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[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 6, Part 3:

We go to the Underdark exit, kill the elven General there (no penalty whatsoever). However, after killing the nearby elven war sage, there appear constantly respawning War Sages near PC which have scripted death after giving their speech. Well then we won't allow them to speak! B-M has seven Power Word Silence spells memorized, three in CC (trigger on hit), three in Spell Trigger. That means we can silence the elven war sages nine times. Tried to Wish for Rest in order to refresh PW:Silence, didn't work. Oh well. Killed the remaining elves (4 fighters and 1 mage), then started killing War Sages (8000 xp each), naturally slew 8 (0-time casting PW:Silence, wait a round for B-M's aura to cleanse, chop sage to bits, rinse, repeat). Silenced the ninth, now this area is off-limits (scripted death if that War Sage talks to PC).

About 25 000 xp per party member, so it's definitely worth it, and there is no risk once we know how to evade that scripted death.

Saros gained mage level 24, putting fifth star in Quarterstaves, and picking Comet as HLA.

Torham gained clerical level 30, picking another Alchemy as HLA (no other available except Scribe Scrolls).

Back to the city, will fight mr Kangaxx now.

Video for the fight here.

At present levels, he's more than easy. He still has a chance to dispel the Death Ward though (I think demilich form is level 31), that's why PC was lure for his Remove magic. He will always shoot it at the nearest buffed party member who's not under SI:A. PC was ready to protect himself vs Imprisonment via Contact with Nature, that's why he didn't activate Critical Strike right away.

Loot includes a Diamond Necklace and a second Freedom scroll (first one from mr Teshal was scribed). Also a Shocking Grasp scroll for sorc (keep'em coming!).

The Ring of Gaxx is an important item vs the Green Wyrm. Basically, we're gonna fight that wyrm via Swanmays (immune to his disease attacks and poisonous breath), but an arcane caster is needed for ninja-breaches, that arcane caster should wear the One Ring.

We also forge a +3 ring, and sell some stuff.

The Green Wyrm fight:

Part 1
Part 2

Here we see a lot of messed up stuff. No ProAcid on the party (would've helped the casters to resist that damage from the Storms of Vengeance). Bad timing of triggers and contingencies (ninja Breaches work bad without Vecna, I'm used to fight that thing with its help). Forgot to equip the One ring on Bane at the very end, that's why he died from Horrible clouds and Green Dragon's breath. The green wyrm's poisonous breath doesn't chunk enemies, much like ADHW, at least that's good news.

Swanmays, Greater Djinni, Noble Spider - all of them are immune to Poison and Disease, thus are excellent to fight the Wyrm. As you can see, probably they would've managed by themselves.

Loot includes 2 randomized items: the periapt of Proof against Poison, and the Gnasher club. We also find three valuable scrolls: Wish, Bigby's Crushing Hand, Larloch's Interrupter. We also find the Green Wyrm Scales, and yes, we will create the Green Wyrm Plate. That suit of armor is an excellent protection for the R-C and also grants him immunity to poison for several oncoming fights with the Rune Assassins. And in the very end, we will give away that plate in a Vagrant-specific quest.

Now, provided we didn't have to give away a powerful artifact for the completion of that quest (called "The Good, the bad and the ugly") we probably wouldn't even consider forging something as useless as the Green Wyrm Plate.

Also, we find the Boots of the Woodland (grant Haste much like Boots of speed, useable by rangers only).

Back to Cromwell, we forge the Improved Boots of the Ranger Lord, and also the Green Wyrm Plate (a +4 full plate that grants immunity to Poison).

Barring protection rings there isn't really anything we have to forge for quite some time, so the 20 000 gold we have left will suffice for now.

Swap Mazzy for Jan.

Back to WK level 3, we clear each and every vanilla room (all except the Tieflings, the Demon Knights and the Demon Wraith). PC gains level 26 (Hardiness HLA),
Still there are some things to remember:
Tahazaar's melee attack is Vorpal, and either requires save vs death of =4 or simply kills the target with a % chance. Don't remember. Anyway, knowing that, occupy his attention with summons or PFMWed characters.
Tahazaar and Ka'rashur gate a limited amount of summons, so they should be drained. Moreover, not all of Ka'rashur's summons give experience - Kornugons for example and Bone Fiendsdon't give any xp anymore. All gated by Tahazaar monsters give good amount of xp however.
Quasit's Wild Magic game - evaporizing those via 3*ADHW CC in the very beginning is well advised. One of the Wild magic options is Ruin and the party may lose all gold, so enemy casting should be limited as much as possible. Also, going in this room with minimal amount of gold is advised. Party had only 22 000 gp.
Spell protections are not dispelled in the Dead Magic Zones, so using MGoI from Limited Wish is an effective defense vs spells flying around.


Sorc gains level 25 (Dragon Breath HLA, Absolute Immunity new spell pick).

There is a new high-level necromantic spell in IA v6 called Recast Vital Energy, which in the hands of a Necromancer PC is a killer. However in the hands of a sorcerer the spell backfires more often than not and the more powerful options of this spell has negliglibly small chance to trigger anyway.

RB gained level 29, picked Critical Strike as HLA.

R-C is very near to level 31 as well.

The Hybrid Tieflings:

Only one who's improved is the Mage - high-leveled Wild mage (his spells never fail) who gates periodically Elite Planar Hounds (similar to the Planar Prison's Hounds, however these are better in melee, and much like the other hounds have the chance to dispel specific protections on hit and apply Confusion on the target). That's why prebuff included Potions of Clarity on RB, R-C and PC, whereas B-M was relying on Enrage naturally, and Sorc on PFMW.

The fight itself.

Loot includes static items: Sling of Seeking +2, Robe of the Neutral Archmagi, scroll of Black Blade of Disaster, other scrolls, 2 potions of Magic Shielding, sellables. The Tiefling fighters have 2 potions of Fire Giant strength which they sadly wasted.

RC gained a clerical level here (31) and picked Scribe Scrolls as HLA. All his other HLAs from this moment forth will be Alchemy.

Went outside, rested, rebuffed, challenged the 5 Demonknights in the next room. They're similar to those in Underdark, however I've never seen these guys erect Hardiness (unlike the ones in Underdark) and also the party has far better items and levels compared to the previous encounter. I made a video of this fight but frankly it's nothing interesting so I won't upload it.

One of the Demonknights drops 5000 gp + a Diamond Necklace (sell value of these 4500 gp).

OK so we're gonna fight the toughest battle on this level, the Demon Wraith. Why is it so tough:

Traps (one of them PW:Silence, other Wail of the Banshee I think)
Buffs are dispelled upon entering
The Demon Wraith has an additional support (5 Skeleton Warlords)

We need very carefully prepared triggers and contingencies. A thief is not a must, however since Mazzy is useless, we might take one along to disarm the traps after the fight. If trying to disarm traps during the fight, the thief  may steal some of the party's experience from killed monsters.

Unfortunately when we travel back to the city, we find Jan dead in his home. Strange. I disbanded him alive and kicking (well, he was on 1 HP). Back to De'Arnise keep we join Nalia, kill her and raise her inside WK. And kill her again, as can be seen from the video. Thought of deploying her in battle, but reconsidered. We don't need her to win.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I usually have Vecna here, but since I didn't find it in this run, had to rethink the strategy. Although I don't like ProEnergy as only protection in an insane no-reload, I had to rely on it vs enemy's triple ADHW CC. THe wraith didn't trigger it (probably calculates magical damage resistance over a certain value), which was good.  Here on the ground can be found the book of History of the Chosen of Mystra (only if PC is a Necromancer), which is needed to create the Recast Vital Energy spell. We find the vanilla White Dragon scales and many sellables though.

Now we can assemble the Rimed Club +4, however I don't think it's worth it. We have enough +4 and +5 crushing weapons as it is, and we will find many more.

Nalia disarmed 4 traps after the battle ended (triggered 1 accidentally).

Also, she played vs Aesgerath (he steals 50 000 xp on an unsuccessful attempt, won't risk my party members' experience vs him). Lost the 1st attempt (played for Wish scroll), won the second (again, Wish scroll and 25 000 quest xp). Before the third attempt, Mazed Aesgerath and managed to slay everyone else in 1 round. A calculated risk though, if that fails the party loses 40 000 quest xp. Aesgerath appeared neutral from the Maze. We played one last time with him, 20 000 quest xp for playing, 20 000 for keeping our end of the bargain.

In IA, the Deck of Many Things is significantly nerfed. Not only in a no-reload the chance of getting nothing is great, but also the greatest beneficial options are nerfed: xp from Throne is 30 000 (other xp rewards also seriously nerfed), Key gives only a +2 ring. So it's better to play with Aesgerath for the 20 000 additional quest xp - but that's profitable only if he's alone.

We raise, heal and ditch Nalia in hopes of getting the most powerful random summons on the level below, she decreases overall party xp. Descended to the 4th level of the keep. Sadly, Carston kills a Mindflayer and not a Gith (the Gith drops a +2 two-handed sword and a plate). We give the right conversation option for Carston to summon some Flayers to fight. We check on the random spawns, kill some (spider group, yuanti group, shadow-wraith group, vanilla 2*Magic Golems), discover 3 Elemental Golems + 2 Greater Bone golems as one random spawn, go back to town, join Nalia, kill Nalia, back to WK, raise her and use her for traps/locks.

PC has 7 050 000 xp, gained level 27, picked Critical as HLA, put ** in War Hammer finally.
Saros gained mage level 25, picking Energy blades as HLA.

Now the B-M will face that random golem spawn alone in order to drain it out of minor (Gem and Coin) golems. After this is won, we will visit the Mindflayer area (vanilla), and after killing all other random spawns on WK level 4, we will leave WK for now.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 18 juillet 2013 - 02:17 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 6, Part 4:

Killed the random golem spawn with the B-M alone, exiting to rest a couple of times. 11 gem golems out of 18 is surely great.

RB and R-C gained levels. RB's level up is an important one (30), gaining the third Risk Decrement, AC bonus and an additional weapon proficiency, which allowed Bane to attain grand mastery in Bastard Swords.

R-C's level is 32, he gained 13th slot in 1st and 2nd level spells. Until recently I thought there can be no more than 12 spells memorized per level, however they can, just not shown in the spellbook, but surely active in the spellcasting menu. Further level-ups of the R-C are essential for high-level Dispel Magic only, however this character stops level progression at about 9 500 000 xp. When level 38 is reached, we will probably kill him temporarily whenever possible in order for other party members to progress faster.

Sorc obtains a level after clearing the Mindflayer encampment (26). She chooses Energy Blades as HLA.

Sold tons of stuff, bought a Haste scroll, upgraded the last available so far Worn Out Boots into Boots of Speed, bought and scribed scrolls of Shapechange and Black Blade of Disaster, B-M scribed them alongside with one scroll of Breach (have spare BBoD and Wish scrolls for Judgment Day sword forging), went to Gaelan Bayle, he's immune to everything including level drain, however not to Int Drain, we kill him because his equipment is worth around 5000 gp. Gold is 98 000, we now will enter the Guarded Compound.

We cannot exit until we kill Sion's party on the 2nd level. Also when entering the 2nd level, party buffs are dispelled. Usually I have Vecna for this fight which allows me to quickly cast elemental protective spells + Improved Haste on all fighters very fast. This time I don't have it and will have to improvise.

We clear the first floor quickly enough (2 Skeleton Lords, 2 Gem and 2 Coin golems, plus respawning Assassins until those six are alive, and the vanilla summons as well). Minor buffs used here, plus Mazzy (she won't be able to help upstairs).

Managed to preserve Seri's CC with triple ADHW (triggers on hit) by leading her away and keeping her under SoTM (I think enemies see through Invisibility but still).

Time to ascend on the next floor. We buff with undispellable buffs and go there:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Leading away the thief: Ketta won't attack a character under Skins, meaning she will be lured towards PC and the Riskbreaker.
Keeping unprotected characters safe: PC and RB in the room to the right.
Saros doing the major job again (dispelling Sion and erecting major protections in a flash).
Once Sion is down, the battle is very easy at present levels and with present saves.

Loot includes static items only. Celestial Fury, naturally, but also the sixth scroll of Protection from Level Drain is found on Sion (there are no more far as I know).

The safe of the Guarded Compound is protected by a powerful entity, a Greater Elemental Golem. We already fought one like that (Alhoon), but this one is actually more frightening, since he summons minion golems faster and also can gate Amber Golems. Prolonging the fight against such a golem is not a very easy thing to do, but with the right strategy it could be done. The party first slaughtered 9 minion golems and then killed the Greater Elemental Golem. Swanmays took care of the 3 Amber golems gated, Saros took care of almost all of the rest since he was the only fighter that could refresh vital protections after Purge. Moreover, we wished for Rest as last pre-buff (tried a couple of times before it worked), in order to have an army of 5 Swanmays and 5 more, ready to be summoned at any time.

We now have 7 chunks of Amber, only 1 is required for the Crom Faeyr upgrade. We also need the Uzuno's blade, which is found somewhere on WK level 4 or 5.
The golem himself drops 2 scrolls (any Greater Elemental Golem drops Ray of Fragmentation and hand of Undoing), also the Holy Scabbard and Jhor the Bleeder +2.

OK very few things actually remaining now in chapter 6. In the city we have only so few encounters, it's time to clear the easier one, the Cowled Wizards.

First five groups dispatched via double CC with six ADHW total, triggering on hit. Never failed.

Sixth group is not so easy to beat though, we prepare a bit different set of CC:

Part 1
Part 2

Zallanora's level is 31 I think, meaning that only the R-C has a chance of dispelling her. While Kholynuus or Zallanora are alive, more Cowled Wizards or Coin Golems will arrive, which would be good if they actually dropped gold or items, or gave xp! As it is now, we have to win as fast as possible. Khelben's Warding Whip takes care of Zallanora's protections, and she's killed in a flash. The newly-gated Cowled Enforcers have both Spell Shield and SI:Abjuration in their buffs, which no longer work together (IA v6 tweak of Spell Shield), meaning they actually have no SI:A, but the spell shield has to be dispelled first before being able to breach them. They're weak though.

A bit of scrolls won from these fight, most of them sellables. Nothing unusual. PC gained level 28, picking another Critical Strike HLA (CS now 5 - Hardinesses 4).

Now my choices are too limited. It's either Firkraag, Suldanesselar, the Supreme Gith Leader (WK lvl 4) or the Gate District's Grave Lich followed by Orcus, Prince of the Undead in the Graveyard catacombs, level 2. Nothing else remains.


It would most probably be Firkraag, since that pick will trigger the Extended Paladin Stronghold (2 battles, some nice items there) and afterwards a Ranger-specific and then a Vagrant-specific quest. Firkraag's mage level is 25, which means that Seri and Saros have decent chance of dispelling his buffs via offscreen Remove Magicks.

After selling a lot of items again and forging a +2 and a +3 ring, the party has 90 000 gp remaining. Those rings are expensive...

Firkraag "the Great"

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

As can be seen, Firkraag himself is actually quite weak. After the first wave of Skeleton Warlords is eliminated, he is forced to use almost all of his protections (all PFMW, all but one Stoneskins), also his Improved Hastes (he's quite slow as can be seen) and even his one extra Heal spell (he has scripted Heals when summoning each new Skeleton Warlord wave). The rest of the fight is summons-lure Warlords-some summons forward to keep Firkraag occupied-Farsight to do it intelligently-kill Warlords-bring Firkraag to Near-Death-repeat once more-end of story.

Saros gained 26th mage level here, picking Alchemy as HLA. Scribe Scrolls in IA is almost useless.

