a matter of grabbing up some equipment before heading to (Improved) Spellhold.

Seems grave liches (for example the one with Daystar) can attack while under Time Stop. This cost me a reload :-)

Spider Queen and her minions cost me one PFMW scroll. Just so many of them...

Elemental Golem in the North room of Watcher's Keep Elemental Level was no problem. Only summoned two minor golems; should have let him stick around longer - not for the experience, which is rapidly approaching the level cap, but rather for the gems and coins they leave behind. I am very low on gold, and he dropped the Girdle of Fortitude (this is usually randomized much later for me).

Chromatic Demon always seems to revert to his fire form when being let out of his cage. Prep with SI:Abjuration, Spell Turning, Improved Haste, Absolute Immunity. Let him out, Lower Resistance, Improved Alacrity, Lower Resistance, Greater Malaison, Spell Trigger: 3xCone of Cold, bunch of castings of Cone of Cold, one casting of Ice Storm, Spell Sequencer 3xIce Storm, activate Smite, refresh Absolute Immunity. Attack him. Smite's stun does work on him, letting all further attacks hit with 100% chance (I think they would anyways due to Thac0 but I feel like I don't Critical Miss when enemy is stunned, could be my imagination though). The cold spells get him to Near Death, and my attacks take a couple of rounds to do the rest. At 2 damage per swing, and him regenerating 1 HP per second, he must have been down to about 20 HP or less from the cold spells. His minions seem to disappear when he dies, which is unfortunate (I only killed the Hybrid Mist thing, accidentally, via the cold spells). Might re-do this battle to kill an Amber Golem first, as I might need it to get the Crom Faeyr upgrade at the first moment possible.

Troll Mound next, and hopefully I can get the Girdle of 19 STR and craft up that cool belt. Need some cash for this though, and also have the parts to The Truth but can't see myself dropping 100k on it quite yet. I also want to craft up a Ring of Protection +4 and Cloak of Protection +3 (I think that can stack with other items, but will test first of course). Really didn't think cash would be an issue in this runthrough, given that I'm just equipping one person, but those rings are quite expensive!

Troll Mound: easy. Pretty much anything that can be tackled pre-Spellhold is proving to be not too difficult for this character.

Chaos (Druid Stronghold) is proving to be very difficult. He casts Killer Insects every 60 seconds, which negates spellcasting for... 60 seconds (not to mention the damage). Spell Immunity doesn't seem to block it, nor is there any save. I don't think I can disrupt the casting. I may try to summon a Planetar and see if that can get Chaos to try to cast on it while I get out of the area of effect. 60 seconds should give me enough time to unload my spellbook on Chaos, and if that's not enough, so be it. Joolon isn't really that useful anyways.

Expanded Mage Stronghold has been easy until "Why is it so cold in here?". That is looking very difficult. Without Foreknowledge, my Ray of Fragmentations are taking a long time to cast (I do have -3 casting speed from Vecna's upgrade and Amulet of Power's upgrade). I can get the Ice Golem down to around 85/200 via these spells, but finishing the job is very difficult. Especially because the Slow applications keep making my character stop attacking and his Attacks per round are poor under this effect. Might need to max out levels and come back to this one.

Firkraag is an enormous pain. Greater Doom appears to stack, and gives a -6 penalty to Thac0. Two of those and I'm nearly unable to hit Firkraag or his Skeleton Warlords.

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.

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!
1) summon Noble Spider to draw Elemental Golem while I'm casting Alacrity (he dies within a round)
2) under Alacrity: PFMW, Ray of Fragmentation x 10 (Ring of Acuity!), Vampiric Touch x 10, Larloch's Drain x 9, Minor Sequencer Larloch x 2, Sequencer RoF x 3, Spell Trigger RoF x 3.
3) during the above, re-cast PFMW when purge magic hits. Cast Spell Immunity: Evocation to become immune to the Ice Golems cold attacks (yes, remarkably even the Freezing Wind attack actually has this spell school, most IA spells are School-less).
4) After a slow hits, equip Boots of Speed, cast Improved Haste. At end of round, quickly chug Potion of Freedom. In IA, it appears a "free action" type item will prevent future haste spells, but not cancel existing ones. This is crucial. So for the next couple of rounds, we get 9 attacks per round.
5) Purge magic. Get hit a bunch of times, Contingency: PFMW.
6) Improved Haste
7) Potion of Freedom
8) dead Ice Golem.
9) Use remaining PFMW against Elemental Golem, with 3 x Critical Strike in between each PFMW. Easy at this point, but ended up using my last PFMW (had scrolls if needed though).


Anyways, without the SPOILER!
potion of freedom and ring of acuity
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!
keep Pasha alive
. No idea if the stronghold quests would continue, but this is kind of the nail in the coffin for EDE.

I didn't know SPOILER!
Limak
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.

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.

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!
ensuring Pasha is nowhere near those guys that Marvella spawns in

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!
Protection from Energy, which brought my Magic Damage resistance up to 105
, 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 :-)

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.

I just killed Irenicus and have paused at the beginning of ToB. The Slayer's regeneration is perhaps the highest in the game. I actually reloaded once because I thought the Slayer was bugged... I couldn't get him off of Barely Injured for something like 5 rounds of swinging nonstop. I did have some Critical Strikes but forgot to use them; I assumed there was some kind of bug where it didn't record my kill of one of his helpers so he was invulnerable. Upon the reload, I was able to grind him out with about 7 rounds of Critical Strikes.

Ilasera, easy. Gromnir, not too bad. Fire temple, not too bad. I thought I remembered a lot more Elite Fire Giants in there with my party of 6 runthrough earlier this year.

Nyalee took a couple of reloads for me to figure out how to kill her from a position in which I could actually escape the area. First two tries I was able to kill her but could not kill the Skeleton Lords and other baddies faster than they were being created, and as a result I just got trapped. Shambling Mounds are immune to crushing, I forgot about this. Such a cool art for those guys, it's a shame you only see something like four of them in the entire game.

Supreme Leader is looking very difficult. It appears there is no limit to the golem summons of those two summoners, so they clearly have to be killed as top priority. However the resulting Anti-Inquisitors are a nightmare. 90 physical resist, 150 HP (not to mention their potions), and they strip protections and lower fire resistance and attack with fire every 2 rounds.

I will try to give it a shot with RVE regeneration, since that isn't dispelled, but I suspect if I enter the area with it, it will only last long enough for me to kill the summoners (when I don't need it anyways).

If that doesn't work (and I don't expect it to), I may have to use some barbarian essence potions here. 4 potions would get me to 105 physical resist, which may be enough (if I let a couple of coin and gem golems wail on me) to keep me alive until the Anti-Inquisitors are dead. I wanted to save them for EDE, but offhand the only other time I think I might need them before then is the Yaga Shura battle, which terrifies me.

Tried Supreme Leader with 5 barbarian essence potions, and it was easy. Won on first try by getting Supreme Leader isolated with some time to spare with the Barbarian Essence potions.

Took a few more tries with just 4 (getting me to 105 phys resist) and managed to win with some careful positioning (ensure you're surrounded by mostly Gem and Coin Golems, maintain fire resistance to avoid Comet which can displace a great setup). Tried the Gnasher club method on the anti-inquisitors and it seemed to work well. Upgraded Jhor seemed to work equally well, but no save on the Gnasher extra damage is pretty great.

Going to continue with WK as long as I can as I am dreading Yaga Shura.

Demi-lich was killed via multiple Mental Agility castings and Improved Alacrity. He quickly ran out of RRoR which allowed me to keep up SI:Abjuration for the long process of beating him down.

Saladrex is looking pretty problematic. Obviously the lack of arcane magic in his room is annoying, but Greater Doom compounds this. He also has quite the defensive arsenal of Stoneskins and PFMWs. With all of the stoneskins, it will be crucial to keep Improved Haste active. Perhaps a good time to utilize the Improved Cloak of Protection +2, assuming I can "cast" from that.

