General Ghoul's Guide to Battle Squares

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I'm trying to find where this is located on Sorcerer's, but haven't found it yet. Can someone please link it for me? Thanks in advance.

 

I'm sure I read it on these forums, but search function doesn't seem to reveal it. Perhaps it was deleted?

 

Well, he refers to it in this (http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/14/2816.html#000007) post, but offers no link to it. He mentiones that you can keep summons in the BS room, and another poster says you can keep your full party there. I've tried every spot inside (and outside) I can, but the golem always teleports them out, even if I ctrl+J them in. I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing to get this to work.

 

There´s no missing thing.I don´t remember if this particular post was deleted, but i can easily remeber the steps, ´cos I used all the time.
The catch is that the golem teleports you out only if he spots any of the OTHER party members in the room.The one that keeps in is the one that activates the lever.You have to walk this PC rigth next to the golem BEFORE click on the square selected.
One point of advice: the golem always HAVE to "see" the enemy monster, so you have to put your "activate" PC between the golem and the monster, and the other party member (with the throwing weapons) in the opossite corner of the room.
The golem MUST stays in the same spot when the battle beggins(rigth next to the door).If he moves around in order to "see" the battle properly(for example if you run around the monster), the whole thing goes straigth to hell, and you have to finish the rest of the squares all by your tiny self.

 

There's got to be some trick I'm missing. If anyone's at this part, can they please post or e-mail me a pic of the spot they stand in to have this trick work? My addy is fortain@hotmail.com.

EDIT
As far as patches go, I have the 2.01 patch installed, parts of the Ease-of-Use mod (Bugfixes, Infinite Stacking, War Chant, & Forgotten Armor), and an additional mod that makes BoHs hold infinite items.

 

If you do a search for Battle Squares you could find it, but I will repeat here:


The real trick to beating the battle squares in getting a character to survive against the later round monsters. For reference sake, there are 10 levels to the battle squares (BS). To beat a level you must defeat a summoned monster with one character in a set time limit (I believe 90 seconds, but I may be mistaken) through a “set” of squares from 3 to 7 by selecting a square from a 9 board (like tic-tac-toe). There are plenty of guides on how to choose squares, so I wont get into that, but please note, if you mess up on one square, you may not to cast power word: reload, just pick another square, you can loss a square without losing the round.

Before the battle begins the golem, who is the judge for the fight, teleports the remaining party members to a locked room across the map, so they cannot help you during the fight. Also any summoned help is also teleported away, even if the combatant summoned them during the fight (which may not be really fair to solo arcane classes, but eh, it’s a game). However, the golem has its own fog of war whose limit from his standing position at the start of the battle is the middle square, where the monster is ported in. Now the golem will always keep the combatant in his site, so if you move across the BS he will move with you. If you don’t leave his sight, he won’t move. This is the key, whatever he can’t see, he won’t mess with. So if you summon some help before the battle and keep them out of his sight during the battle, he won’t send them away. More on this later.

I have played through this game several times, including solo, so this guide works with most parties. Solo’s probably won’t make it through all levels on your first trip through the dungeon, but remember you can come back later to finish them. I think its well worth it to try to finish the BS, as the rewards are great. The key to surviving (and it is surviving, not winning) the BS is to have a combatant who can either take a hit (high hps) or not get hit at all (high AC, decoy) while at the same time can dish out some damage, and for the later levels, dish out high magic damage (several monsters have DR, so give your combatant the best magic weapons you have and definitely have the mace of disruption you get as one of the rewards on hand, several times I have vanquished a demon or elemental with one hit from the mace). My best characters for this were a half-orc pure barbarian and a deep gnome decoy (I believe he was a monk1/ranger1/fighter1/cleric1/illusionistX duel wielding the mace and a sword +3). But I have also finished with a solo cleric and a solo sorcerer(with mirror image).

I suggest resting between levels, if for nothing else but to replenish your buffs and heal, but I have made it through level 9 before even getting hit with the decoy character. Remember the game knows which levels you have finished and you can come back later if you find the later level monsters too tough.

First thing, you need to get some summons to help. While they will get in some hits and kills on the early levels, their only job on the later levels is to be a meat shields. Heck, even pre patch animate dead summons won’t get a hit on the demons and elementals, they probably wont last getting hit from one of these guys either. I like to get 4 summons, more than that, they cant all get into a medium monsters threat zone to get a hit in, and they may wonder into the golem’s sight line, which will immediately teleport em out, wasting that summons for that level ( but if it does happen, you can walk em back down between levels. Don’t waste your undead!!) Summon vermin also works, however, they get killed quicker and cant hit anything tough. I also like summoning bears, they have lots of hps so at least they can take a hit before dying. Summon monster (x) sucks here as they only last a few rounds, but in a pinch in the heat of battle, they are better than nothing. But I prefer a few boneguards and zombie lords, eight hours of undead fun.


Now that you have summoned, its time to buff. Use em if you got em. Bless, Haste, Bull’s STR, whatever you got. Don’t forget to buff the summons with any “ALL party” spells. Blessed undead, hehe. Load up with you healing potions, etc, as the rest of the party won’t be needed them for now. Pass all you good stuff to this character, he will need it.