Firkraag has static items only, from which important to the party are:
Red Dragon Scales
Cloak of Shielding
Ring of Fire Resistance

He also has a Vocalize scroll (in IA these cannot be found in shops), Carsomyr naturally and other not so important stuff.

We rest for a week, and then are summoned to MNORH.Here we meet with Lady Vanya in one of the rooms. She has a task for the party...to return to Firkraag's lair and eliminate an army of Rune Assassins.

First we eliminate seven Elite Rune Assassins on the 2nd level of the dungeon (front guards). Then we buff well (CC prepared a day earlier) and enter.

Enemy's initial army consists of a couple of golems (Gem, Coin), a couple of Master Assassins (high-level F/T with multiple fighter HLAs, can gate in additional Rune and Elite Rune Assassins over time), 2 Assassin coordinators (mages, immune to Slashing damage) a number of Elite Rune and Rune Assassins and their Guildmaster (high-level thief, I think dual Assassin-Fighter, has enormous backstab damage, has UAI and multiple scrolls, can gate additional monsters over time, permanent poisonous attacks).

This is one fight where AC means a lot, that's why PC uses a Defense potion and a shield. Backstabs will be focused on characters without Skins probably.

R-C gains a level prior to the fight, forgot to return the difficulty bar to Insane, sorry about that. No effect on the battle anyway.

The fight:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Winning, as can be seen, isn't much of a problem. However, draining the Guildmaster out of summons somewhat is, since scary things can happen in the instant when Hardiness wanes. That's why we have the Guildmaster occupied far far away by a character immune to his attacks (Saros). Big mistake here, had to memorize one additional Spell Immunity, since the Guildmaster can summon either golems (he did only that in this fight) or a Pirate Coordinator, or a Master Assassin. I was hoping to get more Master Assasssins - I got 0, which was bad, however at least didn't get any mages when SI waned, which is good.

Static items here. Each Rune Assassin drops a +1 shortsword + some potions, average worth of 1000 gp. Coin golems have the same money value, but at least give significantly more xp. Elite Rune Assassins drop +2 leather and +2 shortsword + potions, effectively worth 2500 gp at least. Master Assassins drop +2 studded leather, +1 shield and +2 shortsword, a rogue stone, a ring +1 and 750 gp, making them worth about 5000 gp each. Gem golems are worth 3000. The mages drop quite a lot of scrolls and a +1 ring each. The Guildmaster drops a +2 ring, two +3 shortswords (only SoA +3 shortsword location), Kaligun's Amulet of MR (last ingredient for Talisman of Greater Protection, which we forge ASAP), some money and half of a note.

Now we have the entire note which points to the Grandfather of the Rune Assassins. The note directs towards a table in the sewers underneath Copper Coronet. We go there and find a second note, pointing towards the Small Teeth Pass area, where obviously the Grandfather of Rune Assassins is located.

Counted post factum: 3 or 4 Coin Golems, 5 Gem Golems, 19 Rune Assassins, 11 Elite Rune Assassins + 7 on the level below (total of 18), 2 Master Assassins, 2 Coordinators, 1 Guildmaster. Not very profitable compared to other runs, but this is the no-reload luck.

We receive 2 Barbarian Essence potions reward from Vanya, as well as 10000 gp and some xp. We forge the Talisman of Greater Protection (+2 to AC and all saves, +15% MR, Immunity to Poison, for now PC claims it), the Red Dragon Scale a ring +4. After that the party has 33 000 gp.

Back to Lady Vanya first, we wait for a week, create a lot of potions (defense, haste), and accept her second task.

The ViperQueen:

Part 1
Part 2

Buffing under respawning snakes is no big problem at present levels. We only need ProAcid and ProPoison. Both mages run SI:Evocation vs the queen's Cloudkill and Death Fog spells. The 48-sided garnet is found inside the well after the queen is dead. She drops some jewels, including Laeral's tear necklace.

The 48-th sided garnet is worth 18 000 gp when sold. It could be used to create the Death of a Thousand Cuts +4 bastard sword, but I consider that weapon to be very weak in IA v6. So we're probably gonna sell the ingredients for 20 000 gp.

Vanya disappears after giving the party 2 more Barbarian essences and 10000 more gp.

The sorceress requires 10 000 more xp for a level up. Fortunately, I haven't yet used the Limited Wish xp option. Or I could go and kill the Shadow Thieves, they're of no more use to me. Probably will do the latter. I really want that level-up for the next tough fight with the Grandfather of the Rune Assassins.

Just killing the Shadow Thieves did the trick, we're still preserving that Limited Wish experience option (might come in handy later). Seri gained level 27, picking Alchemy HLA. No new spells to pick. Also killed Chief Inspector Brega and Corneil in the Government building (now it's clear).

No near level-ups, that means we prepare well and set foot for the Small Teeth Pass. Through Umar Hills, naturally, we keep collecting those batches of Potions from the Messenger of light. Already 10 batches collected.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 20 juillet 2013 - 09:44 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 6, Part 5:

The Small Teeth Pass:

First we encounter a Werewolf spawn we missed somehow so far.

Next we use Farsights to determine the exact position of the Grandfather of the Rune Assassins.

Finally we buff well, prepare pre-Wish Greater Djinni and Noble Spider, and challenge the Grandfather of the Rune Assassins.

Differences: This fight is somewhat easier compared to the Rune Assassins in Firkraag's lair since we have the time to summon a large army. Also there are no golems here. But there are more Master Assassins as can be seen (final count 9). Probably more could be gated, but frankly, I don't want to prolong this fight too much since I haven't actually tested the "draining out of summons" of the Grandfather. BTW he wields the Short Sword of mask +4 which makes Improved Mantle ineffective defense against him.

Of course the right tactic is essential, we see again the powerful B-M taking care of the more dangerous enemy group by killing the 2 mages and keeping the other at bay under PFMW.

Part 1
Part 2

The loot from the mages and assassins is identical to that in Firkraag's lair. 18 rune, 18 elite rune assassins and 9 Master Assassins killed. The Grandfather has a +3 shortsword (well I wasn't right, there is the other location of a +3 shortsword in SoA, unfortunately available only to a Ranger PC, no other can trigger this fight), the Short Sword of Mask +4, a ring +2, a nice sum of gold, some gems, and 4 AI scrolls we managed to save + some other (PW:kill for example).

We report back to MNORH, where we get a nice quest xp (55 000), 3 Barbarian Essence potions and 20 000 gp for completing this quest.

Bane, Torham and Jack gained levels. Torham is lvl 34. Bane is 32, now has 7 Criticals-5 Hardinesses. Jack is level 29 with 5 Criticals-5 Hardinesses.

Decided to buy the 2 Potions of Power from the Temple of Helm (Sir Donalus).

Sold tons of stuff, forged a second +4 ring and a spare +2 ring for Saros. 35 000 gp remaining, as well as 25 +1 rings. There are only so few important upgrades until the end of SoA - a flail which costs 180 000, a hammer for 75 000, and btw the next ranger quest is quite gold-rewarding. Plus there is a nice sum in the remainder of WK level 4 and the beginning of WK level 5 (up to the Ancient Dragon fight, probably not gonna fight it), and also in Suldanesselar. So I don't think it a bad investment. In addition, I have a good amount of valuables which could be sold anytime.

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 6, part 6: The Good, the bad and the Ugly:

We go to Umar Hills, and enter the Ranger Cabin. After the death of the Grandfather of Rune Assassins, a Swanmay appears inside. A Vagrant specific quest, called "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".

The plot unravels as we're sent to look for a Diviner. The Diviner's location is on the 2nd floor of the Five Flaggons Inn. He gives us a list of items from which he requires one in order to show us the thief in question. All of those are powerful artifacts, expensive ones too. There are three distinctive useless items: Hesperus +5 (however it costs 100 000 gp to forge and requires some very valuable components), the Holy Avenger (worth about 75 000 gp to forge with all the components accounted for) and the Green Wyrm Plate (which we have, and we used vs the Assassins, which is the last fight where poison damage is a real danger, so we will give away that).

We encounter Chief Inspector Auriel outside and understand we've being duped by the Diviner (item given to him is LOST FOREVER). She also tells us of a thief she saw in the temple Sewers. The thief isn't actually in the sewers, but rather in Mekrath's lab and has taken the stairs up which lead to the balcony on the Bridge District.

We understand the real bad guy is the diviner. The ugly thief gives the party an ugly wardstone, which allows the party to take the other stairs in Mekrath's lab (the one that are unfinished in vanilla). We find a small room with the Diviner inside.

He tells us that Auriel's been lured to wait for us in Umar Hills (to the left of Umar cave), that he will send enemies there for us all to fight (3 Elemental Golems + an Ultra Golem) and that if Auriel dies, PC dies as well (nice cheat, provided that after Ultra dies, the rest of the golems tend to gang on Auriel, ignoring all other targets).


Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7


The fight itself was quite long, since I deployed a new tactic, which was meant to drain the Elemental Golems out of minor summons. It worked....but felt too close on several occasions. Thing is, I have time constraints since Auriel stays for about a turn Mazed, and when she gets out, all golems that are still alive gang on her (even if they're on the other end of the map), and it's game over.

That's why when she was supposed to appear from the Maze, I had all golems away from her position, and Saros nearby waiting to Maze her again. The party managed, we had lots of resources. Probably could even summon more swanmays or Mordy swords for safety reasons before Auriel's second appearance.

It was definitely worth it, we now have the 8th chunk of Amber needed for Crom Faeyr upgrade, 6 gem golems and 10 or 12 Coin (not sure if we drained them completely though).

Saros gained 27th mage level, picking Alchemy as HLA (probably will pick one scribe scrolls sometimes).

back to the Temlpe sewers, Mekrath's lab, faraway stairs. We find a Barbarian essence potion, some scrolls (including Forekowledge, yeah, which Saros immediately scribes), and the quest jewel.

We get a nice item - Axe of the Lakesider +4, 45 000 quest xp and 125 000 gp from the Swanmay after we complete the quest. Selling some gems - gold is back at 190 000.

Now we go to MNORH. No more use of the paladins. They're slaughtered for some xp (the prelate is worth 25 000), and their plates (1 full plate even).

Before exiting SoA for good, we will eliminate some more NPCs, like Ribald for example. He's not only worth 8000 xp, but also carries 1000 gp and a copy of the Ring of Regeneration (cannot be pickpocketed though, we will just sell it). But that's for much later, we still have the entire chapter 7 to finish, as well as WK levels 4 and 5, the City Gates Grave Lich and Orcus, Prince of the Undead. There is yet another Vagrant-only quest starting in Suldanesselar, which is inadvisable to begin without Cernd. Even with his help the quest most probably will fail more often than not in a no-reload. Lots of tough monsters, no experience from killing them, no treasure either. Reward from the quest is way too small for the risk. Well, part of the reward is actually immense help for the last fight, EDE, but that fight is easy enough as it is.

We sell lots of stuff and forge another +3 ring. 245 000 gp remaining after that.

We go to Suldanesselar. After killing a random golem spawn (2 Coin, 2 Gem, Greater Bone) Torham gains clerical level 35.

After killing all of the elves ambushing the trolls (4 against 2!) we kill a second random golem spawn and Seri gains sorceress level 28, picking Sunfire as last pick at level 5.

Killed 5 Horrid Rakshasas + 2 almost vanilla Maharajas guarding the Temple. Got 4 PFME scrolls. Jack and Bane leveled up (Jack 6 CS-5 Hardiness, Bane 7CS-6 Hardiness). More importantly Jack is now level 30 with innate 75% fire, cold and electrical resistance (dragon helm improves those to 100%). The inside guardians of the temple are vanilla - thus slain very fast.

The fight vs Rakshasas was fought solely by Saros, since they're powerless against a Fighter-Mage type.

Saros almost alone kills a Noble rakshasa (guards the House of the Talisman) which gates 6 Horrid Rakshasas before dying. 3 more PFME scrolls.

Vanilla Elven-Skeleton Warrior group killed. Well, failed to kill 3 Elves inside the city so far (managed to escape, cowards). -6000 xp.

We kill Raa'milat, who is improved - a high-level drow F/M with several PFMW scrolls, wasted one, armed with a +3 longsword, also has 2 ghost spiders at his side which were completely drained before killing them. We kill Demin's assassins, then we kill Demin herself.

Also kill some elves ambushing some golems. And then we kill the golems as well.

Making our way to the House of the Moon from the west, careful not to trigger that vanilla Rakshasas-Elven Mages fight. In that fight, a Guardian Spirit may be killed later when we awaken them - and it drops a Cloak of Displacement (can't kill those myself, great reputation penalty).

The Harpist's House is guarded by a Noble Rakshasa and a Greater Elemental Golem. The confined space is what makes this fight so dangerous. The other option is Nizidramani'yt, who has the support of some powerful allies. Both choices are tough, both battles have to be fought now.

Sorc experience is 8 290 000 (others accordingly). Gold is 251 000.

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 7, Part 1:

We actually started Chapter 7 in the middle of the previous post.

The Harpists House seems easier. The fight itself:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The basic idea is to keep everyone protected from all elements and magic damage until the Greater Elemental Golem lives, then we're back to Fire and PFME only. Greater Elemental Golem has a chance to dispel specific protections on hit as can be seen. Actually Torham and Bane's PFME was not important after the Greater Elemental Golem died, because ADHW cannot chunk them and they were not very useful against the Rakshasas (those dispel specific protecions on hit as well).

PC was under constant 100% fire protection (Dragon Helm on) and 85% magical damage protection (Belt of inertial barrier, Armor of faith, red coral armor). The mistakes can be seen: R-C not equipping the Ring of Fire Control/Reiststance to achieve 100% fire res when that Dragon Breath was unleashed (even the Riskbreaker could achieve 65% with both rings, preventing chunk, if his protections were dispelled and he was otherwise unable to escape the Breath which is easy as can be seen). Second mistake was allowing the Vagrant PC to be surrounded by too much Rakshasas when 2nd wave spawned (focused on the Noble Rakshasa there by mistake), but we had plenty of options to prevent him from being killed. Mazzy's buffs were irrelevant in this fight since they were dispelled in a flash by enemy's Remove Magicks. Same true about the Defense potion.

2 extra golems slain (out of 9, we can't really prolong the fight that much!) and all six Horrid Rakshasas (which are anyway more important than the golems, giving much more gold and a chance for a PFME scroll). Each Horrid Rakshasa drops either PFME or ADHW scroll, 200 gp and a Star Sapphire, in the latter case this is sell value of 2300 gp.

In a container after the fight we find several interesting scrolls: Bigby's Crushing Hand (number 2, this one is scribed by Saros), Rigid Thinking (replaces Minor Spell Deflection, useless, still scribed it), Improved Haste (last that I know of, there are no more IHaste scrolls in SoA and ToB), and naturally the classic useless Disrupt Undead (and its counterpart, Hand of Undoing from the golem, this time no RoF sadly).

Now all that's left in Suldanesselar is Nizi. Sadly, Saros is still 50 000 xp due to mage level 28, and I really wanted him to get it before Nizi. Not sure what mage level Nizi is, but hopefully Seri's Remove magic should work (I really can't afford any Silenced mages in this fight).

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

27-th level Remove Magicks didn't work, probably 28th wouldn't either, didn't have the chance to test them however. Anyway, was well-stacked with Breaches which worked flawlessly, and it was the Sorc who was silenced - an acceptable loss, since it's far better to tank Hardwood Golems with Saros under Improved Mantle.