I'd consider skipping him, but I think he has either the Defender of Easthaven, Foebane, or the Helm of Defense (useful for its upgrade to put on and off for instant Fire Resistance). And I'd really like to have all of those.

First of all, let me say congrats on the successful so-far run and that I will strictly follow the guidelines

Second of all, thanx for the info how a game can be actually modded this way. It would also be nice to find the code which gives permanent immunity to Silence. I've so far succeeded in giving my F/M/T immunity to silence via SK in another test game, but it appears to be active only once per day.

Now for some old and new info or suggestions about various tactics (following guideline 3). Tons of heavy spoiler below.




1- The earliest location for a Wish scroll is the unnamed Mage in the Mind Flayer compartment, temple sewers level 1.

2 - I don't know if you tried that, but while engaged in the arcane dual with Lavok, one may use Fireshield:Red in order to kill his five Skeleton Lords without having to hit them even once. Melf's Minute Meteors + a decent off-hand weapon like Phosphorous can ensure good ranged hits. In this case, Lavok won't cast PFMW - he will only do that if there is actually a character or summon within his melee range. Valid for almost any other enemy IA-modded mage, with very little exceptions.

3 - There is a way to tackle the golems separately by luring each of the 5-golem spawns upwards and fight them one group at a time. Your strategy is also very good though. In addition, the first random golem spawn (near the Guardian Golem's head in the clockwork room) can be lured next to the Guardian Golem, and the character can descend to Lavok's level. The golems won't follow PC downstairs, and the moment the Guardian golem is finished with the Elder Orb, he will attack (and eventually kill) all five golems of that group, after a lot of time. These golems won't attack the guardian golem.

4 - Actually, a level 9 fighter can be dualled to level 36 mage at xp cap. A level 18 fighter can be dualled to level 31 mage. But I agree, even a 18-th level Berserker-Mage has hard time hitting high-level enemies. On the plus side, a dualclass can get to grandmastery while a multiclass cannot, which means more APR.

5 - Traxi has a difficult time against a Planetar supported by a bunch of hasted Skeleton Warriors, guided from PC under Farsight. Traxi has only 2 Death Spells. Don't remember his mage level though, because his Improved Haste has to be removed ASAP. Without it, it's easy enough to outmaneuver him with Planetar's multiple Heal spells cast on dying Skeleton Warriors.

6 - I don't get the idea of Spell Turning vs Chroma. Globe of Invulnerability, however, will allow you to cast multiple Ice Storms without fear of disruption. Also, when you end casting offensive spells, a Fireshield Blue might be a nice idea.
As stated before, Uzuno's blade +4 (last Hammer of Thor ingredient) is found either on Watcher's keep level 4 (Demilich treasure pile) or level 5 (Red Globe challenges). And you will anyway get enough amber golems from the Red Globe challenges.

7 - Chaos is really the bane to any F/M type. What I found so far to work best vs him is Sikret's improved summons, especially Elite trolls. Improved summons are immune to confusion and have decent regeneration rate. Oil of Resurgence blocks the damage of Killer Insects, and spellcasting can still be executed to some small extent via Contingencies and (as last resort) Chain Contingency. Improved Joloon is not very useful, agreed.

8 - Helm's supreme golem differences from Rakshasa Prince's Supreme golem: Helm's golem casts Purge Magic each 4 rounds, Helm's golem activates some kind of earthquake ability on round 2 which renders party members unconscious and applies undispellable Deafness upon them (lasts 1 turn I think ), and Helm's golem has some kind of cheesy heal script which I didn't know about up to this moment. Only viable tactic I found so far with a F/M is multiple Alacrities combined with multiple proFire/cold/Acid/Elec spells (all 3rd and 5th level slots occupied by these) and multiple GWW+Critical strikes. Doesn't work for a capped F/N, I suppose.

9 - Didn't know that Freezing Wind is an Evocation spell. Actually I think that by going in the Fire chamber you won't get the "Why is it so cold" message every 2 rounds. Also CC with 3 Elite Trolls helps a lot, followed by another CC with 3 more trolls when the first troll dies. Dak'kon Zerth blade gives you one more LMD, one more VT and one more RoF spell.

10 - Limak also has a Cloak of Protection +2, Flail +3 and a Morningstar +3. Good for those who want to save some money and a permanency scroll.

11 - Orcus has magical damage in addition to his normal melee damage. Improved Alacrity helps to recover ground once every 4 rounds by refreshing all needed things in a blink (Spell Turning, GoI, Spell Immunity, PFMW). Most reliable and best-controlled Chain Contingency is the one triggering on *Character Hit*.

12 - The Belt of Inertial Barrier can help you make those saves vs breath every time.

13 - For this battle vs mages and any other - Ring of Invisibility pre-combat (or a potion for that matter) is a F/N's best friend. Forcing two (or even three) enemy mages to waste a round on True Sight is usually the difference between life and death. Assassin coordinators are also immune to Slashing damage. Why 3? Well, because as you guessed already, the powerful summons (Master Assassins, Golems, Pirate Coordinators) are linked directly to the Guildmaster - he will gate a random Master Assassin/Gem Golem/Coin Golem/Pirate Coordinator each 6 rounds, starting with the 1st round of the fight. Elite Rune Assassins however are gated in by the Master Assassins, not by the Guildmaster, again once every 6 rounds.

14 - Nice strategy, never thought of it. Also you can use the Guardian Golem in this fight.

15 - Yep, you need the Scholastic Cloak from Spellhold Library to trigger this quest.

16 - It's still interesting that you didn't mention the random golem encounter (containing Ice, 2 Greater Bone, 1 Elemental and several other golems) near one of the Spellhold portals. That for me and Irenicus' Asylum scouts were the hardest part of the Improved Asylum.
Mithril golem slays regular summons on hit, unless they are protected by Death Ward. Even those protected have 2 hits to live, since the golem dispels specific protections (Death ward included) on hit. Not sure if he dispels Hardiness, Wish for Hardiness could be an idea. Planetar is good too. In fact any summon who doesn't die right away is good. Prebuff Wish/Rest for getting two Noble Spiders is also good. Improved Haste on powerful summons also decent, PFMW is anyway dispelled by the Mithril golem on regular basis, but he doesn't dispel combat buffs. Same goes for Giant Strength, which is virtually undispellable. Limited wish for Minor Globe will help vs Mithril Golem's Slow ability/spell.

17 - I recall spellhold Irenicus being level 24 mage, you might just have Removed his buffs successfully without even noticing it. I think he gets to level 31 on the tree and later in Hell.

18 - Again, Ring of Invisibility gives you a free round to act before the Demonknights start showering you with their more dangerous spells and abilities. In battles like that, 1 round is the meaning between win and loss.

19 - As you found out already, WK is insanely tough for a soloer, and the Gauntlets of Extraordinary specialization can be received only after you beat the Ancient Dragon, which (before EDE) is probably the hardest fight for a soloer.

20 - keep PFMW running when the last Skeleton Lord is at near-death, use the Ring of Invisibility (or drink a potion), cast Alacrity, cast Fireshield Red. Just make sure he will die from one or two hits on the fireshield.

21 - You can get 100% magic resistance from RVE spell, which will help vs all their offensive spells, at least until they start lowering your resistance. However it probably won't help vs their fear ability.

22 - Again, good job for discovering that. With the Belt of Inertial Barrier you could get that PFME resistance up to 127%.

23 - The Twisted Rune is definitely doable with your character at this point, I may tell you that. The staff of the magi could help you enormously with further encounters. Unfortunately, even if you choose to turn Evil in hell trials, your character is not a human and thus still won't be able to use the staff (usable by evil human mages only).

24 - I am afraid this is the only way to win for a soloer, by wasting Barbarian essences in this fight.