Nizi cannot die until he summons his 3 Hardwood golems. In order to do so, he must go to Near-Death and a party member has to be in his field of vision at that time. That's why the Vagrant and the Riskbreaker rushed forward. As can be seen, luring the Hardwood Golems to fight the summons isn't really hard. If by any small chance they target PC or the RB, those were ready to drink Invisibility potions (strangely, Hardwood Golems cannot see through plain Invisibility) and thus evade being targeted by the Golems.

You've seen why no character without Skins should be targeted - 1 hit is roughly 50 damage to 60% resistant character. The Hardwood Golems are most vulnerable to Crushing damage (the Rod of Smiting shining again), they can actually be Blinded (after lowering their resistance naturally) and their off-hand (normal-weapon) applies Miscast Magic on target, which means that a character under Mantle or Improved Mantle can resist their damage with refreshing Stoneskins only.

Saros gained 28 mage level here. Picked Scribe Scrolls as HLA (good to have one).

Nizi has a Permanency scroll, his vanilla loot, as well as scrolls of Monster Summoning V (Calls Salamander Nobles) and Foreknowledge (stored for now).

We now trigger carefully from off-screen that Rakshasa-Elven mage spawn near the House of the Moon, and then summon the Guardians from the temple. Sadly, didn't work as planned, cowardly guardian escaped rather than plunging hiself into the Symbol:Death which one of the Rakshasa fires. We failed to kill 2 Elven mages (died to Symbol:Death), but killed all of the remaining Rakshasas and elves (yes, even the wounded one, 4000 xp and a plate). Sold many items to Reirra, we now have 336 000 gp and nothing important to forge with it.

We go inside the palace, destroy 2 of the Parasites, kill the third one's guardians and depart (for now).

There is an unfinished stairs on the Tree of Life, which in IA is the starting point of the last Vagrant-specific quest. For it to begin, all other Extended Ranger Stronghold quests have to be completed first (Shimmering Light, Grandfather of Rune Assassins, Good-Bad-Ugly), and we have to carry the Ruby of the Gods. However we sold that item right after completing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly quest, since we won't be even starting the Ancient Secret of Suldanesselar quest.

Torham Zed is 3500 xp short of a level-up. Fortunately, we still have that City Gates Grave Lich and the Limited Wish's golems in reserve, meaning he will get that 36th clerical level before the fight with the Supreme Githyanki Leader (level 4 of Watcher's keep).

The Grave Lich fight

Lucky with the first Remove Magic, however I wasn't relying on it alone - had 9 more in Sequencers/Triggers. And lots more memorized. They cannot all fail. The lich dispels specific protections on hit and has a 3*ADHW CC - that's why I used Greater Djinni as bait.

Daystar preserved, other items sold. Invested some gold in two items: a scroll of Minor Sequencer and the Helm of Brilliance. The helmet grants 40% fire resistance and can be equipped by any type of warrior (doesn't have the Improved Dragon Helm or Helm of the Rock's restrictions). It may be of use vs enemies who have powerful offensive spells. The Supreme Leader relies on Comets, and believe me, no character can allow himself to be hit by one of those on Insane. I've seen them doing 400 damage to an unprotected character.
Of course, I will try applying a tactic that avoids Comets altogehter, but if unsuccessful, we have to be prepared. Also there are four Anti-Inquisitors which have a special ability called Torturous Inquisiton, which dispels protections and inflicts enormous fire damage on a target.

Also bought a third Potion of Power.

The R-C will once again switch to the Red Dragon Scales. Really unhappy about it, since the AC modifiers of that thing are worse than the full plate.

321 000 gp remaining

Ok it's time to face the Supreme Gith.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

The tactic is very complex, will try to elaborate (some details remain hidden in the video):

Supreme Leader cannot die until the two Golem Constructors are alive.
Mass MGoI Limited Wish last prebuff helps not only vs Stone Golem Slow, but also vs flying around Lightning Bolts. Not that those inflict damage to the party, rather may interrupt a spell (Greater Restoration for example).
The first key point of the strategy is separating the Supreme leader from the party fighters. Since those fighters' goal is deep inside (Golem Constructors near the ship) it's logical that the Supreme has to be lured to the entrance. Seri is ideal for the job since she can afterwards erect PFMW and be neglected by Supreme, who will pick a nearby summon to attack. That's why all fighters were a bit behind, and Seri + Greater Djinni were closest to the Supreme Leader at first.
Farsights extremely important in the beginning! Have to always check on Supreme, see how summons fare.
ADHW CC helped clear the narrow passages (enemies tend to block the doorways). Chained True Sights on almost everyone helped dispel those nasty Invisibility and Mirror Images.
Mlar is most vulnerable to Piercing weapons. Hracknir is to crushing. Good timing is required for them to die almost simultaneously.
After each Golem Constructor dies, 1 Anti-Inquisitor appears near the entrance, 1 near the ship.
Fortunately one Anti-Inquisitor near the entrance picked a different from the Supreme Leader target, that's why he could be lured inside without bringing Supreme with him. Same tactic was applied later for the remaining last Anti-Inquisitor.
Anti-Inquisitors relatively vulnerable to lightning (That explains the enormous quantity of lightning spells prepared beforehand), but quaff potions of Insulation (1 each), which were dispelled (a couple Remove Magicks needed).
Torham was the only one being able to dispel Supreme Leader's protections. Stoneskins most notably, since those 5 PFMW scrolls he has expire on a very short notice, however an active enemy stoneskin + several more in spellbook can disrupt that nice last-round rush attack.
Planetar-Greater Swanmay combo is cool, because the Planetar heals them effectively. Could use a couple of priestly Regeneration spells, but since I actually used the Swanmays for distraction while dispelling, the Regeneration would most probably be dispelled anyway, so it's not as good.
Supreme has astounging AC, however he's vulnerable to Criticals. A couple need to be preserved.
He also has 3-4 Comets, 3-4 ADHW, a trigger of 3*Chain Lightning, and minor offensive spells (we saw him casting Acid Arrow on Jack, that was the reason of bringing those Acid-resistance potions halfway across the map).
PC is not the only one that can tank Supreme. Actually, the B-M Saros could do even better job. I just wanted to test how good will be PC at it. Saros' protections will be dispelled (enemy had multple Breaches until the very end, didn't use them), but he can protect himself from fire damage via items (ring of Fire Res, Dragon Scale Shield, Dragon scale helm), lightinig damage (switch to Boots of Grounding when enemy unleashes that trigger), ADHW (equip-unequip Poseidon's wrath to lure the enemy to cast those) and acid (potions). Plus, he'd have much better saves (+4 ring, mage has better save vs spells than a ranger) and being able to Enrage vs disabling effects if need be. It was a close call for PC when the enemy shot Psionic Mind Blast because of that Potion of Magic Shielding bug which showed that Greater Malison was dispelled, but the saves were still at +4 penalty. I really didn't expect it, save vs spells was 3 still, 1 is enough to save always I think. Probably I should stack PC with a  Potion of Stone Form to improve saves.
Enemy had a great number of Hardinesses. Didn't count them all. It's clear when he's out of those, that's the moment to gang him. The Mass Invisibility was in order to lure him to cast True Sight and nothing dangerous (Breach, ADHW, etc). You can see it was actually solely Bane who inflicted damage in the end, because Supreme's AC is grand. Forgot to return the Poseidon's Wrath to the B-M, he was attacking bare-handed in the end anyway it didn't matter, he wouldn't score a hit probably.

Static items here only. Sometimes the Gesen Bow Shaft can be found here. Angurvadal +4, lock of Cloud Giant Beard (we can now create the Girdle of Cloud Giant str, but I wonder if it's actually useful enough to waste a Permanency scroll at present), some scrolls from mr Supreme. Very little gold from the fight, experience also not too much (golems give no xp when slain), still it has to be won to continue with WK.

Bane gained 34-th level here. CS 8-H 6

[AnonymousHero]

If this is what you call "very complex" I think you may be a masochist! That's insane complexity!

Generally, I'd have to say this is pretty amazing gameplay, but I'm not sure I think it's actually meaningful in any reasonable way. (Given Sikret's blatant cheats and the forced party, I mean. AFAICT it's just "trying to beat Sekrit" at this point. As long as you're enjoying it, of course do continue...)

[saros_shadow_follower]

Thanx, I think. Yeah it's basically beating Sikret's cheesy and sometimes even cheating monsters with 100% successful tactics. Anyway back to the run.

Chapter 7, part 2:


After the fight has been won, we have a new encounter waiting for us outside of Watcher's keep - a Demon Lord. Frankly, I'd rather wait for mage level 30 before battling him in order to be able to dispel his protections. He summons 4 waves of Death Knights (more powerful version of Demon Knights) - first wave 2, second 3, third 4, fourth 5.

We clear the rest of level 4 barring the Demilich and Saladrex. Rock and Garock drop a pair of Worn Out Boots (to be upgraded ASAP), the last Beljuril (needed for Keldorn's armor upgrade) and some other insignificant to us items like a Bluestone Necklace. In their treasure trove we find a Golden Girdle (great) and some Volcanic Ore (ingredient for Stonefire axe upgrade, wonder if it's worth it, the ore costs 3000 gp when sold).

Jack got almost all bonuses from the Lum machine barring Constitution (that went to Bane). Torham now at least has a more decent weapon (Storm Star +3) than that Skullcrusher he's been wielding from chapter 5 since. The Storm Star is un-nerfed and deals 1d6 electrical damage on each hit, making it splendid for spell disruption.

Killed Carston after "letting him go". Descended to the level below. Got some quest xp from the Imp. Jack gained 31th Vagrant level, CS 6- Hardiness 6. Random spawn near the Globe machine - Grave Lich, Shade Lich, 4 Skeleton Grandlords. Random spawn near the Eternal Warrior Skull challenge - 4 Elemental Golems, 2 Greater Bone golems.

Lots of xp on this level as can be seen, I'd rather collect some of it first (Saros shines here, he will be able to drain all Elemental Golems out of minions) before proceeding with Saladrex. However, I'm inclined to try the Demilich, we'll see.

Saros and Seri kill the random golem spawn. 14 Gem and 10 Coin golems summoned. Seri gains sorc level 29, Torham gains clerical level 37.

We prepare a new set of triggers and contingencies and go to the Demilich.

That demilich is at a serious disadvantage. Sure it can dispel arcane buffs, but not divine. Which means that it cannot dispel Death Ward (I think it has no Breaches, only Remove Magicks). Also it cannot dispel priestly ProFire and ProLightning. That's one dead demilich. BTW it cannot be harmed until either golem is alive.

Part 1
Part 2

Great! Finally some luck with the treasure troves! We find here two very important randomized ingredients: the Uzuno's Blade and the Defender of Easthaven. We also find the lost scroll of protection from Magic (needed for Gaxx ring upgrade) which is static (always found here), and the Dagger of the Stars +4 naturally (we will now sell the BoneBlade).

With only 3 Permanency scrolls, we have to priorize now. We will forge Hammer of Thor +5 and the Flail of Defending and Wounding +5. Also we will forge the Improved Ring of Gaxx and yet another +2 ring. Those upgrades cost a total of 405 000 gp, which we fortunately assemble without selling something useful.

We buy 3 Polymorph self scrolls. Gold is 61 000.

Back to WK level 5:

Random undead spawn no trouble at present levels.

We clear the globe machine. Thoroughly! All enemies that could be drained out of summons were drained. Ghost Spiders, Master Vampires (limited to 4 or 5), Elemental Golem (third Red Globe), Greater Elemental + Ultra Golem (last red globe).

Last purple globe is 4 Grave liches - no problem, decided to take them out early (can easily kill the whole bunch from a distance with just Swanmays) for more scrolls (only 2 RRR wasted instead of 12 FoD). Here we find a Magic Shielding and a Barbarian Essence potion.

Last Red Globe: Well, we summoned one host of powerful units (Wish: Rest) and had another Wish: Rest as prebuff in order for Jack to have 5 Swanmays active on the call, also third Greater Djinni and third Noble Spider. Eliminated a bunch of minor golems via summons, exited, rested, entered, immediately summoned some powerful fodder, retreated to the right, kept summoning, checked summons via Farsight. The Greater Djinni is an excellent fodder by himself, since he can cast 1 PFMW, and those two powerful golems (Greater Elemental + Ultra) won't shoot their Purge Magicks on him (they shoot Purges only on a party member). This gives 4 rounds in order to: summon more powerful entities, buff them somewhat, and also to lure the golems back to their initial position with the Djinni. Via Farsight, naturally.

Ice Golems (3rd red globe) were dispatched by that same army. They're very dangerous, but don't shoot their abilities on lowly summons. Much to their dismay, those summons killed them very fast and without even dying.

BTW we killed Torham in the start of the Red Globe challenges and Bane after the first two red globes. Reason is simple: Torham gained clerical level 38, he only needs a couple hundred XP before reaching his cap (he caps at 9 600 000, other party members cap at 12 200 000). Bane gained level 36, he will progress further naturally, but we must focus on the mages now - their levels are essential, and slow to increase.

After the smoke has cleared (killed Aurnumach too), both mages were at level 30. Now we have only 2 improved battles on this level - the Orcish horde (we will fight it, however it gives very little xp and gold) and the Ancient Dragon (mage levels insufficient for successful Remove Magic, so we will postpone it). Oh, almost forgot Saladrex...yeah, he's definitely next.

Or not. Decided to take on the Demon Lord outside of WK. Mage levels 30, after all.

Decided to test that same enormous army vs his Death Lords. The Death Lords don't cast PFMW (much like the Demon Knights), but have initial Stoneskin (no more copies though) and multiple Hardinesses. They cast all sorts of dangerous spells at instant speed (yeah, even things like Meteor Swarm) and can lower Fire Resistance (much like the Demon Knights). The first waves are manageable, but the third and fourth definitely aren't.

Summoned the cream of the crop (Greater Swanmays and Queens, Greater Djinnis, Noble Spiders - all*2). Also a Planetar. That Planetar raised Torham, who cast Death Ward on the Greater Djinnis and ProEvil on all summons. Last prebuff Wishes under Alacrity included second Rest and Improved Haste of everyone except party members (i.e. summons). The fight itself:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The mages helped with sequencers and triggers with 30-level Remove Magicks in order to dispel Death Lords' initial Stoneskins. Not even one Death Lord has an active SI:Abjuration. Some have it in their prebuff, but it clashes with their Spell Shield. Tough luck...

The summoned army is strong enough if controlled adequately. If left alone it will most definitely lose the fight.
I had a backup plan in case some of the Demon Lords survived - I could escape inside WK (probably WK level 5) and rest there.

Each Death Lord drops 2 gems and 1000 gp - worth 2 350 total. And 27 500 xp. Not bad. The Demon Lord drops some blood, needed to create the Judgment Day sword later.

Seri gained level 31, picking Spell Turning as last 7th level spell.

Levels given here:

PC: Level 33, new proficiencies **LOng Sword *Halberd, 7 CS - 7 Hardiness
Riskbreaker: level 36, new proficiencies ****Short Sword , 9 CS - 7 Hardiness
B-M: mage level 30, new weapon proficiency *Two-Weapon Style
Sorc: level 31, new spell picks: Level 6: Protection from Magic Energy, level 7: Spell Turning.
R-C: clerical level 38, proficiencies - almost all.

Sold lots of items, gold is back at 223 000.

We prepare very carefully for Saladrex. As can be seen, Sorceress' prebuff includes a scroll of Polymorph self. Decided not to Polymorph Saros, although in Spider form he would get 4 more APR. Thought this to be unnecessary.

Part 1
Part 2

The "gang-attack" seems quite easy , however this is nothing else but the result of a carefully planned strategy. Bane, Torham and Jack were wielding normal weapons even in off-hand. Bane and Jack were prebuffed with Giant Strength in order for this to be most effective. This is one fight where quantity of APR is extremely important to slice through enemy's multiple PFMW, that's why even Seri joined the assault in Spider form with 8 Normal APR and relatively good THAC0. Arcane magic doesn't work here, hence the strange tactic. Contingencies and Chain Contingencies with Remove Magic could work, however I think Saladrex's mage levels are pretty high and he has multiple PFMW and Stoneskins. It's really for the best to ignore his PFMW altogether. Also, he has an astounding AC. This is not very well seen in the video, but we have Mazzy to thank for that (six Invoke Courage prebuffs decreased everyone's THAC0 by 6, naturally this can be dispelled on the fighters via a simple Remove Magic, but not on the mages).
Seri was under 2 Fire Res potions + ProEnergy, because once polymorphed into a Spider form, all set resistances (like from the ProFire spell) are set to 0. ProEnergy and Fire Res potions however do not set the resistance, rather they add a bonus, that's why they count in all forms.
Both casters have CC which trigger on hit and contain Spell Turning - this is a countermeasure against enemy Ruby Rays (the idea is for those spell defences to last as longer as possible). Also they had special Triggers with PFMW and GoI, but since they both were silenced, those were out of the picture. Saros also had Tenser's transformation in his trigger. Probably should've released them once I saw those Greater Silences flying towards the mages.
PC and the R-C were under high innate fire resistance, the mages' fire res cannot be dispelled until they have their spell protections on, and I was ready to equip 2 rings on Bane should he be targeted by Breach (also PC could refresh his ProFire).
Had a sequencer on the B-M loaded with Spider Spawn. All powerful summons are useless since they wield magical weapons, however spiders have normal attacks. Probably should've refreshed Alacrity before entering and released both Sequencers on Saros after entering. A small mistake.

The loot from Saladrex is very small - the Staff of the Ram +4, the Mage Robe of Fire Res (last ingredient for Mage robe of Elemental Resistance, however we need the Boots of the North and couldn't create those in Spellhold due to Mithril token shortage - needed to leave with 10 for the Flail of Defending and Wounding upgrade), a Permanency scroll, Dragon Scales (probably will create a second set of  Red Dragon Scales just in case). At least now Saros has a very decent quarterstaff and can forget about Rynn and the Golem Slayer.

We use the Permanency scroll to create last available so far Boots of Speed. That leaves only Bane without boots.

[AnonymousHero]

Sorry I was a bit unclear -- it was definitely meant as a compliment!  Sort of like "you're crazy to even attempt this... but in a good way!".

I'm having trouble even following along with all the stuff that's happening in the videos, but I do like to watch them to see if I can pick up any new tricks even though I'm playing with SCS rather than IA. (The CC triggered via LMD was a new one to me -- I think I'll have to try that in my SCS/SCSII games!)

[saros_shadow_follower]

Thanks, but I haven't succeeded yet Anyway even if I don't make it in this run, I have a solid base for a fourth no-reload attempt

BTW sorry for the mix-up:
I keep calling the Rod of Smiting "Golem Slayer". The Golem Slayer is actually IA v6's upgraded version of the rod, which requires valuable components, huge gold investment and last but not least - it's only useable by single-class mages. I haven't created that yet (the Golem Slayer's animation is orange or brown, I think, while the Rod of Smiting is blue). I don't think I'll even consider it prior to the last ToB fight (provided I get there in one piece).

The vanilla Rod of Smiting which saw great use so far in the hands of Saros the Berserker-Mage is, of course, useable by any dual- or multiclass cleric or mage.

I have a large set of videos currently uploading about the last SoA challenges: Orcus, Prince of the Undead, Jon-on-the-Tree and Jon-in-Hell. Suffice to say it, I made it successfully to the ToB part of the game with just that silly reload because of the vanilla game bug concerning wrong Delon spawning in the vanilla Ranger stronghold quests.

Unfortunately, I also am well aware of the fact that many people don't know exactly what happens in my videos, or rather, what WOULD have happened if I don't take certain key actions in certain key moments of the fight. In IA, things can change quite a lot in just half a round, if the player makes major mistakes or simply doesn't apply a certain strategy. Moreover, not even I am familiar with all of the various monsters' and summons' vulnerabilities, immunities, resistances and offensive capabilities (just with the major ones), and one has to be familiar with all of these to grasp what's happening on the battlefield. Still I think that at least some of my strategic decisions are clear enough after watching the videos and reading the explanations afterwards.

The CC triggering on Hit with LMD is my most recent discovery, forced by the fact that I didn't find an early Vecna in all three no-reload attempts (including current one). However, turns out that intelligently triggered CC's work even faster and better than Vecna in many situations.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 24 juillet 2013 - 08:47 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Last fight we're gonna undertake in WK SoA - the Orcish horde.

The basic idea is: Always 10 orcs on the battlefield, no more (new ones appear to replace the fallen), and we have to survive 6 turns.

The fight itself:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Note to self: Should've memorized more Limited Wishes for Emotion and Greater Malison regain during battle.

As you can see, orcs give really small xp and gold, thus there is no need to kill as many as possible. Probably should've memorized many Doom spells and used them. If however we started killing all orcs, soon enough (on turn 4 or 5) our res0urces would've been seriously depleted and vital buffs expired with no time to refresh them. Better safe than sorry.

One more improved fight remaining in WK - the Ancient Dragon. Despite the fact that the Wyrm holds many important items (both randomized and static) I think I won't be able to win against him in a no-reload at present, that's why I'd rather wait for mage levels 35 (I think the wyrm's mage level is 35) in order for Remove Magic to work against him. Hopefully PC will also gain level 36, having 90% innate fire resistance. I may actually consider re-buying Drizzt's scimitar, Icingdeath (50% fire res), from Sister Garlena, but that's for later (ToB).

There is one more SoA fight to be fought, the battle vs Orcus, Prince of the Undead. Most extensive pre-buffing will be required down there.

BTW I also bought 3 more Polymorph self scrolls, now sorc has 5. Hopefully that will be enough to last through the entire game (not so many fights in which Polymorphing is required actually). Can buy a couple later from Lazarus.

For Orcus, pre-buffing is most important, includes potions of Defense for almost anyone, also scrolls of Protection from Level Drain.
The fight itself:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

Orcus cannot be harmed until any of his initial Skeleton Grandlords is alive.

Mages turned to warrior spiders. For Saros, this meant 4 more APR. Polymorph to spider gives extra attacks, Giant Str on top of that gives normal strength, Mazzy prebuff 6 times gives normal THAC0, and Shocking Grasp replaces claws with 1-charge magical attack, after which normal weapon attributes are recovered.

Also included 1 Barbarian Essence potion prebuff for both PC and the Riskbreaker. Decided to be greedy and try the fight with just 2 potions. Had I used 4, my figthers would be invulnerable to melee hits under Hardiness.

Orcus has 5 waves of summons. First is upon entering - 8 Skeleton Grandlords. Next is 4-5 rounds after - 5 Eminent Vampires. Next is several rounds after (not sure, think 3) - 5 Skeleton Lords. Again 3 rounds after - 5 Skeleton Lords, and the last wave - again 5 Skeleton Lords. Each 5 rounds a Master vampire gates near a party divine caster (since I had only one - R-C, I was able to effectively divide the enemy forces).

Almost triggered the nasty neverending fight bug due to the Staff of the Ram knockback. Small rooms cannot be entered (or the lower portion of the crypts) while there are enemies alive. Probably that's in order to restrict the player to take advantage of the terrain (like killing enemies one by one in the small rooms).
 
However obviously the "tweaking" hasn't been tested quite thoroughly, since due to a knockback effect sometimes an enemy can be stuck inside such a small room and therefore is unable to rejoin the fight, and the party is unable to kill him. This time the Master Vampire was propelled in a straight line to the entrance, thankfully! Should he be propelled inside a small crypt, then all would've been lost. Stupid IA bugs. Basically should've switched to Poseidon's Wrath right after the last Skeleton Grandlord died (at least Grandlords are immune to knockback).

Orcus has a limited number of Skeleton Lords as well (3 waves, 5 Lords in each wave) but I think his Master Vampires are limitless and one is summoned near R-C every five rounds or so. When the last one appeared, Orcus was already dying, but the scrolls of ProLevelDrain expired, I used the last ones. I really don't need them anymore, they're cheap, and using them like that allowed Saros to drain the last Master Vampire 4 times of summons. BTW I anticipated the scrolls' expiration and took precautions (Enrage, Shield of the Archons).

R-C, B-M and PC all gained levels here. PC is level 34,picked 8th Critical Strike. B-M gailed spell slots for the last time. R-C cannot progress anymore (level 39), that's why he has to be killed now as much as possible so he wouldn't steal other party members' experience.

PC is 60 000 short of 10 million experience, probably will attain that in Hell. Sorc is 80 000 xp due to 10 million.

We loot the priest scrolls from the Skeletons, and also get some blood of Orcus, and 4 Barbarian Essence potions. Not too much gold from these items, but still...

Sold lots of items (including Daystar). Killed many SoA NPCs without or with little penalty for experience and gold. Reputation dropped only by 1. Gained about 14 000 xp per party member and more than 20 000 gp. Most notable slain:

Ribald: 8000 xo, Ring of Regeneration (sold for 1200 gp), 11 200 gp! Seems like he still has that gold we paid him for the Solamnic Knights.
Under Hilldark: 3500 xp
Priest of Waukeen in Trademeet: 4000 xp, four Knights of Waukeen each 2500 xp, plates, flail +1, others. Reputation drops by 1 after attacking the priest
Bolumir in De'Arnise chapel: 3500 xp
Duergar and Swirfneblin: Looks like the road to Underdark is clear, the hostile Elven War Sage was positioned near Elhan's tent (Farsight check). As long as the party doesn't go near him, no scripted death. The Swirfneblin carry 10 Stunning Darts each, the Duergar have 250-300 gp in pack each.
Reirra: 3000 xp
Elhan: Mindflayer form, buff very well (Tenser's partial, Mazzy helped decrease THAC0, Mindflayer form nerfed in IA v6 to have only 1 APR, 2 if hasted) - Elven Chain +1 (no Shazzelim scimitars sadly).

Bought:

4 scrolls of Protection from Fire (thinking of testing those in EDE)
the last Potion of Power (now 4)
2 scrolls of Minor Spell Sequencer (for the sorc)
the Staff of Striking (who knows, may be tempted to create the Adamantite Staff of Strength +5).

Suldanesselar is so serene now...no living soul in sight.

Jon on the Tree:

Bugged Jon

This video shows another IA v6 bug. IA c6 introduces weapons that inflict magical type of damage. While still protected by his parasites, Jon is, as can be seen, immune to all other types of damage, but since in the vanilla there were no magical-damage dealing weapons, he's not immune to magical damage. This allows for him to be killed with Axe of the Lakesider, Poseiron's Wrath and the Truth longsword while still draining the Tree's essence (all three weapons in IA inflict magical damage, % chance).

And the dead shall walk...here is the final fight in Suldanesselar, as can be seen Jon's status is Dead, but he walks and casts spells just like that. He's immune to everything while his 4 Hardwood golems are alive, I get it...but still.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Jon drops several scrolls, 5 AI most notable ones.

There is more in Hell that meets the eye. No change in Wraith, Selfish and Fear trials (all completed the Good way), however in the Greed trial the Genie was released and immediately slain with Criticals. Got the Good tear, 11 000 extra xp for killing the Genie and the Blackrazor sword which is incredibly nerfed in IA. Suffice to say, we'll just gonna sell the weapon.

Pride trial: We do complete it in the good way, but when PC talked to the dragon, there were 3 Lower Resistances, six Flame Arrows and a dozen Magic Missiles already flying towards the beast. The dragon gave PC the good tear, but died in the cutscene from the massive spell damage. 22 000 xp.


The fight with Jon:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Greedy again, should've wished for 1 more Rest as prebuff so I could have an additional Swanmay army + Greater Djinni + spider. The fight is very easy, but if prolonged, becomes not so easy anymore. Dunno what level Jon is, think 30, sorc was 31, but I was unsure if Jon is 31 as well that's why in the end made sure that PC was under 75% Magical damage resistance just in case . Was prepared to even equip the Mana Bow for 95% magical damage resistance in case of ADHW CC, would've picked RB and R-C's equipment if something happened to them, or even if fast enough - could've transferred Poseidon's to RB in order to survive, also could've pressed level-up on sorc and rebuff everyone with 32-lvl PFME before the last assault.

At any rate, 3 extra Gem + 3 Coin golems are always good, sorc gained 32 lvl, picked ProEnergy as last 8th level spell, RB gained 37 level (10th CS), and even Mazzy's xp was set to 2 500 000 at the beginning of ToB (she gained a level). That strange HP increase of the sorc was because of Wish for Hit Points lowered pre-buff, which I coped with multiple Vampiric touch under Alacrity prebuff on a ground item. Staff of the Magi gave Jon serious trouble as can be seen, Seri had multiple PFMW and AI spells to tank him if need be all by herself.

That's that, SoA ended, managed at least that in a no-reload. Doubt that I will have the same luck with WK or ToB though.

Start of ToB, party gold 244 500. All gems and gold looted from the ground before killing Jon, so we have some sellables.
Party xp:
R-C max levels (7-39), no discussion concerning him anymore.
RB 9 513 000, level 37
PC - 1 020 000, Vagrant level 34
Sorc - 1 075 000, level 32
B-M - Mage xp 9 825 000, level 31

Probably should've collected more xp and items from the Rune Assassin fights, but there's no point in considering a missed opportunity.

[The Potty 1]

Congrats

At this point I'm only coming to the forum to see how you're doing. An epic run.

EDIT Sikret may try to 'force' the party, but I'm pretty sure Alesia_BH managed to solo some sort of mage through IA6. You and she are both bonkers. In a good way

Modifié par The Potty 1, 25 juillet 2013 - 07:36 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Thanks, but I think your info is old and somewhat inaccurate.

Alesia did solo a F/M/C through Improved Anvil's older version, v4.2. However, Sikret claimed on his forum that it was not a legitimate run since it applied cheesy tactics.

I did solo insane no-reload multiple times several different F/M types, including a Blade, through the newer version of the mod, v5. Sikret stated that it was all a lie and that my tactics were not "legitimate" whatever that means. Probably it just means that he didn't think of them first and he doesn't like seeing his Improved monsters defeated so easily.

However IA v6 is impossible to complete with a solo character, because of multiple Sikret-devised "anti-cheat" measures, which apply numerous cheesy and cheaty features to many fights should you reach those with a solo character and not with a party, not to mention multiple key items which just "disappear" from enemy's inventory if you happen to kill them with a solo character rather than with a 5- or 6-person party. Simple as that..

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 8, Part 1:

We prepare an army, cast some undispellable buffs (last Foreknowledge) and then talk to the heads. Buffs are dispelled, we have 3 rounds to rebuff. The fight itself:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Illasera is under SI:A, I forgot that. Pause doesn't work very well due to lots of animation (kinda lag effect), that's why the Black Reaver mage managed to refresh Spell Immunity Abjuration, delaying me further. First target is the enemy druid, those kinda guys can become pretty nasty if left unsupervised. Illasera is last, because if she's killed fast, all of her goons run away, and we lose xp and gold. That cost us some of her scrolls naturally (only 2 Absolute Immunities and 1 Stoneskin looted).

Finally, we have Boots of Speed for everyone!