25 - The most important thing I've found out vs Yaga is: keep Alacrity running until enemy spellcasters are slain. Mage lieutenants are vulnerable to Acid Arrows after you strip their protections and add a couple Lower Resistances (not sure how much is their resistance though, best check it). Cleric lieutenants have one Storm of Vengeance memorized, disrupt it with LMD or perish.

Edit:



Check the demilich's treasure pile again, some items sometimes appear in there with a bit of delay (2-3 rounds) after the Demilich dies. Using some summons would help you increase the damage vs the demilich, even if only for a second because of that nasty Death Fog that he will cast. If you have the time though the spider, djinni and skely lord are your best options.

Saladrex has some fixed important items: Robe of Fire Res, Staff of the Ram (naturally), Helmet of Defense. He could have the Defender of Easthaven or the Girdle of Fortitude, yet you already found the girdle. You can keep up some important buffs via Contingencies, which is probably the only spell you can cast. Not sure about spell triggers and sequencers, check those as well. Saladrex has to be defeated via normal weapons. As I recall, only divine magic works in his chamber, and the dragon's own magic naturally. I may even be wrong about the divine magic. But Contingencies work, soundly as ever. Critical strikes don't work vs him anymore since in v6 he actually wears the helmet of Defense.

Saladrex oddly cannot fit through his own archway, nor can he hit you through it (but you can hit him, even with 1H weapons). Very strange.

The key is to run him out of PFMW and Stoneskins, get the Dooms to wear off, then use Improved Haste and go for a final assault. Your primary concern is having him not Doom you during this, or you will start whiffing and the assault may last long enough for him to Lower Fire Resistace and Firebreath you.

Krell, a few notes on your notes. Lots of good info (especially about the Guardian Golem, I'd love to have him help me out against some other guys, that would be awesome.

This seems to trigger when "hit", even under PFMW. So it's not much use for Orcus since you can pre-cast in the prior room, and you're hit pretty much immediately in there.



No - this is what's annoying about these dragons. They will Greater Doom every 2 rounds until your save vs. breath is 8 or higher. And assuming they haven't used it in 2 rounds, the will do it IMMEDIATELY after you put it on to take the firebreath. Saladrex is basically a "silenced" fight, and I'd much rather trade the un-silencable ability of Amulet of Hades in favor of an un-doomable one.

I don't recall that, but it wouldn't have been difficult at that stage, assuming the other golems are vanilla or Coin/Gem. Ice Elemental will go down fast enough that I can use Chain Contingency and Spell Trigger to refresh buffs and keep swinging after the purges. And once he's gone, the rest of the fight will be under PFMW.



I think if he's higher level than me, I have a 0% chance to remove/dispel (rather than the spell definition's 40% chance or whatever). He behaved very strangely though. Just stayed hidden until a ton of golems were there, and then started casting some other stuff but didn't refresh Stoneskin or AI or anything like that.

Would be cool, but the Scholastic Cloak, which I like a lot, is only usable by Good necromancers too.



My concern is that I can't strip the fighter/mages protections fast enough, and kill them. I do not want them around continuing to dispel buffs while I am trying to kill the extremely hardy Elite Fire Giants.

Scholastic cloak isn't nearly as powerful as the Staff of the Magi. Anyway, pointless discussion here since your character will fail the race check for the SoTM.



Again, use Melf's Acid Arrows to kill the mage lieutenants fast. With reduced casting speed of 5, all your important spells should be cast instantly. You need nine RRoRs, all the Acid Arrows you can get (plus a minor sequencer) and probably three Lower Resistances (I think Mage lieutenants have some magic resistance but not very high, check again). Ignore the surrounding Fire Giants of any kind, just keep PFMW active, and if you're low on damaging spells, use Energy Blades + Hammer of Thor offhand + Critical Strikes to finish the last of the enemy mages/clerics. You can even create some openings to engage them in melee fast if you summon a large enough army in the upper right corner of the map. Until you start crossing the bridge, you can rest and repeat the process indifinitely until you have like 3 Skeleton Lords + 3 Noble Spiders + 3 Greater Djinnis for example. Since those are not under PFMW, enemies will not engage PC but the summons, giving you relatively free movement in order to reach and kill the Lieutenant Clerics and Mages. Once those are out of the picture, it's easy to win.

BTW, for immunity to silence, it's pretty easy to do with Near Infinity. Add an ability to a piece of equipment that's Immunity to Effect (101), TargetSelf(1), Power 0, Effect: Silence (38), Instant/While Equipped (2), No Dispel/Bypass Resistance (0), Probability 100, No Save.

In short, find the ability of the Amulet of Hades and just copy that. You could put it on anything - a helmet, a sword, etc.

It's even easier than that. Copy the whole amulet item file and rename it, flag the new item as usable by whatever kit you want and Clua it in.

Final Red Globe was challenging (Greater Elemental Golem and Ultra Golem). Their Purge Magic abilities are staggered to happen every 2 rounds. The GEG got one coin, one gem and one amber golem before perishing. The Ultra summoned 6 ambers. Getting rid of the amber golems was a challenge, I ended up using a couple of Absolute Immunity scrolls because most of my level 6 spell slots were for Improved Haste which kept getting dispelled (purged).

Maybe I will do Yaga Shura (and the rest of ToB) before Ancient Dragon. Was looking over his behaviors and he is a lot like Firkraag and Saladrex (greater doom, lower fire resistance), but I forgot his AC was so low. Something like -23. Before being Doomed (which will happen at least twice), my Thac0 will be around -18. Since he heals himself, I will need to have at least two sustained assaults. If I can't kill him, I guess I miss out on the Dragon halberd (wouldn't use it anyways) and the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization. The latter would be very disappointing, so we'll see if anything can be done.

In my current fight vs the Ice Golem in Spellhold Asylum, I tried to protect PC with Spell Immunity Evocation vs the Freezing Wind. Didn't work at all. Are you positive that SI:E in your install blocks Freezing Wind? If so, probably the changes you made also affected Freezing Wind or Spell Immunity in some way.

Yes, you are right, I used the console to create one and tested it and it doesn't seem to work. He is also casting Lower Cold Resistance, which I don't remember happening in the Sphere battle.

It's possible my cold resistance was high enough that it wasn't causing me much damage, or I was thinking the damage came from something else happening. From his script it looks like he probably only got one freezing wind fired in the time it took to kill him.

Ancient Dragon is very predictable. Powerful, but predictable.

I think I can ignore his RRoR entirely - he only has one casting of Remove Magic. Since he is under Dragon Alacrity, he casts in rapid succession. What is interesting though is that he will do the same thing over and over before moving onto the next thing. So if you get him to start Breaching you, you can run him out of Breaches by refreshing Stoneskin under your own Alacrity. Similarly, you can run him out of his 3 Stoneskins in quick succession by simply Breaching them as quickly as possible.

He also seems to get to Greater Doom very late in his procedures. However, because of his Alacrity, I cannot think of a way to really stall this out. He only casts Fear one time, so Dragonslayer doesn't have to be constantly wielded.

It is quite feasible to kill the Noble Efreet (Secret Word, Lower Resist x 2, Acid Arrows and Lightning Bolts) and the Salamander Prince (Acid Arrows, Critical Strikes) while under one's first Alacrity, and I even managed to run the dragon out of Stoneskins as well. That's a really good start I think.

The problem from there is I'm forced to choose between killing the Elite Nishruu (takes a LONG time with just one char) or trying to get the Ancient Wyrm to burn his one Heal before he starts Dooming me. In my initial run with the procedure above for Salamander/Prince, I chose to go for the dragon. I think this was a mistake. Will try again tomorrow to kill the Nishru first. I like the flexibility of being able to run around under Stoneskin for a long time, but the Nishru will strip your spells if you do this while he is alive.

You should really start burning PFMW scrolls in the Ancient Dragon fight. Or Absolute Immunities. Believe me, they are of little use later. Still, I don't know how you will escape the lower fire resistance + red dragon breath, which is actually the scariest thing when you're toe-to-toe with the dragon. Wing buffet + Red Dragon Breath is also very dangerous since you cannot react by equipping fire-resistance gear. The Elite Nishruu can be distracted successfully by a Greater Djinni under Farsight guidance (away from the real fight so that the dragon doesn't burn the djinni fast) but that will somewhat limit your PC's mobility. The Ancient Dragon also has one Regeneration casting and you really cannot harm him alone while he's regenerating. So you're looking at another turn at the mercy of the dragon. I consider this fight to be impossible to a soloer unless you burn several more Barbarian Essences (even so it will still be near impossible to win) or apply major cheese. Killing the elite nishruu will accomplish little unfortunately, so I wouldn't go for it.

By the way, you didn't mention your fight with the Dracolich in the Deepdark caves. I just beat him without any cheese, the silence naturally was most scary to me, seconded by the Greater Doom + Wail of the Dracolich combo. Had to use tons of powerful summons (even Greater Yuantis) and the dracolich really surprised me by shooting a Death spell long after I thought he exausted them all and slaying 3 Greater Yuantis with it. To you I suppose the real issue would have been the dracolich's high mage level and multiple PFMW. Or did you use another strategy rather than melee?

Is ancient dragon's breath any different than Firk or Saladrex? The biggest mistake I think people make (at least, I used to) is to cast fire protection spells in these fights. All that does is make him cast more Lower Fire Resistances, and eventually your buff will be removed or expire and you will be sitting at -128 Fire Resistance. He will cast Lower Fire Resistance if your resistance is >0, so my plan is to just sit as close to zero as I can. I begin at 20 (Hell Trials bonus), so he will subtract 50, and I can pop on a +25 Ring of Fire Control to get me to -5 where I will stay comfortably. If I can put on other stuff in response to his breath or fireballs, and take it off without him lowering fire resist, I will. If not, I will see what the breath does at -5 Fire Resistance and try to come up with a way to heal through it. I might save one of each fire protection spell for emergency if I think casting it will let me survive and kill him shortly thereafter.

I don't see any notes on Dracolich, but I remember it being a pretty easy battle. I think I used 9 Skeleton Warriors (plus 3 more in a Spell Trigger), and just let them beat away on him. I think he used up all of his PFMW's during that stage. If you aren't Doomed, I think you can hit and kill him pretty quickly right? I don't recall if he has a Heal or any other tricks like that, but I'd have to look at his script. I'm not sure what I did with level 9 spells in this one, but I didn't use Yuan-Ti's (I never use them). Possibly some Alacrity castings to keep protections up, maybe a Planetar or two, and the rest Absolute Immunity. I think switching protection rings on and off works well in this fight, to combat the wail.

Not sure if the Ancient Dragon's breath is actually more powerful than the other two. Don't know how to check it either. Probably not. But the dragon himself is far more resilient to damage compared to Firkraag, and won't get stuck in his archway like Saladrex. IA v6 Ancient Dragon has 100% resistance to all elemental types of damage (in v5 he was vulnerable to Cold and Electricity which made Poseidon's Wrath and Hammer of Thor the bane of him). He is also immune to critical strikes in addition to his very low AC. His regeneration spell will be a problem as well. Also, if you ever get that far, do not forget about his Chain Contingency loaded with triple ADHW set to trigger at Near-Death (25% health) and use Poseidon's wrath against it.

Strange that switching rings on and off vs the Dracolich helped you save vs the Wail. As I remember, the Wail is cast in a blink (casting time 1, no more) and affects everyone on the battlefield (even out of Dracolich's sight) with a -5 penalty save vs death or die. So you probably did switch rings, but that was not the reason why you lived through that - most probably you simply had some small luck with the saves. Otherwise yes, Skeleton Warriors are best vs the Dracolich, but they cannot kill it alone. The Dracolich regenerates somewhat, but has no other healing tricks whatsoever.

Greater Yuantis are the most powerful summon coming right after the Skeleton Lord and Greater Djinni. Definitely more powerful than a Planetar, although susceptible to Death spell. You should consider deploying them. Although more often Elite Trolls are the optimal choice because 3 of those fit into a Chain Contingency.

Before I forgot, and if you didn't already found it yourself - Fire Elementals and Salamander Nobles may look like an excellent summon against the Ancient Dragon because of their innate 100% fire resistance. Don't summon them. They immediately bow to the Ancient Dragon (turn hostile).

Another idea vs the Ancient Dragon is summoning some Golem help. That would be the Limited Wish option for "more experience". You can get a powerful Adamantite Golem ally out of that, not sure if it's resistant to fire though, should be. Other golems are of less use. If you still carry some Mind Control circlets from the Mindflayer area in Underdark, you can put one around the neck of the Adamantite golem. The effect cannot be dispelled by any means and will last for full 6 hours. Not sure that even an Adamantite golem would make some difference, but at least that cannot be Death Spelled or Breathed or killed with another spell easily, and if you back it with a Planetar's Heal, might live a long time.

Actually I can check this tonight. I think it calls the same spell, so unless it's checking for character level or something, I expect it is the same.



I don't think the Skeleton Warriors did any meaningful damage, but they did get him to burn PFMWs I think. I actually don't remember getting Doomed by him at all... it's pretty debilitating and the single most unexpected annoying thing I've come upon in the run, so I'm sure I would have complained about it if it was problematic. I may have stayed out of his sight while he was on the Skeletons, in which case he might not have cast either it or the Wail. There is some delay on how often these guys can generally Doom characters, so he might have gone down fast enough when it was just me and him that he didn't live long enough to get enough Dooms to kill me.



I end up most often using a couple of L9 slots for Alacrity, and the rest for Absolute Immunity. At this point, I have enough scrolls that I could try those guys, but even at their power level they seem to get smoked pretty quickly by stuff I'd want their help with.



That is awesome. Never tried it, but good to know. What about Imix?



Very clever idea, especially with Planetar heal. Will try it if I get desperate. EDIT: does that summon a Clay Golem? They're 100% immune to non-crushing melee. And perhaps fire too. They may well be totally immune to the Ancient Dragon.

I just beat my Green Dragon fair and square. I doubt you had any big problems against him, however Silence combined with multiple Greater Dooms is always bad. Still, there are two excellent summons which are immune to Poison at that state - the Greater Djinni and the Noble Spider. Practically a stalemate with those two. Immunity to Silence would help a lot here, I'd gladly trade 30 levels for that. Because under Silence I cannot activate my Critical Strikes and have to hit with an awful THAC0 after being doomed twice.



The Dracolich does indeed Doom, but if you press him hard, he won't have the time to. Probably that's your case. Usually stops after dooming once, I guess he aims for Save vs death above zero.



Never tried him. I don't like playing druids. I suppose you can use those minor-turned-hostile summons like fire elementals to block the wyrm's way and force him to stay away from PC. Still you'll need quite a lot of time to summon them and you will need the staff of fire to do it.



Clay golems have never been immune to fire. Even Sikret's modded Clay golems are vulnerable to fire. I've blasted tons of those in previous runs via Sunfire spells (especially in the Supreme Leader battle). So the golem will be fried. The Limited Wish spell summons a Sand and Juggernaut golem as I remember, one of them is immune to all melee damage except crushing, but I think it's also not immune to fire. I suppose you can cast Protection from Fire on a golem, but I cannot promise you that the dragon won't dispel it. Don't forget also that these golems are not as *intelligent* as Sikret's improved summons and will just stay in place if unsupervised, use multiple Farsight spells to find Wing Buffeted golems or place them in a position where the buffet won't blow them halfscreen away.

Ancient Dragon is the second hardest battle in IA,here is some information I know:
SPOILER!

It looks like his Heal doesn't care about spell timers, so I don't think you can try to get him low on life and finish him off with magic without it kicking in. Maybe I don't know enough about how these scripts work though.