Cespenar creates Aslyferund elven chain +5 (An Absolute Immunity scroll is required in IA for that upgrade), which is splendid for the B-M. Unfortunately, he can't wear both that item and a ring of protection +4... So that armor will be used only on several occasions. Also, we create the Dagger of the Stars +5 (only 5000 gp, it's good to have a decent +5 piercing weapon for the sorc).

Gold remaining: 200 000.

We summon every NPC we could from the Fate Spirit. Two could not be summoned: Anomen (he turned hostile when I attacked MNORH and I had to kill him) and Edwin (he was slain during his quest). All other are present and accounted for. Nalia and Aerie even have Spell Immunity and GoI in their spellbooks. Strangely, Nalia has Pierce Shield in her book as 7th level spell We collected everyone's magical items, potions and magical ammo, will sell it for quite the sum (no less than 20 000 gp, probably even 30 000).

Turns out Haer'Dalis' two shortswords cost 225 gp each when sold, that 450 gp I missed in SoA.

Jan is given a Spell Immunity scroll as well (we have 3, now 2), which he scribes.

Now we take the first Pocket Plane challenge (vanilla). Then we go to Saradush and clear all vanilla quests, some NPCs and monsters. Even killed Errard via Domination + hostile summon (otherwise there's a huge reputation penalty if the party kills him directly). Errard has a +3 Cleric's staff and a Robe of the Good Archmagi, don't wanna miss those.

Unfortunately, that caused the conclusion of the quest to fail since the Countess blamed his death on us. Still, we got all other xp and gold rewards, and everything from Kiser's home.

We buy all containers, six Potions of Freedom (cheap, may be useful), an Imprisonment and a Tenser's Transformation scroll from Lazarus.

Also we looted almost every container in the city. Found another ProPoison scroll (now have 2).

We looted all quest xp with Imoen, trying to raise her to level 16 (she starts at 2 500 000, level 16 is at 2 550 000, so now she needs very little actually).
Imoen's spell picks were however set to base ones (identical to those with which she starts in Spellhold), so I could pick different spells for her now, which would be far better in ToB. Fifth level spell picked was Spell Immunity. Sixth level spell chosen was PFMW, 2 seventh level spells were Hand of Undoing and Spell Sequencer. She has Ray of Fragmentation.

Halfay in the Old Prison I remembered that I should have killed Torham Zed and probably Bane Blade Cleaver on many, many occasions. Well...that's bad. Had I done that, mages would've leveled already. So we killed Torham Zed temporarily, and Saros killed the remaining vampires + Phlydian (yes, he managed by himself). That won't compensate for the enormous xp loss so far, but still, better late than never. Saros gained mage level 32. Earlier Jack gained Vagrant level 35 (picked CS HLA).

Cespy upgraded the Circlet of Netheril, now the sorceress has an excellent head gear.

We again kill Torham (will not kill Bane for now, actually that level 39 is needed for grand mastery in shortsword) and go back to the dungeon, with Jan in party, and Saros memorized 2 copies of Summon Planetar (in order to raise Torham and Jan if need be).

Jan is excellent for detecting traps (under Invisibility and SI:Div he's undetectable) but he cannot disarm all. However he detects them all, disarms a couple, and thus lays in a course to follow. Killing the almost vanilla enemies after that is very simple. We find Fflar's scabbard, and Cespy creates Foebane +5! Now the Riskbreaker will become a real beast!

Gromnir's front guards: Eliminated via double CC with six total ADHW spells in a flash.

Somewhere here Bane gained 38th Riskbreaker level, picking another Critical as HLA. He needs only a couple hundred for the 39 lvl, and after that we have to keep him dead as much as possible. Really sad that, because with Foebane, Bane's probably better frontliner than Jack.

Prepared well for the oncoming battle. Raised Torham, naturally, we need everyone for this fight. Karun the Black is immune to Dispel and Remove Magic and exploits that to the max by hiding under SI:Div and illusion buffs. I delayed a bit when his first SI:Div expired, which allowed him to erect defences anew (should've Rayed it instead of Breaching, my bad, but hey, that's a no-reload). ProEnergy ensured that the sorceress remains resistant to Fire after short-lasting ProFire expired. She could equip a ring for 100% fire res, but I considered that unnecessary. Also, I'm astounded that the starting Breach had no effect on Elena Berkhan. Or probably she starts with a prebuffed Hardiness and refreshed it immediately after being Breached.

Didn't know if Karun has multiple Acid Arrows, hence mass ProAcid included as well as a prebuff.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Staff of the Magi again eased things a lot, without it just a bit more planning (When II is expected to expire, cast normal Invisibility and wait a couple rounds, then refresh II, otherwise same).

Of course, this tactic is applicable only if party mages' levels are higher than Karun's (I think he's either 30 or 31, my mages are 32).

Some very nice items. A ring +2 for Saros' second ring slot (he had only +1 to switch to so far). Lavender Ioun Stone (to improve saves vs Death whenever needed). Roranarch's Horn (to create Staff of the Ram +6). Two Spell Trigger scrolls, some other scrolls, Grandmaster's Armor +6, Ice Star +4 (great weapon, +4 blunt, gives 20% fire res). Also a Permanency scroll from Gromnir. That scroll will be probably used to create the Noble Staff of Fire +4. Still considering it.

More importantly, we now have access to 2 more merchants. I haven't sold anything except gemstones to Sister Garlena, in order to keep her stock as clean as possible for ToB, in order to sell her items at best prices.

My mages are already en par with the Ancient Dragon (got a sure info that his mage level is also 32). But I really want my mages to be at least 33 level before fighting the thing, just because this way the dragon's Remove Magicks will be a wasted spell, and my own will have a 5% better chance to work. Most definitely will fight the beast before Yaga-Shura, my guess is that my mages will reach level 33 by then.

Forgot to forge Staff of the Ram +6 up until I cleared the entire Marching Mountains.

Two groups containing each 3 Elemental golems outside. Those give no xp, so no point in prolonging the fight. Killed Chinchilla&co

Inside the fortress: One of the most used spells was Find Traps (on everyone). Used the quest xp to raise both Imoen and Nalia to mage levels 16. New spell pick for Imoen is Foreknowledge. Used multiple magical, acid and lightning spells to kill the Elite Fire Giants (first Remove magic to dispel their Magic Shielding potion buff).

Berenn is immune to Breach, but not to Remove Magic. He has one Elemental golem, 2 Elite Fire giants, and the other are vanilla Fire Giants and Fell Cats. Drained his Elemental golem of summons. Bane gained level 39 in the midst of draining the golem, thus we killed him after the level up (12 Criticals, 7 Hardinesses, grandmastery in shortswords).

6 Gem Golems spawned, great luck.

Used the fireshield collision (Saros with Fireshield Blue, naturally) to kill Imix.

Used Jan afterwards to disarm as many traps as possible (still triggered some accidentally) for xp.

There are 2 Permanency scrolls in the fortress: one on Berenn, one in a container near the prisoner. Also a Manual of Elaboration in there, and a Scroll of Memory boosting.

Forged the Axe of the Unyielding +5.

Used the 2 scrolls and the manual to create the Royal Elemental staff. 220 000 gold down the drain, still I think it's a good investment. Created another +2 ring as well. And using our last Permanency scroll - the Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength (sets str to 23). Now we have only one expensive upgrade, and 87 000 gp remaining - no problem. We also have tons of sellables (1 bag of holding full), preserved them in order to sell more copies at once for max value.

Both mages are already at level 33, and PC gained Vagrant level 36 (another Critical Strike picked, but more importantly +15% to elemental resistances) inside, so we're ready to face the Ancient Dragon now.

First we go to Saradush and get a scroll of Fireshield: Blue. Then we set foot for Watcher's keep. We'll see how it goes, that's for a next chapter.

Edit: Sold lots of stuf once again (even things like 300 Superior Healing potions, and 8 Absolute Immunity scrolls). Got gold reserve back to 270 000. Decided on which items to create and which to forfeit. Thus Huskar Plate +5 and Improved Ankheg Mail remained out of the picture, ingredients for them were sold. Still considering a Staff of Strength +4, the Golem Slayer +5, two more +4 rings, at least one more +2 ring, etc, but first in line come the Judgment Day sword (costs 250 000 gp), then the Dragon Lord Halberd (costs 200 000 gp). The halberd isn't too urgent to create (it's actually can help a bit vs Abazigal and Draconis, but its uses are in the last IA ToB fight), so I'll probably create a +4 ring before forging the halberd.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 25 juillet 2013 - 07:25 .

[AnonymousHero]

Almost triggered the nasty neverending fight bug due to the Staff of the Ram knockback. Small rooms cannot be entered (or the lower portion of the crypts) while there are enemies alive. Probably that's in order to restrict the player to take advantage of the terrain (like killing enemies one by one in the small rooms).

However obviously the "tweaking" hasn't been tested quite thoroughly, since due to a knockback effect sometimes an enemy can be stuck inside such a small room and therefore is unable to rejoin the fight, and the party is unable to kill him. This time the Master Vampire was propelled in a straight line to the entrance, thankfully! Should he be propelled inside a small crypt, then all would've been lost. Stupid IA bugs. Basically should've switched to Poseidon's Wrath right after the last Skeleton Grandlord died (at least Grandlords are immune to knockback).

I think this is a case of the engine just not being very good -- during Knockback it doesn't seem to be doing a good job of detecting collisions. (Had a similar experience when a Monk with Oversigt HLAs did a knockback attack on the Master Brain, where it just moved the Master Brain to a location that was completely inaccessible via melee. Fortunately the monk had a throwing dagger, but still...)

@saros: FWIW, I really enjoyed your detailed exposition on the Blade IA5 solo run. It was truly incredible ingenuity considering some of the roadblocks placed in front of you.

[saros_shadow_follower]

Thanks. Just as a side note, the current no-reload ended in the Ancient Dragon's lair. Took me 3 reloads to devise a 100% working tactic vs the Wyrm and his minions. Can't even blame the lack of Vecna for that, things are simply too complex without a char that's immune to Silence. Had to improvise a lot. Thankfully got a lot of hints on the Ancient Dragon's behavior from a fellow IA player, but since I haven't tested him myself with anything different than a 36-level Necromancer protagonist, I was unprepared for the fight.

However, I was expecting that to happen somehow. Fights that I've tested a lot I can win, those that I haven't are obviously lost at least the first couple of tries. I did manage to win on the 3rd attempt though, but with a party member chunked in the process, that was no victory.

I will continue to upload videos for the remaining hard IA fights, including this one, with sound no-reload strategies. Actually there are only so very few remaining (the lot of fights is in SoA).

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 8, part 2: The Ancient Dragon.

As I stated, there are currently 3 reloads in my run - all of them on this fight. After which I won the fight 4 times in a row with the described below tactic, refining it a bit more on each subsequent attempt.

The Ancient Dragon has hilarious physical resistances. Edit: In V6 apparently he's immune to cold and electricity as well. Still Hammer of Thor has good base damage and inflicts most damage vs him.

The Dragon has the support of a Salamander Prince (weak), Noble Efreeti (stronger, more dangerous, can shoot fire offensive spells in an instant, has multiple PFMW spells, can lower fire resistance), and an Elite Nishruu (immune to +3 or less weapons, extremely damage-resistant, heals from spells and not only - from almost all magical weapons too, even weapons with no elemental damage), dispels specific protections on each hit, wields both a magical and nonmagical weapon, and will priorize its targets to the nearby arcane caster.

The fight:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Key figure in the no-reload tactic is an extra mage, Imoen. Basically any arcane caster could help here, including dualled Sarevok, with more scrolls naturally. We simply need a mage who can cast (or read) PFMW scroll/spell, can read a Spellstrike scroll, and can equip Boots of Speed and the Royal Elemental Staff. If that mage has few HP, that's also welcomed, since he/she will be killed on a regular basis, as can be seen in the video.

Still, I think that Imoen is perfect for the task, because she has multiple Breaches, being a sorceress. And Spell Immunity as well.

Imoen's primary task is dispelling the Ancient Dragon's spell protections via a Spellstrike scroll, distracting the beast for 1-2 rounds, take a Greater Silence, and attract a couple more spells if possible (the sequencer for example is very important).

Tried eliminating enemy's Spell Shield with a Spell Trigger loaded with a Breach and 2 Lower Resistances. Almost in all attempts this created the undispellable spell shield bug. Will test that theory with the newly-found Spell Shield scroll.

Once Imoen is in the front and PFMWed, she will only be attacked by the Elite Nishruu and targeted with spells by the dragon. The Salamander Prince and the Noble Efreeti, seeing how she's immune to their weapons (Nishruu doesn't dispel combat protections on hit) switch targets to the Greater Djinni who's on the 2nd line.

Imoen won't be targeted with fire-damaging spells or a dragon's breath because the Royal Elemental Staff grants her 100% resistance to fire, and that cannot be dispelled by the Nishruu.

Greater Djinni erects PFMW as soon as the Noble Efreeti and Salamander Prince come near him, thus they switch targets to the 3rd line, where we see Saros, Seri and Bane.

Naturally Saros is PFMWed as a result of a Contingency spell. The two arcane casters are already under Alacrity (or it's soon to be completed, in different attempts it was slightly different). More importantly, they're out of the dragon's sight. Seri casts Absolute Immunity, probably should've cast PFMW, since the Nishruu's attention is drawn towards the Greater Djinni once Imoen dies.

It's good to wait for the dragon to unleash some more spells after the Greater Silence (most importantly, that nasty Greater Malison in the sequencer) on Imoen before showering her with magic missiles, but moving the Greater Djinni forward in the meantime, in order to be her replacement for the Elite Nishruu's attention. If Imoen is Emotionalized, no problem, she will die soon anyway. After she receives the enemy Sequencer, she is showered with a couple of magic missiles from Saros or Seri.

In the meantime, Saros unleashes his CC on the Efreeti, dispelling his Spell Turning, and finishing him with the fireshield collision damage. One of the 2 memorized VT spells failed, it was meant for the Salamander Noble, who doesn't even require a RRR beforehand. Seri could kill him just the same way, but she would waste her CC trigger on hit in the process and a valuable 3-rd level slot (Remove Magic), that's why we killed the Prince in melee. He dies fast.

The Elite Nishruu was somewhat harder to distract, but in the end we managed to lure him away with the Greater Djinni. As you can see, the Djinni could hold the Nishruu at bay for the remaining of the combat.

Seri doesn't stay idle during her first Alacrity either. She buffs each of the powerful summons in the back (Jack gated Swanmays, Seri opened with a Planetar, a Noble Spider was gated, etc) with Improved Haste.

After the enemy minions are taken care of, the R-C from the back starts raising Imoen (Resurrection), the fighters + summons rush forward, and a mage unleashes a ninja Trigger to dispel enemy Armor of Faith and Stoneskin during the Ancient one's True Sight casting, at least that was the idea, I rushed a bit earlier . Initially the dragon didn't cast any True Sights, it was the Noble Efreeti who did.

The Ancient Dragon won't start casting PFMW unless he's brought to Injured. He has a really good AC as well. The focus in the fight is forcing him to Breach only PC, who is naturally fire-immune and highly resistant to magical damage, and keep Bane's buffs untouched.

Dunno how many PFMW were there, they were dispelled relatively fast. Spamming high-level remove magicks under Alacrity, some in sequencers, were the key, although unleashing Breach-triggers (and refreshing those) is also very useful.

Edit: Anyone considering Fire Elementals to be a good summon vs the Ancient dragon, being immune to fire and all, I'll just tell you that any Fire Elemental that enters the Ancient's field of vision is automatically permanently dominated.

Edit: The higher-than-enemy mage levels were extremely beneficial mostly for keeping the assault force's buffs active (Improved Haste, Bane's protections, Torham's attacking buffs, etc).