So 32D10 comes out to an average breath of 185 (at -5 Fire Resist) if you don't save. On the plus side, rolling 32 dice makes the total VERY consistent, so it should be very similar every time.

He only casts Lower Fire Resistance every 5 or 6 rounds (5 rounds while he is casting Improved Fireballs, 6 rounds when he's just doing his breaths). So maybe in fact you can buy yourself quite a bit of time with the fire resistance spells.

I am thinking I will try to nearly insta-kill the Noble Efreet and Salamander Prince, then get him to waste all of his Breaches on Stoneskins and see if I can remove all of his Stoneskins and PFMWs with my Breaches under Alacrity. If I can make it that far, perhaps I will begin using up my Fire protection spells, while using AI or PFMW to ignore the Nishru. Indeed in a best case scenario, it takes about 5 rounds to kill the Nishru with Jhor main hand and Phosphorus offhand.

Procedure so far:

1) Stoneskin, rest, Foreknowledge, unequip Ring of Gaxx (don't want the MR, want to avoid Lower Resistance at first), head downstairs.
2) Just out of his vision, Improved Alacrity
3) step forward, he banters, wait for a half second while he summons his friends
4) PFMW, Improved Haste
5) Spell Trigger (Secret Word, Lower Resist, Lower Resist) on Noble Efreeti. Lower Resist x 2 on Salamander Prince.
6) 7 Lightning Bolts, Minor Sequencer Acid Arrow x 2, Acid Arrow x 4 on Noble Efreeti
7) Acid Arrow x 5 on Salamander, Critical Strike, Attack Salamander and kill him in a couple of hits
8) Spellstrike on Ancient Dragon, Breach
9) ???

At step 9, I tried running around for a while and casting Stoneskin and letting him Breach them. He gets the occasional swing in, Lower Fire Resistance, Improved Fireball, which I can protect myself from by equipping stuff. He hits me with a Malaison sequencer (great, because it worsens my saves without harming Thac0... under one Doom and one Malaison, I can have Thaco -9). Eventually he whittles me down enough to get a Wing Buffet on me and get the kill when I have a PFMW active and am about to cast Improved Haste and start hitting him.

Of course you can kill Ancient Dragon before he cast Heal,I tried several times in my previous run.Most damage spells are insta-cast,sometimes he will use regeneration first,which will take a few seconds to cast.It requires good timing,need several reloads to make it.
On the other hand,If you don`t kill Nishruu first,you can`t use magic to hurt him,nor can you stop him using Heal(physical damage output is too slow) and regeneration.

@ chaser - I didn't know that the Dragon's elemental and magical damage resistances are affected by the Nishruu's death, very useful info. Makes sense now, since in v5 I always killed the Nishruu first.

@ blastermaster - it seems your main issue comes from Unconsciousness, against which your character has no protection. You could tweak Chaotic Commands scrolls dropped by Skeleton Lords and other enemies to be usable by everyone and protect your character with those.

In all cases, I doubt the dragon can be defeated with elemental or magical damage by just one char. He has a lot of hit points and 75% resistances are still too much. But at least the Nishruu's death will leave him open to Hammer of Thor or Poseidon's wrath elemental attacks.

A Planetar is immune to fire, might be a good distraction vs the dragon for a couple of turns while PC kills the Elite Nishruu.

I don't see how I can kill him with magic all at once. This assumes he makes all of his saves, but...

9 Magic Missile @ 15 = 135
12 Acid Arrow @ 17 = 204
12 Lightning Bolt @ 17 = 204
4 Cone of Cold @ 35 = 140
7 Chain Lightning @ 18 = 126
10 Finger of Death @ 11 = 110
7 AD Horrid Wilting @ 40 = 280

Total: 1,200 damage

I need to do 1,440 to kill him since he has 360 HP and 75% resistance to all of these spells. Maybe if I draw him up to the stairs of his room and get some crazy lightning bolt reverberation? Also I'd probably end up using most of the Acid Arrows against the Noble Efreet so they would not be available.

Do you assume a Wish/RVE rest in the middle of this?

First of all, I'm not positive but the dragon may be immune to 1st and maybe 2nd level spells, check this.

Second, FoD or ADHW cannot be cast very fast unless you have a good RVE luck with multiple Mental Agilities.

Naturally, you can have all of the Acid arrows you want in the mid-fight, use the Limited Wish option to regain lost spells.

Prebuff (out of the Dragon's lair), rearranging your spellbook + casting multiple wishes to get rest can be done indefinitely and allows you to have even more offensive spells pecombat.

Don't forget you can have more than 12 spell slots in a single level, although they won't be shown in the spellbook. Use Dak'kon Zerth blade and the ring of Acuity.

Ice storms have some small initial damage, naturally you cannot wait for their full effect for 4 rounds, but at least they will still add some.

As for Wish/RVE in the middle of the fight, I guess it might work, but I really don't like strategies which depend on getting lucky with a spell.

Maybe there is something wrong with my expression,I mean:physical attack him first,when his HP drop to 150 or below,use magic to finish him…

If a solo character could start seriously harming the Ancient Dragon with physical damage alone, there would be no need of resorting to spells at all. Regeneration will wane, Armors of Faith will be Breached, Stoneskins and PFMW will be breached. The problem is the Wing Buffet + Red Dragon breath and Lower Fire Res + Red Dragon Breath combo, against which protection for a F/N is impossible. You may think that the Lower Fire Res + Red Dragon Breath can be avoided via equipping and unequipping fire-resistance gear, yet it's not so simple since the dragon first breathes fire (or unleashes Improved Fireball) and then if a character puts on fire-resistant gear, the dragon activates Lower Fire resistance. And several Lower Fire Resistances stacked will prevent a character from reaching decent fire-res values even with the ultimate fire-resistance gear at their disposal.

It is indeed a big problem.The only way I can think of is to use RVE regenation and regeneration oil(the blue one and the green one,maybe regeneration of the blue one can be stacked,didn't test yet) to recover your character between each dragon breath combo.I don't know if the recovery rate can catch up the damage rate,it is hard to estimate.Using fire resistance equipments or items will work for a moment,but can't last long.Anyway,I can only offer a general guideline,how to survive as long as possible and how to defeat ancient dragon ASAP depend on blastermaster's trial.

Ah, I didn't know that was your intent.

That seems possible, but Krell expresses my concern with it.

However, from 90 HP is when he begins to have the possibility of using his Heal. So it may make sense to try to get him down to 90 HP and then try to finish him with Magic since you can do that 90 damage much faster than with a weapon (where you are almost guaranteed to be so slow that he Heals).

Oil of Resurgence gets you 60 HP per bottle (6hp per round for 10 rounds). So if you drink one every single round after you've exhausted him of Firestorm and Improved Fireball, and he's only doing his Red Dragon Breath, that approximately lines up with the 185 damage I'd expect on average every 3 rounds from his fire breath. However you would be taking significant melee damage from his claws during this time because you cannot cast PFMW if you are using an oil every single round.

Indeed,you can only stack 1 or 2 potions of resurgence oil in the beginning.When the fight start,there is no time to drink them.How long does RVE single regeneration last?The Planetar can heal you 6 times,don't know if he could help.

RVE regeneration either lasts 10 rounds ("Regeneration on my Party") or 20 rounds ("Long Lasting Regeneration for Me Only"). So the first one is the equivalent of one oil of resurgence, while the long-lasting is equivalent to two of them (without wasting an action the second time).

I have managed to kill the followers, including the Nishruu, a few times. One of the key points is to NOT resist a Greater Malaison, which saves you from a second Doom, making your Thac0 insufficient to kill the Nishruu in reasonable time.

No one has mentioned, but the dragon has 7 castings of greater command, which are all problematic. Most of the time, I can equip +10 to my saves in rings and cloak in response, but you have to be quick on and off or else you get doomed again.

What really helps in this process is the Chain Contingency (50% health) popping up. This pulls up some spell protections for me, and the ancient dragon wastes a lot of time dispelling them.

Nishru can be dispatched by distracting the dragon offscreen with summons for him to kill. (Planetar doesn't last long, requires much more than just him). Must be under PFMW (not AI), or Nishruu will head for the summons too. 6 rounds or so, to kill the Nishru. Good time to refresh buffs if needed.

Beginning is not problematic - Fire Resistance is still pretty good when putting on rings and equipment. But slowly, you make mistakes and the Ancient Dragon continues to Lower your resistance. In general, I drink an Oil of Resurgence at pretty much every free opportunity though.

I can pretty consistently kill the summons, including the Nishruu, and get the dragon to utilize his Cure Critical Wounds and Regeneration. Which means I think from that point he only has his Heal left. At this stage he has used up all of his Stoneskins, most of his PFMW and Greater Commands. What I really want is for his initial Lower Fire Resistances to begin to expire, since I now have so much less to deal with that I can take a Breath without putting on too much stuff and risking more Lower Fire Resistance castings. However they seem to have a very long duration.

I have a mid-battle save at this point to help me test this (hopefully final) portion of the battle. Just need a bunch of repetitions to figure out his tendencies and then work into the overall gameplan. But I am optimistic! At this stage I could almost certainly just drink 5 Barbarian Essence potions and let my Stoneskin expire, and this would heal me up after every breath and I'd eventually kill him I think. So it's just a matter of figuring out a way to do it while saving them.

Also, there are a couple of places in this area in which you're not able to be reached by wing buffet or red dragon breath. I am not sure if you can move yourself there, but you can be buffeted into one of those spots. I don't think you can even be hit by the dragon's melee in one of them. I am not sure if you can get there by moving your character, but I've been buffeted into at least two different ones so far.

Figured it out the end (probably the easiest part, in hindsight), put it all together, GOT HIM.

Total recap:

0) Oil of Resurgence in every round you're not doing anything else
1) go down stairs with Foreknowledge, cast Alacrity just beyond his sight, step forward
2) debuff dragon and noble efreet, cast spells on efreet to kill him, PFMW to protect from Nishru
3) Critical strike to quickly kill salamander. Use remaining alacrity to refresh Stoneskin and Breach to run dragon out of Stoneskin and his own Breach
4) Refresh Improved Haste if needed. Run around for a bit, alternating between nothing, your fire protection gear, and rings/cloaks of protection, depending on whether dragon throws spells, fire, or something else at you.
5) When dragon is out of Breaches, summon Noble Djinni and manually tell him to PFMW right after his initial spells trigger. Nishruu follows you, Djinni attacks dragon. Go well away from dragon and your djinn, cast PFMW when able. Cast Planetar and send him after dragon's direction. Refresh PFMW when needed, and Nishruu should be dead just as dragon kills the summons.
6) Summon Joolon, Berserker, Noble Spider, etc., to give yourself time to refresh health, stoneskins, etc. Go on the offensive (Jhor main-hand, Crom offhand). Unfortunately he had one PFMW left so I had to waste a round with a Breach scroll. When he is offscreen fighting Noble Spider, cast Improved Alacrity. Pro:Fire, Fireshield:Red, Protection from Elements. Get your fire resist way up there.
7) Potion of Power!!! for something like 2 better Thac0
8) Start hitting him, over and over. Refresh Stoneskin every 2 rounds or so. In between, another Fire protection if needed (potion, protection from energy should be left), but mostly using Critical Strike after you get him to Injured. Breath does very little at this point and he is only using Lower Fire Resistance every 5 or 6 rounds. But you're backed into a corner so his buffet doesn't make you get too far. Have auto-attack enabled so you swing the moment you regain consciousness.
9) He Heals. Was a bit delayed - with a well-timed Alacrity, I might have been able to cast him dead if I knew the precise moment to start it.
10) Keep attacking. Shrugging off fire breath every 3 rounds. Run out of Stoneskins, resort to PFMW/AI scrolls (actually frees you up more, lasts longer than Stoneskin). Critical Strike basically every other round, with a physical or fire defense in between.

I had 0 Critical Strikes left at the end, though my one Smite was available. Jhor probably had 20-30 damage left to do as well, which would have outpaced his regeneration. Crom may have been better in the main hand, especially with its huge electrical damage, but I totally forgot. I love Jhor though... nice to have damage still ticking in even if you're pausing to do something else, cast, etc. Improves morale :-)

Nice, I really thought you wouldn't be able to do it. Congrats. Still, you have 2 more tough battles to win, Yaga-shura and EDE.

BTW I am surprised that the Death of a Thousand Cuts does so much bleeding damage in your run. In v6 it's tweaked to allow save vs death at -4. And enemies almost always save. Especially enemies like the Ancient Dragon and the Elite Nishruu.

Actually the optimal weapon against the dragon (once the Nishruu's down) might well be Poseidon's Wrath halberd because of the great elemental damage that hits often enough. But without GWW attacks it's no good.

I will also try to find a more fair tactic vs the Ancient Dragon rather than spamming Greater Djinnis. The big problem in my run is his seven Greater Silence abilities and his double-damaging breath (I'm looking at 32d10 even with a save made). At least my character can use the Chaotic Command scrolls assembled so far and be immune to unconsciousness, if I time those well enough.

practice is the sole criterion for testing truth~It seems using oil of resurgence+PFMW or stoneskin+some fire resistance items every few rounds can keep your character saftey,I learned a lot.Good job,blastermaster!

Krell,you really should make your character immune to silence so that you can fight at the frontline…It is more funny and more fair IMO.

Looks like the dragon has a Death Save of 2. With the -4 penalty, he will save 15 times out of 20. 75% times 5 rounds in which it's rolled means 1.25 bleeds per Jhor hit. What was really key was that it was doing 2 damage, rather than the 1 it usually does (against Nishruu and others). I have no idea how rounding works but this was obviously helpful. So 2 damage times 1.25 equals an average of 2.5 bleeding damage per hit. I think the initial hit was around 9 damage, so we're talking a pretty massive bonus. I suspect Crom would have been more like 10 per hit in base damage. 10% chance of 85 damage (on average), reduced by 75%, results in 21 damage, 10% of the time. So 2.1 electrical damage per hit. So it's basically all the same I think.

Poseidon's Wrath is actually a bit worse. 30% chance of 30 damage is an average of 9 damage. Dragon has 75% magic damage resistance too, so basically ~2 damage per hit on this one as well. But less hits than a 1H weapon.

Chaser, there is a LOT of ring and cloak swapping too. If you forget to take off the Cloak of the Old Ones immediately after making a save, for example, it's over. You will be Doomed and by then your Thac0 will be in the positive numbers. You really need a Thac0 that can hit the dragon in those rounds in which you're refreshing buffs and don't have a critical strike active (Potion of Power and its measly Thac0 boost was actually very helpful in this regard).

If I make a 40/40/40 lvl F/M/T immune to silence, it would be the same as spamming Greater Djinnies, I suppose.

@ blastermaster - I see your point, I may as well upgrade Jhor myself, after all it only costs money late-game (in ToB there are enough +3 bastard swords).