Jack Sparrow has another assignment yet, besides fighting the dragon - he has to pick the 2 items dropped by Imoen at the moment of her death on a regular basis (she is killed several times). Because Resurrection will bring Imoen to life right next to Jack, i.e. in the most dangerous spot, and she has to equip those 2 items ASAP. She was useful with Breaches and drawing some more Greater Silences (the dragon has 7 of these).

The dragon has 1 Heal spell, but it's extremely nasty when it resolves. He can be killed before he casts it, however it's not so simple. But at the time he casts Heal, he's already severely out of options, and planning is required for his desperate pre-mortem 3*ADHW Chain Contingency. BTW in the video shown here I gained enormous advantage from the spell since I forgot to kill Imoen, and the R-C had to die as well, and ADHW took care of them both.

The Elite Nishruu can be killed beforehand, but this requires 4-5 rounds, in which the dragon if left alone will unleash hell in the form of Lower Fire Resistance and fire-damaging spells/breath.

Losing a caster to Greater Silence is highly unlikely, but even if it happens, Chain Contingencies should be left as last dispellation resort. That's another reason why I don't want the Elite Nishruu near Saros, not until the dragon's combat protections are dispelled at least.

BTW the Elite Nishruu doesn't recognize the +5 elven chain which grants Normal Weapon immunity, or the Hell Trials immunity to +1 or less (that's for a mage PC). Meaning that a character wearing the chain and casting PFMW will be targeted by the Nishruu in melee as a viable target, because obviously the Nishruu's script checks only for protective spells being active - and if it's PFMW and not Absolute Immunity, Nishruu attacks.

That means that if the Nishruu somehow manages to kill the Greater Djinni, all I have to do is present Saros to his attention (not very hard thing to do) and he will hold it indefinitely with multiple PFMW spells and Aslyferund's Elven Chain.

Loot from this fight is enormous:
Permanency scroll
Hindo's Doom
Great Wyrm Scales (ouch, forgot about that upgrade, costs 125 000 to create the Great Wyrm Plate)
Robe of Vecna (really?)
Dragon's Bane +3 (last ingredient for the Dragon Lord halberd)
a +2 ring from the Noble Efreeti
Scrolls of Wish, BBoD, Spell Shield and some more, forgot.
Judgment day essence, Mage half (last Judgment Day sword ingredient)
25 000 gp

Edit: Come to think of it, I expected to find here the Helmet of Defense. It's usually found on Saladrex, but he didn't have the helmet. I thought it may be on the Ancient Wyrm, but it wasn't. Strange... a bug?

To Cespy, we create the Judgment Day sword, which talks (meaning, it's obviously some Lilarcor variation). However it said about visiting WK's outskirts (the previous location of the Demon Lord) for the last epic fight....This would be the Demon Prince fight. Also, the sword said about being there in 7-day period or all is lost (probably a scripted death of sorts).

JD part 1
JD part 2


Yeah, I know, a long description (will upload pictures later as well). BTW on paper looks cooler than it actually is.

OK but we have tasks to do before that. Decided to test the power of the new weapon vs Nalmissra' s party (vanilla). Protected PC vs Imprisonment via Contact with Nature HLA, and challenged them with Jack alone (killed temporary RB). Definitely the sword is great, but it's not omnipotent in any way, that's what I found.

The key was to gain some more xp and the Gauntlets of Extraordinary spec. We also completed the Eternal Skull warrior task, and got the last key. Azamantes is improved, will attempt him after resting. BTW Azamantes summons unlimited Skeleton Grandlords and Bone Fiends, will just limit those to 6 waves. Same true about Odamaron btw.

Seri got 11 000 000 xp and sorc level 34. Basically she needs 11 950 000 to hit the cap, unfortunately Saros would still require 250 000 more. Hopefully we'll get there before battling Sendai.

Since experience is no longer an issue, we have to focus on our gold problem (only 60 000 gp at present). Will probably sell some more scrolls which we kept so far.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 27 juillet 2013 - 06:06 .

[Alesia_BH]

saros_shadow_follower wrote...
Alesia did solo a F/M/C through Improved Anvil's older version, v4.2.

Yes. I only played IA once, version 4.2 with a F/M/C named Alena. At that time, IA wasn't particularly difficult: you merely had to adapt to Sikret's style of play. Saros's later runs in IA were far more technically challenging than anything I attempted in the IA game world. I wasn't really seeking tactical challenges in my run: my primary objective was to assess whether IA was worth investing time in.

I haven't played IA since that initial run. In that playthrough, I concluded that the mod unduly canalized player's tactical avenues in the game world and in doing so compromised much of what I enjoy about Baldur's Gate. My suspicion was that subsequent versions would go further in that direction. That turned out to be the case. Sikret has some talent as a modder, however, at times his adjustments to the game world amount to contorting rule structures in the interest of preventing players from doing things he dislikes. I don't find that interesting or desirable.

Based on my exposure to IA, I also concluded that the culture surrounding the mod had some problematic attributes- in particular incivility, combativeness, elitism, and a tendency towards authoritarianism. On balance, I saw IA as the product of a talented individual whose ego at times compromised both the quality of his work and his ability to communicate in relation to that work. I also found the culture surrounding the mod unpalatable and from my vantage point unworthy of support. Nonetheless, I wish Sikret and his associates the best -largely due to my own "hate the sin, love the sinner" mentality- and hope others enjoy IA- even if the product and the culture surrounding it are not things that I'm personally inclined to support.  

However, Sikret claimed on his forum that it was not a legitimate run since it applied cheesy tactics.

Sikret is fond of the word cheese. He seems to have a tendancy to use it to refer to things he simply doesn't like or things he hadn't thought of amongst others.

In the case of Alena's run, he primarily objected to her use of Spell Shield. In particular, recasting Spell Shield after it had been removed by an attack on magical defenses (ex- Entering a battle running Spell Shield, and then casting Spell Shield after a Ruby Ray had taken it down.).  Following Alena's run, Sikret modded the spell to prevent characters from refreshing promptly as Alena had.

It's possible that his tone in relation to Alena's Spell Shield use had been influenced by the fact that I had given his mod a less than glowing review.  

Of course none of this need be taken seriously. For those who have immersed themselves in the IA community and or have chosen to accept Skiret's personal authority for whatever reason, his comments of this ilk can carry some weight, otherwise they're but hoarsely voiced opinions. I find it regretable that Sikret chose to accuse Saros of dishonesty, but aside from that, I haven't found any of Sikret's comments in relation to Saros or myself worthy of note. We are all entitled to our opinions. And we are all entitled to determine which opinions are of weight. He has voiced his opinion, I have concluded that it isn't meritous for my purposes. No harm done: merrily we go.

Anyhoo. Sorry to hear that the no reload ended. Best of luck with the rest of you run nonetheless Saros!


A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 26 juillet 2013 - 02:05 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Alesia_BH wrote...

In the case of Alena's run, he
primarily objected to her use of Spell Shield. In particular, recasting
Spell Shield after it had been removed by an attack on magical defenses
(ex- Entering a battle running Spell Shield, and then casting Spell
Shield after a Ruby Ray had taken it down.).  Following Alena's run,
Sikret removed many of the Spell Shield scrolls from the game. He also
modded the spell to prevent characters from refreshing promptly as Alena
had.

The thing I noted multiple times with my own v5 runs: When discovering a neat safe tactic relying on a key item/spell and I write about it, explaining the tactic and how dependant it was on the item/spell, those were bound to get signficantly nerfed or even erased afterwards. Skull Trap, Spell Trap, the Answerer +4, Potion of Absorbtion are all my own "Spell Shield-type" examples. After I display all no-reload strategies, I expect things like Chain Contingency, Khelben's Warding Whip or the fighter-mage dualclass to be seriously nerfed or (in the case of Khelben's Warding Whip) even deleted from subsequent versions of IA.


I know that the main reason for which Spell Shield was nerfed to be cast only once in 2 turns is because of your successful v4.2 run applications of that spell. BTW one still can get a Spell Shield scroll early in v5 of IA, but since the spell can no longer be used effectively, there is no point in doing that.

Alesia_BH wrote...

Anyhoo. Sorry to hear that the no reload ended. Best of luck with the rest of you run nonetheless Saros!

Well, I still got pretty far ahead. Hopefully the next run or the run after that I will definitely manage to.

[Alesia_BH]

I know that the main reason for which Spell Shield was nerfed to be cast only once in 2 turns is because of your successful v4.2 run applications of that spell.

Yes. I figured you knew what went down there. I only mentioned it to fill in the context in relation to your response to Potty 1's comment

Well, I still got pretty far.

Indeed.  

Hopefully the next run or the run after that I will definitely manage to.

I'd be willing to bet on it. 


Cheers,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 26 juillet 2013 - 02:21 .

[Aasim]

Alesia_BH wrote...

Based on my exposure to IA, I also concluded that the culture surrounding the mod had some problematic attributes- in particular incivility, combativeness, elitism, and a tendency towards authoritarianism.  

 People who pay at BWL can  often say what ever they desire, even if somehow the whole atmosphere seems to be the one of "quiet obediance" to Sikret's desires. Even old paying members are very careful in expressing their opinions, and are prone to snapping at newcomers who post negative feedback.

Sikret is fond of the word cheese. He seems to have a tendancy to use it to refer to things he simply doesn't like or things he hadn't thought of amongst others.

It's a word with many definitions. In "walkthroughs" posted there (Nicoper's are a perfect example), players often use not only "cheese" but blantant cheating, and he still remains blind to that.

In the case of Alena's run, he primarily objected to her use of Spell Shield. In particular, recasting Spell Shield after it had been removed by an attack on magical defenses (ex- Entering a battle running Spell Shield, and then casting Spell Shield after a Ruby Ray had taken it down.).  Following Alena's run, Sikret modded the spell to prevent characters from refreshing promptly as Alena had.

There will be changes to IA7 made according to what Saros exposes. It's already delayed for quite a bit, under the cover of a new "Druid Stronghold". More likely, more anti-cheating measures must be developed. But why would the Fireshield collision be labeled as cheese in the first place anyway?

It's possible that his tone in relation to Alena's Spell Shield use had been influenced by the fact that I had given his mod a less than glowing review. 

G3 folks have fixed Spell Shield ages ago anyway. Besides, it still takes a spell slot to cast it.
There are some players Sikret really likes, even if they use cheese liberaly, and labels them as geniuses. Others he just doesn't. For some reason, they all try to please him one way or the other.

Am glad that Alesia has such a relaxed outlook about this, it's a worthy trait in BG2 forums. Guess it's time for me to join the No-Reload challenge once again.
All best.

[Alesia_BH]

It's good to hear from you Aasim. 

We're in danger of hijacking Saros's thread though so I'll just respond to a couple of your comments.

Am glad that Alesia has such a relaxed outlook about this, it's a worthy trait in BG2 forums.

It's a game. And we're all here to have fun. I try not to lose sight of that.

To my mind, communities like this are all about sharing mutual enjoyment. I think we should all strive to be respectful, supportive, inclusive, and above all else joyful when communicating with each other. I think we do a pretty good job of that here on balance.

Guess it's time for me to join the No-Reload challenge once again.

You are most welcome of course. It would be wonderful to have you around again.

I look forward to seeing you in the thread!


Cheers,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 27 juillet 2013 - 02:53 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 8, Part 4: The Demon Prince:

2 reloads before understanding that I simply need more fighter power (tried the fight with just Jack, Seri and Saros), then I won the fight, but it took me3-4 more reloads before realizing that I need much more fighter power in order to ensure 100% win strategy despite of what summons the Prince gates. This forced the last reload to be before the Ancient Dragon fight, since the JD sword has to be created at a precise moment for this strategy to work flawlessly. Ancient dragon re-killed with the strategy shown above, no problem there. This time forged the Great Wyrm Scales and gave them to Torham. It cost me literally emptying all bags and selling tons of items I was undecided about in order to collect 250 000 gp for the JD sword upgrade.

The fight starts in the Wk outskirts (at the arriving point) via a cutscene during which all party buffs are dispelled. The Demon Prince has a Death Lord, a Noble Marilith (who gates immediately 2 Abyssal Escorts) and an Elemental Golem as initial support. No draining out entities out of minor summons this time, that's for sure. Reason for that: we don't have anyone who's immune to enemy attacks. The prince gates in 1 more minion over a couple of rounds, that may be an additional Elemental golem, which is OK, but may be an additional Death Lord or even Noble Marilith, which is bad. Both of those lower resistances (Marilith electrical, Death lord fire) and have nasty offensive spells of that element (trigger with Chain Lightnings, insta-cast Incendiary Cloud or Meteor Swarm, etc), so we have to kill them fast. The Death Lord can be killed relatively fast, lacking PFMW, unforunately the Noble Marilith has multiple copies. If the Demon Prince summons subsequently more Noble Mariliths and the old one is still alive - very very bad.

So the tactic: It included gating a powerful army outside of WK (6 Greater Swanmays, 3 Swanmay Queens, 3 Greater Djinnis, 2 Noble Spiders), and buffing them via ProEvil, Invoke Courage several times, and mass Improved Haste from the Wish spell. This all happened in 1 turn..

Next we go upstairs, buff with some undispellable buffs (Foreknowledge, Shield of the Archons), forge Judgment Day, disband Mazzy and go to fight.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Basic principle in the fight is: Keep everyone protected from Fire and Lightning in the start of the battle (Seri has Royal staff, Torham has Great Wyrm Scales + Helm of Brilliance + Hammer of Thor, Jack has innate 110% fire and electrical res + Dragon Helm, that leaves only Bane to buff in the start of the fight, and Saros too but that's easy since he's a mage), buff everyone as fast as possible, start dispelling buffs as fast as possible (high-level remove magicks are most useful), kill first Death Lord, then Marilith and Abyssal escorts (keep those Removes coming), then the Elemental Golem, then focus on the Demon Lord, firing 2 Remove Magicks at him as soon as he activates something. He starts with several Stoneskins, at Injured switches to Absolute Immunities. Saros tried to stay under Alacrity as much as possible (should've memorized 7 instead of 6) in order to cast  Limited Wish after a couple of Remove Magicks on both mages are used. Erasing used up 4-level spell allows the Limited Wish to actually regain two 3rd level spells instead of just one.

As a side note, I discovered a Limited Wish bug, which will prevent a character from regaining spells with the dialogue option if that char is running Spell Immunity Abjuration. Well my mages are high-enough leveled to hide under SI:Div no one can dispel them. It's not like anyone had a chance to do it. Another bug option of the spell is all characters abandoning their actions if a Limited Wish for Negative Plane Protection is activated.

If the fight is prolonged any further, Swanmays start disappearing, and it becomes so much harder to keep enemies under control (namely, Mariliths because of their multiple PFMW). Since in a no-reload run we cannot rely on the enemy summoning few or no Mariliths, this is the safest course of action unfortunately.

Did a bunch of reloads on Azamantes after beating him the first time fast (kinda forgot I was trying to drain him out of minions). However, turned out that Azamantes and his minions have too many variables that could go wrong in a no-reload run. He can be killed very fast at present levels, as seen in the video, but I waited for him to summon his first wave (he starts with 2 Grandlords 2 Greater Bone Golems and subsequently gates 1 of each infinitely).

Azamantes has a special Fear ability which allows no save and dispels all specific protections (including Resist Fear). However, the Resist Fear protects the character not to flee in terror, despite it being dispelled, so we had to start under Resist Fear for the sorc. High-level remove magicks and summons mainly did the rest.

Video for the fight here.