Back to my own game. Now I know we follow the guidelines here, but I just defeated Firkraag fair and square several times (no unlimited Greater Djinnies or the likes) and wanted to share that in hopes that blastermaster can find a way to refine his own victory vs Firkraag. Here's how mine went:

Summon 4 Noble Salamanders, followed by a Noble Spider and Greater Djinni (for maximum lasting of the latter two). Cast Farsight on the spot where the dragon stands. Send only Djinni, spider and one Salamander to attack from different sides. Other summons to the entrance. Talk to Firkraag. Retreat fast with PC. Cast Remove Magic from out of the dragon's sight once he casts Improved Haste (he starts with Death spell on Salamander Noble), sending the second Salamander to the fight in the meantime. Continue Removing enemy PFMW, sending the rest of the Salamanders one by one after old ones are Death Spelled. Your F/N cannot remove enemy buffs that easy I suppose, but you can do ninja breaches with the help of refreshable Spell Triggers for instacasting to avoid Greater Dooming or other nasty stuff prematurely. All in all, the dragon should waste his first Heal spell and his contingencied Stoneskin + one more and be at Injured before PC should enter his field of vision permanently. My F/M/T hid under SI:Div and illusion buffs plus ProFire, ProEnergy, ProElements and Fireshield:Red, but that was because I have no way to refresh spell protections which Firkraag would strip with his Ruby Rays. For your F/N, Alacrity with enough Spell Turnings will take care of the dragon's ruby rays, then he's an easy prey. However, adding a potion of invisibility to the prebuff is still a good idea. Since the dragon is actually hard pressed, he doesn't have the luxury to start Lowering Fire Resistance, but he did doom my char twice. After that it's pure beating and refreshing PFMW, even with a base THAC0 of 10 (helm, gauntlets) with the help of Crom Faeyr PC can hit often enough. The dragon does activate two more Stoneskins after each subsequent wave of Skeleton Lords, but those can be easily Breached. I used Contingencies with my last 2 remaining Remove Magicks. Contingency on "character hit" also helped me keep PFMW up. Actually memorizing more Contingencies or even using Chain Contingency as last resort can help unleash several important spells in a blink (PFMW and Breach for example). Also, when buffeted by the dragon (at the time each new wave of Skeleton Warlords is summoned) is actually a very good time to refresh Alacrity since PC doesn't go unconscious.

Adding a Planetar to the summons is good, but Planetar is fragile. Moreover, Firkraag casts Lower Fire Resistance on fire-immune or fire-resistant summons like the Greater Djinni, Salamander Nobles or Planetar.

Tried improving THAC0 (while being doomed twice) via Tenser's Transformation. Didn't work. Also tried if the dragon would Silence PC with Tenser's active. Yeah, the dragon did.

Edited: Lady Vanya does not appear in the Paladin Stronghold on schedule, despite my character being True Neutral and with 20 reputation. Another anti-solo measure perhaps. So I won't be able to forge the Talisman of Greater Protection nor Death of a thousand Cuts +4.

The relationship between damage and resistance follow the "ceil" rule.For example:If your character can deal 40 damage with weapon,when facing a 90% physical resistance enemy,the result is 4.Howevee,if you can deal 41 damage,after 90% reduction,the result is 5.I often use this rule to arrange my party's weapon proficiency,maxmize their damage output.

Ah makes sense, so basically they round up to the nearest whole number.

The rest of WK didn't last long, I opened up the portal to Demogorgon and just left him there.

So now it's Yaga Shura time.

Initial impressions: boy does time fly by between rounds of Yaga's support. Supposedly it's 3 rounds between their spawning but sure feels like less. Clerics always spawn half a screen away from me, so there goes most of the first round just moving to them to dispatch them. I cannot effectively kill the F/M in the same round as the cleric, so for now my plan is to focus on the cleric because Storm of Vengeance just ruins all other intentions.

Haven't tried summons yet, but they may help distract, especially if the Fire Giants knock them around and then go chase them.

Biggest issue at the moment is that there's really no way to avoid being surrounded by the enemies, so you are quickly penned in. If the Fighter/Mages are alive when this happens (and I have no idea how they wouldn't be), you're a sitting duck. They get 3 Ruby Rays each, and 5 Breach. I am not sure whether I should try to run them out of Ruby Rays, or save the 9 spell slots and just try to run them out of breaches on things like Stoneskin (which are no protection vs. Fire Giants anyways).

Do Yaga's followers need to die before he can be harmed?

I don't know at what level your F/N casts RVE, because if he does that just like a true Necromancer, you should be given the option of 100% magic resistance, which lasts for some time. That is your protection against Storm of Vengeance.

You cannot deplete 15 enemy RRR with just spell turnings. I think you should go offensive vs the F/M and slaughter at least two by RRR + Breach + multiple Acid Arrows. Minute Meteors are your alternative as fnishing off the last F/M. Of course, equip Hammer of Thor in the offhand. So being surrounded by enemies is not that bad. Just keep up PFMW, SI:A and GoI, and disrupt Storms of Vengeance via LMD. Keep up Alacrity the whole time, you need all your 9th level slots to be Alacrities.

Summoning Djinnis and other powerful stuff pre-combat in the upper right corner (use wish-rest or RVE-rest for multiples) will help you move freely and thus slaughter enemy mages in melee. In this case the enemies won't surround PC (who is under PFMW) but will chase unprotected summons instead.

I don't think you have to kill any of Yaga's lieutenants to be able to kill him. He has only one Hardiness and is exceptionally vulnerable to electrical and cold elemental damage. However he is quite resistant to physical damage, and under Hardiness he's immune.

Basically here is an idea for the start of the fight:

No summons, no Spell Immunity on self, MR 100% from RVE (if possible), enter Yaga camp, harm him with a hit. Immediately after his dialogue quaff an Invisibility potion.

Cast Alacrity, Yaga should appear by the end of it. Actually not sure if you have to cross a certain point for Yaga to appear, testt a bit, find what triggers his appearance.

First wave of Lieutenants arrive, PC under Alacrity, cast LMD on self when enemies start chanting their spells, triggering some buffs with a Chain Contingency which include PFMW Foreknowledge. You need Foreknowledge at maximum duration.

Target the mage lieutenant with triple RRR, Breach and shower him with Acid Arrows, Magic missiles (or Chromatic orbs, whichever does more damage, I don't remember), disrupt cleric's Storm of Vengeance with a LMD spell (memorize several of these, no less than 4), cast SI:A against enemy incoming Breach thus wasting his round effectively, refresh alacrity, quaff Invisibility potion, wait for the second wave. Rinse, repeat.

Third wave - debuff the enemy f/m using your last RRR and another Breach, this time be ready with a second Breach, also Melf's Meteors or (if you can spare a slot) Energy Blades, move Hammer of Thor to offhand prior to casting, target the f/m with the energy blades.

With the three F/M down this fight should be very easy. A word of advice - after Yaga dies, and after the cutscene, your character will return to the camp. The Elite Fire Giants will be waiting for you, and you will also appear in their midst with no buffs. Be at the ready with a PFMW spell, don't waste all of these (use scrolls, but don't waste the last PFMW). You have to kill the 5 elite fire giants after Yaga's death.

Edited.

I've seen the 100% magic resistance option (though rarely). I didn't know that works.

I could ride out the Ruby Rays with both Spell Turning and GOI, but wouldn't have any RROR slots left. Killing the F/M with magic seems like a good idea if I can manage it. I just get quickly swarmed, so I'd really have to have a lot of summons at that point, and would have to keep them alive until that point.

My worry, even if I manage to kill the F/M or exhaust them of spells, is that the minor soldiers just spawn constantly, and may block my path to Yaga Shura. We'll see I guess.

Do I have to kill the fire giants when I'm sent back? My plan might just be to PFMW and get out of there. By the way, you can also leave the area mid-battle as well. When you come back, the enemies you left there are waiting for you but the ones you killed remain dead.

Sikret set a trap here:
SPOILER!


The only threat in both this battle and oasis battle is there mages,others can't hurt you because of PFMW,so they should be killed first.They are not immune to Imprisonment and Time Stop(only Yaga immune TS),nor do they immune to Smite,so you know what to do…

Magic resistance stops Storm of Vengeance.

Focus on the mages in order not to get quickly swarmed. Keeping Alacrity running the whole time up to the point when you kill the last F/M will help you react fast to any threat.