As the game progresses, it becomes harder and harder to drain enemies out of minions, still that is no longer essential since our party is very high-leveled and I think they will reach the cap regardless. I was really aiming for the scrolls each Grandlord drops, but prolonging the fight for a mere 10 000 gp is too risky and ill-advised.

So, WK is clear (Demogorgon is vanilla, and I really don't wanna get there yet because I'll lose Sister Garlena as a shop, it's not like we're in a rush for xp). We have to get back on course.

Did an extensive testing of Azamantes, and didn't find a 100% strategy to drain him, although it came pretty close. It's too complex to matter. But the testing was not entirely in vain. Azamantes blatantly cheats by casting Imprisonment on an Invisible character (not Improved Invisible, just plain Invisibility). There is a safe way to counter that once the fact is known, but it saddens me to find more and more of these IA pure cheats as the game progresses.

Forest of Mir - once a character enters the forest with the two hearts in pack, waves of no-xp Skeleton Lords start spawning. That would matter little if I had cleared the place earlier, however I didn't and the odds are a bit ovewhelming. Not impossible, but I pressed on with only 3 party members in this vanilla area. Reloaded. Left the hearts in a container in the Pocket Plane, and then went into the Forest of Mir. No Skeleton Lords, indeed triggering check is hearts in pack or not. However this way I was able to teleport right next to Nyalee fully buffed and with the hearts in pack. Nyalee is a druid immune to Breach, but not to Remove Magic, and she died in a flash. Her army is vanilla (well, she has several spiders).

Yaga-Shura: Won on my first attempt, lost the video, then made a second win + video, decided not to test the tactic any further. Seems very solid, even though the second time the mages and clerics were spawned very badly and still we won with no trouble at all. Key elements: Keep alacrity up and running the whole time, PFMW on mages too, send only summons vs the Fire Giants, keep party fighters out of harm's way and preferably pressing the mage, if not possible for all then 1 to the cleric. Elite Assassin also dispels illusions, he has to be killed fast too. If a mage or cleric is spawned in a corner area and the way to him is blocked by enemy fighters or even fire giants, unleash magical hell upon the blocking party. Like this:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Improved Invisibility once again shines, refreshing possible in an instant with decreased casting time of 4. Better than Mass Invisibility, quicker to cast. Had to RRR my own GoI on Jack (from the Judgment Day sword) in order to render him Invisible too. This helps enormously since the enemy mage upon spawning cannot cast Breach, but first has to go for True Sight, and second round has to cast a PFMW scroll. The cleric didn't even manage to cast Dispel Magic, those clerics aren't very high leveled, but it would dispel Mazzy's six Invoke Courage buffs on party + summons, which undoubtedly helped immensely.

Forgot to cast True Sight from the sword, still Remove Magic took care of Mirror Images. Also, probably should keep only offensive spells in the sequencers - no need for those Breaches or Remove Magicks in there I think.

A good loot, but not enormous. We need tons of gold unfortunately (something like 500 000, possibly even more). Yaga-shura drops a Permanency scroll + 3 Barbarian essence potions in addition to the vanilla items (Runehammer, Shield of the Order, etc). Enemy lieutenants drop +2/+3 weapons, some potions, scrolls, +1 cloaks, etc.

The Oasis is a very hard next fight if we continue as planned (meaning, from Yaga's camp straight to the Oasis). However, we first go to WK (a logical move, we have to sell stuff) and then we see Amkethran actually possible to reach (also logical, there might be another way), So we go to Amkethran and complete some vanilla quests/fight some vanilla enemies. Everything in Amkethran is vanilla, well, Gargoyle Boots have been removed from the Smugglers' store.

We are stuck near the Mercenary camp in the S-W fighting endless mercenaries. Tried to break free a couple of times, more came. Unfortunately this resulted in a huge gold and xp boost (gold +200 000). We even sell some more stuff (AI scrolls too), and gold is 365 000. We forge a ring +3, a ring +4, and the Dragon Lord halberd. Gold is 15 000.


The Oasis, approach from Amkethran.

We arrive under Stoneskins for everyone (JD sword hitting R-C provided it as a pre-buff on the Vagrant and the RB as well). Travel time is 8 hours, so yes, they're active.

The approach from this side turned out to be actually worse than coming straight from the Siege camp and into the pocket Plane for a prebuff before enemies turn hostile. It cannot be done from this side (reloaded once to test it), and thus we have to waste 1 or more round to buff everyone adequately (PFME required, those Tethyrian Battlemages unleash 3*ADHW CC before dying). Buffing in the Pocket Plane would be far more complete, and we could go straight with the offensive spells/abilities.

The fight from this side is also not "as intended", since the enemy general won't join the fight (high-level fighter with multiple Hardinesses and other warrior HLAs, and is immune to Breach and physical damage under Hardiness). BTW General Tombelten can be Held via Implosion, but that lasts for a really short time (no real advantage unless spamming multiple Implosions under Alacrity with Cernd).

However, all other enemies will join the fight, those are 2 battlemages (have Hardinesses, yes, I think dual M-F), 2 Battlepriests (C-F, Hardinesses). 14 Gem Golems, several Captains (have warrior HLAs but no Hardinesses, I think), and the other are several Pikemen (vanilla).

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Key elements in the fight: Barbarian essence potion for PC, Greater Djinni summoned really far ahead by R-C. Barbarian essence insured PC's 100% resistance to physical damage under Hardiness. Djinni insured that the faraway Battlepriest unleashes his one and only Storm of Vengeance upon him and away from the party casters. If Djinni hasn't survived, then it was spider. Or trolls.

This is one fight where we don't want PFMW from the JD sword to trigger, yet we have to use the JD sword. Thus it's used on PC, off-hand, and if PFMW is triggered by chance it goes in the off-hand of the RB, as can be seen from the video. Micromanagement can isnure that non-PFMWed fighters are not assaulted by more than 2 or max 3 Gem golems, which is acceptable and everyone can deal with those odds at present. I could also have the RB drink a potion of Barbarian essence, thus becoming immune to physical harm under Hardiness and Chain Breaker Stance. And if by some chance 6-7 golems were to gang on the R-C, I could kill him with Melf's acid arrows before they can. To prevent chunking.

First set of mages die quickly enough, however the second set is a bit trickier, that's why we sent the B-M to deal with them. Being PFMWed, he's neglected by everyone and can safely reach his targets. Sorc too, for debuffing.

BTW I've tested some more and found out that enemy battlemages die quickly enough to melf's acid arrows after they're debuffed and their resistance lowered twice.

Levels after all this: Sorc 35 (close to last level 36), B-M 9-35 (gained after the Oasis fight), Vagrant 38 (very close to 39). RB has a lot of xp to go to lvl 40 (more than 1 mil), probably he'll never get there. Not that it's needed or anything. The difference is 1 CS and 3 max HP.

Sold all of the stuff acquired, forged Runehammer +5, Ravager +6 and another ring +2. Bought Rod of Reversal from Smugglers cave (inside killed all smugglers, no penalty). Really expensive item. 44 000 gp with max discount. It is very useful though, even if only for removing a dragon's Spell Shield safely. Gold remaining 95 000.

Sendai's outskirts cleared (vanilla).

In Sendai's lair, there are a couple of improved fights: The Barracks, Sendai's slaves + spiders, Sendai's random drow, Odamaron, the drow captain and Sendai herself. Now the Barracks and Sendai's slaves and spiders are very easy, no videos there. Sendai's random Drow are identical to the first Drow ambush in Underdark, however these are 3 at once.

Here's a screenshot from the barracks, showing a mindflayer invasion upon the Drow...heh, it's only Saros, who's unheashed 50 or so psionic blasts upon the Drow and their spiders sunder Alacrity. BTW Jack gained 39 level beforehand... I apparently miscalculated, he now has 7 Hardinesses and 13 Critical Strikes.

After clearing the slaves (no delay for extra free experience, I'd wait to get 6 groups of Deros at each of the junctions otherwise, no draining of the 2 ghost spiders too) Seri gained last (36th) level, and picked SpellStrike as new and last 9th level spell. Why exactly Spellstrike? Well, there aren't any better picks really (TimeStop may look good but powerful enemies are anyway immune to it), and btw SpellStrike on her with casting time of 1 can be very helpful vs a dragon (be it Abazigal or Draconis). Better than a scroll, better than RRR which may cause an undispellable Spell Shield bug.

Odamaron's outer guards were slaughtered from afar (mainly) with fire:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Dragon Breath is still superior  to the party compared to Comet, no matter what Sikret claims. Numerous enemies are magic resistant, and Comet is ineffective vs them. Drow included. However, Comet is more dangerous to the party compared to DB, because it deals damage instantly while DB can be easily outrun. Saros was ready in all cases to run forward and occupy remaining enemy's attention for a lot of time. And also to fry them additionally with multiple Fireballs and Sunfires as can be seen.

There are other tricks like unleashing one hell of Psionic blasts upon the enemy under Alacrity, but I think off-screen multiple DB is the best solution for these pesky Drow. BTW the drow aren't the real problem - it's the Whisper Spiders and their Web Lariats.

Odamaron is not immune to Remove Magic. That CC with 2 Khelben's Warding Whips that accidentally reached its target (nearly impossible btw, but it doesn't matter) doesn't have anything to do with dispelling Odamaron's protections. 2 traps on the stairs in front, I was fearful there were more around but after killing the lich checked with Jan - only 2 on the stairs and 1 guarding a container, that's all.

Part 1
Part 2

That PFMW which triggered on PC - nasty. Bad. I had to eliminate Skeleton Grandlords with PC, but was really hoping not to trigger PFMW. For a no-reload tactic, this is a bit iffy, despite the chance of PFMW triggering being very small. Probably will have to find a way to control  the wielder of JD sword in such a way that the last attack per each round (with the sword 0ff-hand) is cancelled. I think it can be done with careful monitoring of that char. Odamaron didn't trigger ADHW CC, strange.

Saros capped here (mage level 36). PC needs 50 000 more and also caps (because of that xp loss in Hell he's a bit behind now).

We join Imoen. Will try to raise her to level 18 if possible. Dyatha and Odamaron die to summoned army (2 Greater Djinnis, 7-8 Swanmays). 1 Swanmay imprisoned by the Hive Mother...

The fight with the drow Captain here.

Part 1
Part 2

The fight with the Illithid - Mythykyl is somewhat improved, an Ulitharid with better resistances and immune to Criticals apparently. Almost drained PC (1 int). Had to simply send the B-M forward, and that would be all.

A Drow Chain stored in this area (taken from the F/M captain), will be helpful in the oncoming fight with Sendai to the B-M (decreased casting speed of 1 is always good).

PC caps, level 40. 14 Criticals, 7 Hardinesses final.

Back to Cespenar - we forge the Short Sword of Mask +5. It's unwise to forge the +5 Cutthroat because it costs 75 000 gp, which, despite being not so expensive, is not so useful either. The +5 version has a 15% chance of applying 1d6 slashing damage. Since the weapon is mainly used vs Coin Golems, and they're immune to Slashing damage, the upgrade is basically for the +1 THAC0 and +1 damage (the latter not very significant, due to enormous enemy resistances) bonus, and the +1 dexterity bonus (also not very significant). So it's basically 75 000 gp for +1 THAC0 vs Coin Golems. Grand. I label that upgrade "worthless"!

Now the Short Sword of Mask in IA lacks lvl drain (enemies are anyway immune to it at present), but 5000 gp for +1 THAC0 and damage I consider a fair price.

We go inside and deal with Sendai's almost vanilla statues and drow (those are a limited number in IA, dunno if in vanilla too). We leave the last statue...actually we don't. Trigger with Lower Resistances, followed by Maze...and there is no one in the vicinity, the party teleports to the Pocket Plane.

Fought the battle 3 times. Won 3 times. Made a video on the last attempt's tactic. It was best refined.

The first video shows how to lure the remaining statue (vanilla, cannot see Invisible) to a safe location. The fight itself (last videos still uploading):

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Info:

I was told that in the final IA v6 version Sendai is immune to Dispel Magic. Perhaps she is. However I used Remove Magic, and it turned out she's not immune to those. She's a very high-leveled F/M/C though, but her mage levels are 32 or 33, dunno, so her mage buffs are dispelled easily by 36-level Remove Magicks. Still, I used each time 2* or 3* of those as a precaution against failure. If Sendai's newly erected combat protection (be it Stoneskin, PFMW or Armor of Faith) is not dispelled immediately, she will cast an offensive spell - clerical Dispel Magic. She casts those at instant speed, and since her clerical levels are higher than my mage levels, this will probably dispel everyone's buffs (well except for the two mages naturally). Still, I don't wanna give her that chance, since my chars are prebuffed six times by Mazzy, this decreases their saves and THAC0 enormously. Since Sendai and her two Web Golems have very good AC, THAC0 boost is very important. Naturally, Armor of Faith has to be Breached. She also has multiple Hardinesses, but in the last attempt the R-C hit her enough times to ensure her quick downfall after her last guardian died (she can't die until even one of her minions is alive).

The B-M was in the front, his task was to attract both Web Golems. Web Golems are almost identical to Hardwood golems - they wield both magical and nonmagical (off-hand) weapon, their off-hand dispels specific protections and applies Miscast Magic on target. They cannot see through Invisibility (that's why Saros had to break his full Invisibility by talking to someone before the fight started), and are not immune to Blindness. They are immune to all types of damage except for Slashing, against which they have 95% resistance only.

However one Web golem saw a Greater Swanmay as a nearest target. No problem, that Swanmay was pulled out of combat and assigned a new position near Saros. Reason being simple - it had to die and then the Web Golem would see Saros as the nearest target and attack him.

Saros was immune to Web Golems' attacks. Web Golems won't attack anyone who's under Absolute Immunity, but will attack someone who's under PFMW and protected from Normal Weapons by other means (Aslyferund's Elven Chain, in this case). Script error or stupidity, dunno what. Let's just say they're stupid. Or it's probably intentional, to ensure the overpowerness of a Necromancer PC (that one gets immunity to +1 and less in Hell).

So we had the perfect shield vs the Web Golems. He quickly cast Black Blade of Disaster and by equipping Belm off and with thremendous Mazzy bonus and with Potion of Power (same bonus as Tenser's partial, lasts 4 turns instead of 1) we had our third perfect fighter vs the Web Golems. BTW Saros gained last proficiency at level 36 and put a second star in two-weapon style for just this occasion.

Naturally the spiders are weaker and had to die first. As long as we have Mazzy's buffs active, only summons may get stuck in the Improved Web. And no one can dispel them by a hit, since Invoke Courage is not considered to be a Specific protection. As you can see, Mazzy's six prebuffs were active till the end of the fight. Most of the summons were buffed at least 4 times by Mazzy, some 6, some only 2.

Sendai's Pet is most vulnerable to Piercing weapons. I could pull out Saros and attack the pet with his halberd skill too, but then again I'd lose the firm ground vs the Web Golems. Not good. Jack and Bane did the job by themselves, and with Criticals - very fast. The pet has to die that way since several rounds after the fight starts it unleashes a Roar that deafens everyone nearby (spell casting failure of 50%). I had a plan against that, by using Neutralize Poison scrolls with both Jack and Torham, but it would take quite some time to restore everyone back to normal. Not even once in the three attempts did the Pet roar.

Micromanagement ensured that all fighters are in the reach range of only one Web Golem - the second had to choose between Saros and a Swanmay. Swanmays are not very effective vs the Web Golems as can be seen though.

Despite Bane's protections being dispelled (and impossible to be refreshed, not until Mass Invisibility wanes anyway) Foebane kept him at nearly 450 HP, which would make him impossible to kill even with triple ADHW CC (he always saves, so only 60d8 damage, the impossible max of which is 480). If Sendai had attempted a Dragon Breath on Bane, he had the Dragon Lord halberd in pack to switch to if need be. However she was hard pressed to defend herself and couldn't even think about attacking. She tried some offensive spell, probably Storm of Vengeance by the looks of it, which was stopped by LMD.

BTW the tests show that the CC: 2* Khelben's Warding Whip + 1* Larloch's Interrupter is also very effective, but that's for lower-leveled parties who cannot execute the Remove Magic tactic successfully and have to rely on multiple Breaches. BTW this is one fight where several Breach scrolls may come in very handy (spellbooks may be depleted of those).

It's unwise to attack anyone with the R-C except Sendai. Spiders can dispel his protections (namely PFME and ProEvil, he is immune to Fire and Lightning due to his gear), Sendai's Pet can do it as well (and is more resistant to Crushing damage) and Web golems are immune to Crushing damage. So the R-C basically has to attract Sendai's attention which isn't very hard - it's either him or a nearby summon. Anyway everyone except the mages was immune to Poison (Torham wearing the Talisman of Greater Protection) because Sendai's flail has a 25% chance to inflict Poison damage on hit. Besides, with Girdle of Bluntless and Shield of the Archons Torham's AC crushing modifier is -8, in addition to -25 AC from his gear and buffs, that's -33. -35 if you count ProEvil. -4 to Sendai's THAC0 due to Mass Invisibility. So -39.

Loot includes: Ring of Free Action from Sendai, also a Time Stop scroll (there was another one found on the Ancient Dragon which Saros scribed, it's not a very useful spell anymore), some other scrolls, and vanilla items. We give the Wong Fei's Ioun Stone to Saros, and do some helmet redistribution (PC gets Balduran, R-C gets Crimson Stone/Helm of brilliance, and Vhailor's goes in pack - it's not like we're gonna make much use of it anymore, so we may just sell it).

Sold tons of items (almost all). Assembled more than 300 superior healing potions (good, I was running short of those). Sold also all Absolute Immunity scrolls I had left. Forged a ring +4 out of 12 +1. Cost me 310 000 gp and 4 Rogue stones. R-C equipped a normal full plate, a +4 ring and a +2 ring, now his save vs spells is not awful anymore. Unfortunately we have only 115 000 gp left, and we need some more to create the Golem Slayer +5 (50 000 more gp). Also we need 10 000 gp for the Montolio's cloak and the Hindo's doom +4 upgrades. We have a few sellables, but those are worth less than 10 000 gp. Possibly some scrolls from Lazarus as well. And there isn't much gold in Abazigal's lair...and I don't wanna sell any more Superior healing potions either. The party has more than 80 PFMW scrolls and some other scrolls too, but I consider those to be of use in the last fight.

Edit: Killed 8 more guys in Amkethran, apparently those were the last of the bounty hunters in the region. Sold their stuff and the remaining stored +2 and +3 items. Got gold to 147 000. Forged a +3 quarterstaff. Gold back to 132 000. Delved deep through packs and sold almost all items I thought unnecessary anymore, these included things like Gloves of Healing, Albruin sword, and even the Dagger of the Stars and the Ravager halberd (those proved to be an unwise investment, shouldn't have them upgraded in the first place). Anyway, sold even all remaining Enchanted weapon scrolls, 8 Rings of protection +1 (8 remained), and got gold to 165 000. Forged the Golem Slayer for 150 000, Montolio's cloak for 5 000, and the party has 10 000 in pack for the Hindo's doom and FoA +5 upgrades.

I am still unsure about the Golem Slayer upgrade, we will test it in the last battle. It can only be used by single-class mages, that means only the sorceress, Seri, in our party. After I develop a successful no-reload tactic for the last fight (EDE), will make a thorough report on which items are worth keeping, which items lose their usefulness at what point and can be sold, and which upgrades (vanilla and IA) are worth creating. All from this party's perspective, naturally.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 30 juillet 2013 - 06:40 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 9, Part 1: The Dragon's lair:

Draconis IS immune to Remove Magic. Easiest test was seeing his Black Blade of Disaster not being dispelled (magically created weapons such as this are automatically dispelled by any level dispel or remove magic). So he has to be Breached. Or not:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

All that had to be removed in Dragon form were his Stoneskins. He either doesn't have Breach or doesn't use any, which is great. Good luck removing those PFME, ProAcid, Chaotic Commands and ProEnergy with your Remove Magicks, worm. I forgot to equip the Dragon Lord halberd on time so that at least PC was not buffeted away. Still, powerful summons occupied Draconis' attention for long enough. R-C provided excellent divine support from afar (yeah, talk to me about Cernd, I still like way better those Greater Restorations once per round from the 3-screens-away safely positioned Ranger-Cleric). In desperation, Draconis even tried his Acid breath on 127% protected party fighters. Again, Chateau Irenicus weapons saved the day faster than anything else could. I told you they will be very useful until the very end of the game now, didn't I? And yeah...all dragons except Traxi and Firkraag wear helmets.

A good place for using Breach scrolls, another battle for which Breach spells may be insufficient (had to spend quite a lot of slots on ProAcid). That's why about 20 of those should be kept at all times until the very last fight, when the rest can be sold.

Draconis also drops a Permanency scroll and a Manual of Elaboration. Frankly, I lost track of those, every "boss" in ToB drops at least one of those items - and almost always a Permanency scroll - Yaga-shura drops Permanency scroll, Sendai does, Captain Tombelten does, some of Sendai's subordinates drop Perm scrolls.

The remainer of Abazigal's lair is totally vanilla, thus very easy and not at all interesting. Last ToB improved fights are Abazigal (easier than Sendai, I think), and the Epic Divine Encounter (IA v6's top challenge, facing the Rakshasa Prince and his minions in the Pocket Plane).

Even the kuo-toans inside Azi's lair are vanilla. But the overall loot is so very small...Lycanth the Mad can be killed for additional 20 000 xp without penalty, the Green Dragon as well (60 000 xp, drops Oaken ring, Ring of Improved invisibility omitted in IA v6). We forged Hindo's Doom +4 btw, great, we have an item granting immunity to Death magic when there are no more Death-type spells or abilities until the very end of the game. Splendid. BTW I haven't seen even a single enemy in ToB to cast Finger of Death or to release 3*of those from a Chain Contingency. Hm, no, there was one - someone vanilla from Nalmissra's party. At least the Greater Restoration may come in handy.

Abazigal:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

You probably wonder how I have a drow elven chain inside here. I really don't know exactly how it happened. When I decided not to use the Chain vs Sendai (since the B-M had to wear the Aslyferund's chain instead) I tested if I could store it in the Pocket Plane container. I dropped the item on the ground upon teleporting into the Pocket Plane, and after a round picked it up and put it in a container. It worked.

However, test reloads (had one to refine Abazigal's tactic, didn't work outright because I forgot a Breach is necessary to dispel that pesky PFME of his) show that if a character is wearing the Drow chain in the Pocket plane, it is dissolved almost immediately after reloading. Apparently the check point is arrival (reloading) in the pocket plane. Once that is bypassed, the item is preserved and can be put to good use. The Drow Chain doesn't dissolve in Abazigal's lair. BTW it shouldn't dissolve in the Pocket Plane either since it's an enclosed place, no sunlight.

Basically the idea is to Spellstrike Azi, Lower his resistance, Breach him and then shower him with low-casting time damaging spells from the fire, acid and magical damage.

Proper positioning of the party members before Azi's turned to dragon and use of the Poseidon's wrath halberd are necessary. The halberd kills a salamander on each hit. BTW I could transfer it to Jack (he has **in Halberds) and use Criticals for 100% hit-kill, but he has 5 APR and is better vs Azi than Saros anyway. All party members were under six Invoke Courages, since Azi's AC is very good. Of course, once he switches to dragon form, that and all other buffs are dispelled.

Some mistakes I made and which could be corrected:

An extra party member: Cernd with the Circlet of the Woods is excellent, for 8 Flame Arrows (level 15 as he is in the start of ToB) and 1 Creeping Doom under his Alacrity. He's immune to Silence, meaning he'll even be able to cast six Unleash Energy spells. That's quite a lot of damage. I could also pick yet another mage, but as you can see, Azi unleashed 2 Greater Silences in a very short interval. If I had another mage, he would simply release 3. So Cernd in this case is better, since we're pursuing damage output.

Spells in (minor) sequencers: Picked Melf's acid arrows where I should've definitely picked Magic Missiles. Acid arrows deal max of 5 dmg, which is the minimum that 5 Missiles would do.

Chain Contingency: Should've memorized 1 of these, in order to refresh them with 3* ADHW each for the finishing blow (can be activated under Silence, no problem there).

Improved Alacrity: Saros ended the fight with 1 unused Alacrity, whereas he could've started the fight under Alacrity, unleashing several Farsights to light the entire battlefield, then quickly switching Vecna to the Sorceress. Farsight is extremely important. A Greater Djinni alone, if controlled to cast PFMW, can hold at bay both the Ice and the Ultra golem for 4 rounds (they won't cast Purge magic at a summon, stupid as they are). Basically Purge Magic in v5 was released by enemies on the first target they see, making them gullable by any lowly summon. And in v6 not much has changed, since if golems don't use Purge on summons, that also can be turned to their big disadvantage.

BTW there is some misleading info that can jeopardize this fight: The 2nd level spell, Melf's acid arrow's description states that it has a casting time of 2. That's not true, the actual casting time of the spell is 3. This, naturally, is a vanilla game bug, however it's one that's not corrected in IA (neither spell casting time is fixed, nor the description is fixed to match) and thus is highly misleading. Another spell with mixed-up description is Creeping Doom. The description states that it has a casting time of 5, whereas it's actually 9.

Azi drops 10 000 gp, another Permanency scroll and Manual of Elaboration (if only I could sell those...), and his vanilla items, plus a Spell Shield scroll (why that useless .... again). OK at least I don't have to worry about the money needed for the FoA +5 upgrade. I can even buy some scrolls from Lazarus! Gram the Sword of Grief will be sold naturally, I have no need of that weapon. We already sold the Psion's blade. Two-handed swords are useless for this party, barring Lilarcor, but it's useful because of the immunities it grants even to a character unable to use the Shield of Harmony, such as a Riskbreaker or a Kensai.

Upon teleporting in the pocket plane the Drow Chain dissolves. Oh well. We don't need it anymore anyway.

We forge FoA +5. Its Free Action has been omitted in IA v6. Great. I don't know who comes up with these brilliant ideas. It's a late ToB item, prior to the last fight, why remove Free Action from it. As of now, it's useless to the party, since even the R-C can wield Runehammer in off-hand (and it's equally good, since in the last fight enemies are immune to all extra damage the flail could inflict).

We haven't left Abazigal's lair yet (outside is Elminster). Rested inside Pocket Plane. Prepared new set of spells in order to kill Elminster. That can be done with Int drain. Used precisely timed Limited Wish CC trigger on hit, which provided me with the single option of Time Stop. Polymorphed into Mind Flayer, increased str to 24 via a Trigger, equipped Belm off-hand for more APR and killed Elminster. He drops a +2 cloak, +2 ring, +1 amulet, Robe of the Neutral Archmagi and also a Mace +1. now we don't actually need any of these items, nor are they too expensive, but still it's good to kill him.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 31 juillet 2013 - 06:02 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Chapter 9, part 2: Vanilla tasks:

Joined Imoen, temporarily killed the sorc and the R-C.

We kill some more vanilla guards in Amkethran. Balthazar's front mages are lightly improved (equal to 14-level Yuanti mages). Saemon can be killed via Int drain if the party is quick enough after the cutscene, he drops two +3 Scimitars.

Balthazar's monks killed first, otherwise xp lost.

Faheed and Majira can be killed without any penalty. After their death, the container on the wall can be robbed without any penalty.

Testing shows that if Faheed, Majira and Lazarus are Mazed and their containers- robbed, they still notice the theft after returning from the Maze. That drops reputation only by 1 in both cases, but anyway I wouldn't wanna anger Lazarus, and Faheed&Majira are better slain for their items + xp.

Bought the Silver Ioun Stone. Costs only 3 700 with max discount, but increases PC's wisdom to 17, making it quite normal to Wish with the JD sword.

Bought some scrolls from Lazarus. Anyway, the party now doesn't have anything else to create. Sold some already useless items: Aslyferund's elven chain, Vhailor's helm and all sellables obtained soon. Gold is 63 000.

Completed all but the last Pocket Plane challenges (all vanilla, only one lightly improved is Semaj).

Re-bought Malla's Soul Stone, a Robe of the Good Archmagi and Drizzt's scimitar +3, Icingdeath. Gave 5000 gp to Malla, quest completed the good way. Bought some more spell scrolls. Gold is 30 000.

Completed Odren's quest the "good" way, for 125 000 xp (decided not to abandon Odren, killed vanilla Demogorgon, only thing to protect myself against is the Hold effect of Implosion, done via the Cat Figurine's free action). Demogorgon's minions give no xp whatsoever. Bane capped here (12 200 000 xp), picking 13th Critical Strike as last HLA.

Imoen is at 3 166 000 xp, she needs 234 000 more for lvl 18, Wish and improved Alacrity. I would get there had I taken her in Sendai's and Abazigal's lairs a bit more. Still, I will apply an unlimited XP-exploit just because I could do it normally, because this is no-longer a no-reload and because I want to test something with her 9-level spells.

At this point of the game, there are several (at least 4) endless XP exploits, will spoil the one I think most worthless. When fighting the Ravager, each of his infinitely-respawning Bone Blades is worth 2500 xp.

Killed enough Bone Blades, Imoen gained level 18. Spell picks from level 4 and above (listed important ones for the last fight only):
Stoneskin
Spell Immunity
PFMW
PFME
Limited Wish
Hand of Undoing
Spell Sequencer
Spell Trigger
Foreknowledge
Wish
Improved Alacrity

Dressed Imoen good (two +2 rings, Robe of the Good Archmagi, amulet +1, Lavender Ioun Stone), gave her a bunch of scrolls (20 PFMW), prepared a sequencer and a trigger, disbanded her for now.

Gave Nalia quite a lot of scrolls to scribe. Prepared a Sequencer and trigger with her too. Gave her the scimitar Frostbrand, which together with her ring grants her 100% static fire resistance. Hopefully the Rakshasa prince won't lower Fire res on a character that's not a party member. However, wasting more xp or resources on Nalia is not recommended, since she cannot cast Wish effectively (lower Wisdom than Imoen, and she's dual-class mage much like Saros who can never get the Wish: Rest option). Also gave Nalia 20 PFMW scrolls and other as well. That leaves more than 20 PFMW scrolls for both Saros and Seri (we have a total of 87 after Nalia scribed one).

Forged another +2 ring at Cespy with the remaining 30k gold. Not necessary, but good, gave it to Nalia (I still have one spare +2 ring, but would rather give her a +1 if I didn't create this one). I don't really think that these items for both Imoen and Nalia are required - if the ruse works, they will be obsolete, same if it doesn't work.

Okay now the long buffing and testing begins. Will post the no-reload strategy for the last IA v6 fight in the next few days, when I have refined the tactic to 110% chance of success with the current party.

[saros_shadow_follower]

Sorry for the long wait (if anyone is still following the topic, that is). The videos are ready. However there are 29 parts currently uploading so it may take a couple of days to have them all. And I have to write a very detailed report on the video itself to be comperhendable. Will make the post after a couple of hours, and the parts of this video will be uploaded on a regular basis.

Won the fight several times before this video, but I really wanted a fullproof safe no-reload tactic with no near calls, this is the best I came up with.