If you worry so much about anyone blocking your path, just cast PFMW and summon something a bit farther away from PC. Almost all enemies (except vanilla soldiers armed with normal weapons) will head to the summon. Another option is Teleport Field.

No, you don't have to kill the fire giants when you get back, but you do wanna loot the battlefield, right? That won't happen with the 5 giants on your tail. Plus they also carry gold. The most dangerous thing however is not dying to their attack before being able to react with PFMW. That's why I said a scroll just ain't good since it requires time to kick in. A PFMW memorized or one in a Trigger will however do just fine.

BTW I didn't know you can leave the area mid-battle. Probably it's worth killing a mage, running away and returning later with a full spellbook.

Imprisonment was brilliant. Got the first two of those Fighter-Mages out of the way. Smite and one Comet got me some mobility, but I goofed and hit the second cleric with it. Had to follow him into the NW corner of the map. Third cleric spawned right next to him and was able to get Storm of Vengeance off. But at this point, I was hemmed in by soldiers and assassins, which actually insulated me from the fire giants. So I was able to get the F/M to run out of Breaches on Stoneskins. He did surprise me with a Comet though :-) After that, it was just a matter of killing the (non-endless!) waves of soldiers, then the fire giants, then Yaga Shura. Wasted a ton of scrolls on this, but having saved Barbarian Essence potions for EDE makes it seem worthwhile.

Spent a few rounds hitting Yaga with Crom, forgot he was more resistant to crushing. Jhor worked well as usual, and actually helped a ton when I was burning scrolls because most 1 damage "bleeding" would cause him to pause as he pursued me. This gave me a bit of breathing room to cast the scroll without being hit by him, which is super helpful because best case it wastes a full round, worst case he traps you.

I ended up making a ton of mistakes, but in fact the most crucial part to be mistake-free was the very beginning. Having your first PFMW (after Yaga disappears) expire in the middle of your first Alacrity was the entire key. I tried this battle maybe 9 times before I figured out how to time that right (they were over quickly when I got it wrong).

Does Sendai have some kind of Thac0-lowering ability? I was whiffing a ton on her and noticed my Thac0 was at -4 at some point (it's usually around -15 or so).

Regardless, she's done and it's just the dragons and then EDE.

I finally caught up with your run, currently at the Abazigal's lair.

Draconis cannot be defeated by a solo character in fair melee. However, once he transforms:

Spellstrike (Draconis often gives the unremovable spell shield bug while in Dragon form)
3*Lower Resistance
Greater Malison
18*Flame Arrow (plus one from the djinni)
11*Magic Missile
and eventually 7 ADHW spells but usually it doesn't come to that.

Draconis is immune to Remove Magic. Any attempt to waste all of his combat protections while in human form fails miserably, he saves a couple PFMW and a lot of stoneskins for the dragon form. Even saves his trigger.

Agannazer's scorcher unfortunately cannot be stacked under Alacrity, and Draconis is naturally immune to cold, lightning and acid. Respectivelly he has no fire offensive spells. Haven't seen cold or electrical spells as well.

The best weapons vs Draconis are Angurvadal +5 and Foebane +5.

Potion of Invisibility quaffed in the beginning of the fight and quickly running away and casting Alacrity helps erect initial buffs. Include Spell Turning in contingencied spells or perish to Larloch's interrupter when Draconis catches up with you.

Hopefully that helps you blastermaster.

BTW I had some trouble with the *simple* battle vs Gromnir. Had to test it several times before it worked. Did you have any problems with multiple RRoR from Karun the Black under alacrity?

As for the Oasis and the Yaga-shura fights, very easy from my perspective (then again my char is a lot different), however here are several insights of my own that could help you refine strategies if you want to:

Battlemages/Elite Bodyguards vulnerable to Flame Arrow as well. Low magic resistance, one Lower Resist is enough.

Summoning something cheap (Spider Spawn) under Alacrity and PFMW a bit further from the surrounded PC has an amazing effect of all enemies switching to the unprotected target thus leaving PC to roam freely and hopefully reach the next enemy mage.After all, even Imprisonment has to make contact.

Best weapon vs Yaga - Poseidon's Wrath, can be done even without Greater Whirlwind attacks by simply switching form to Spider via the Polymorph self spell and using a Shocking Grasp (minor sequencer, spell scroll) afterwards to get rid of the spidery claws. A potion of Fire Giant str (+Girdle of Lordly Might) fixes the str issue and once there are no mages around, the spider form is immune to all attacks as long as PC continues using PFMW scrolls. A trigger can be used to refresh Improved Haste + PFMW as well whenever needed. 9 APR with Poseidon's wrath at 25 str on a regular basis - scarier than Hammer of Thor IMO.

Best tactic vs Tombelten (in order to save some PFMW scrolls) - kill everyone around him first with Criticals, then do the hit-and-run tactic - hit Tombelten until he erects a Hardiness then run around until it wanes. Standing bravely face to face with him will cost probably 5 or 6 more PFMW scrolls.

Illasera immune to Breach, seems to have forgotten that, her protections has to be waited out, killing Skeleton Grandlords in the meantime. Illasera has no Breach scrolls so no need to keep up SI:A after her casters die.

Bah, wrote out a long response but it didn't submit right.

What do you mean Draconis can't be killed fairly? I was planning to do magic on his dragon form, glad that seems to work.

For Gromnir, I forget if I killed the 3 warriors near the stairs, or the other mage (not Karun) first. I switched back and forth in a couple of tests. I don't think I tried to keep spell protections up against Karun. I remember his alacrity being more oriented towards offensive spells (he was raining ADHW on me I think). I am finding with most mages, if there's just one or two of them then I will let them run out of Breaches on my Stoneskins (9 in level 4 spell slots, and usually a 10th in Spell Sequencer) and then start using PFMW. It just seems easier than trying to make them run out of Ruby Rays AND remembering about when my SI:Abjuration will expire so that I can refresh it immediately. The one exception to this has been Odamaron, who casts Imprisonment. Since I have no defense against that, I need to run him out of RRoR, and I actually re-cast SI:Abjuration before the prior one expires, just to make sure I have no gap in coverage.

Well, I mean, you cannot slaughter Draconis in melee, you have to use magic at his dragon form.

Just beat his father five times in a row. Tactic is sound, more or less the same. Azi is running PFME, has to be Breached first in order for Magic Missiles and ADHW spells to work. I guess you won't have trouble, being able to memorize several Comets. There is an interruption sequence after Azi transforms, wait for the message "combat and spell protections dispelled" then cast Alacrity. Beware, a Salamander Prince will teleport next to you. Still, your win should be much easier than mine because I had to time everything precisely in order not to be Silenced. Don't load Spell Triger with Lower resistance, cast those manually, you need every Flame Arrow you can muster. I went with Wondrous Gloves, Dak'Kon zerth blade (which worsened my combat skills vs Az's human form) and the Ring of Acuity.

Acid Arrows work against Azi, yet he has a bit more hp than his son.

I suspect you will have more problems vs Azi's human form, he's a coward just like Odamaron and Karun.

Draconis went as planned. Interestingly, the first time I went with just Spellstrike, he cast Spell Turning amidst my Lower Resistances and Greater Malaisons. And then NONE of my fire arrows or magic missiles made it through (I'd have expected some of them to get through after the Spell Turning ran out of spell levels to reflect). The next time, I did Spellstrike and a handful of Ruby Rays (I had two RVEs giving me Mental Agility), and no such issues. 16 Flame Arrows and maybe the first 5 Magic Missiles did the job in its entirety.

Difficulty mods for this game need some way to see what buffs and spells are active on enemies, like if you hovered over them or something. You're suppose to scroll up and follow some kind of logic chain but half the spell protections don't work like they're supposed to. Bleh.

No issues with Abazigal. Took every single Flame Arrow (16), Acid Arrow (11) and Magic Missile (9) and he died on the last one. Though he was about to start getting ADHW to the face if that didn't do it.