Positioning is the trick. Move the summons into the top right hand corner, anywhere past the last level seems to work. Jam them together, pause and target each of em if need be. Move the rest of the party into the hall. (While I agree you can put your party in the corner, I find they move to much on their own to target the monster, so unless you are a mico-manager, I find it too tedious to keep up with them all. Plus, I want meat shields, and high level demons seem to search for whoever cast that lightning bolt at em, and you don’t want a demon chasing your 24 hp wizard do you?) Now have your combatant pull the start lever. Your party should now be teleported without the summons, if the summons were sent; they were not far enough into the corner. Move the combatant to the “9:00” position between the golem and the monster. The monster will target you as you are the only enemy he can see now (this is why the choice of combatant is important, see above). Now have “all” target the monster. Your summons should move in to attack from behind. As long as they stay behind your foe, the golem won’t see them and leave them there. After the monster from round one is dead, leave your summons where they are. You are teleported back to the “9:00” position. When round 2 begins, your summons are in the monsters threat zone, so it targets them first. You can even stay in your starting position and use missile weapons and spells (Now don't do this in round one, as the monster is targeting you, it will close to melee with you, if you want to use your summons they will get too close to the golem and he will send them away. You must move toward the monster quickly, you usually have a second will it is porting in before it become solid before it can attack, move in before it can move toward you in the first round only). Shoot, most monster turn their back (do elementals have backs?) to you so you can wail away without ever being targeted. Now rinse and repeat through rounds 3 to 7 as necessary, refilling summons and buffs between levels as needed. Yes, you may get unlucky in late levels with nothing but demons that whack high level undead with one hit. But you are saving after each fight aren’t you? I once got lucky on level 10 with nothing but the giant bugs(name escapes me now) and giants. But you will probably get gelegons (sp?) and elder elementals. That’s what the mace is giving to you for. Save vs disruption or instance death (one of those demons saves on 3 or better, BTW, but its better that nothing. If you find it too tough, come back when you have better magic weapons). I’m sure the BS are to prove the value of the fighter classes to the party, but I had a solo sorcerer ( with shadow monsters) using just the mace, magic missiles, and lightning bolts to finish the BS. If you must move into the top hall (usually to escape the really big foes, like giants who can’t fit out the door), remember you have now left the golem line of sight and he will move over to keep an eye on you. He usually move straight up from his position, so by keeping your summons on the right side of the monster you can keep them. But if you have more than three summons, one will work its way to the “6:00” position and be seen, better to move extra summons out of the fight for now, back to the top corner. But come on, if you can’t take out the giant, you got no shot against those demons.

Your combatant need only to survive being targeted by the first round monster, while dealing out enough damage in the late levels to beat the BS.


For a visual reference, if the BS room is A to I wide, A to I long, and the squares are in 1 to 9 positions, the golem starts at E-down, the doorway is at E-across. Jam those summons into the I-across, B-down corner. 9:00 position is #4, 6:00 position is #8. Monsters are ported into #5, you start each round to the left of #4, keep your summons in #3, 6, 9 while the fighting is happening and between rounds.


A B C D E F G H I
B
C
D ... 1 2 3
E ... 4 5 6
F ... 7 8 9
G
H
I


Hope this helps.

[ January 08, 2007, 06:09: Message edited by: General Ghoul ]

 

I'm starting to think that I must have an unlucky copy of IWD2, because no matter how much I place my party in that corner, the golem sends them all into the locked room. Even if everyone but the lever-puller are outside the room (hell, on the other side of the map) they still get sent to that room. Is it possible that one of the patched corrected this trick, and everyone's been playing with an earlier version of the game but me? Thanks much for everyone's help so far.

 

I play fully patched game, forget your party, you dont need them, go with the summons.

 

It's not too difficult to defeat the battle squares in a regular way even without reloading between fights.
You don't have to beat all ranks when you first get there, the fights in chapter 3 and 4 aren't very difficult, you can return anytime when you're better equipped and more experienced as long as you don't fly away with Oswald.

Even without hiding the party or using the summoning trick it's no problem defeating the squares on your first visit if you use saving and reloading between battles. You can face low HP monsters at all levels.

 

@General Ghoul
I don't use summons, so I wanted to see if I could do the same trick with my party. Apparently, no matter where you place your party, they still get sent away, although summons do not (I CLUA'ed a Summon scroll, and the critter stayed in the BS room).

@Kmonster
I know it's not too difficult to beat BS, but I saw that several people could get their party to stay, so I wanted to try it, too. I've beaten the BS before, I was just trying something different.

 

Going through the game shortly with a party of 3 (Fighter, Monk and Cleric, on a LAN with 2 friends), would it be a good thing to let the fighter or monk be the combattant, and try to position the cleric in a way that he can heal the combattant?

We are obviously not able to summon a lot of creatures with that party, so we we're thinking about taking the healing route...

General Ghoul explained that casters aren't a very good option as they get targeted by the monsters when their destructive spells land. But does a healer draw aggro when healing the combattant who has the initial aggro?

Last time we went through the game we didn't finish the squares... We got fed up with reloading (at BS level 8 or 9 i think) and just went on with the game. But now we really wanna finish it, and we kinda hope to heal the combattant through the fights... Any comments?

on a side note: we play on a LAN, so we only need to worry about our own character. No need for pausing and micro-management cos positioning will be rather easy...

 

I'd go with the fighter. The monk will have a hard time hitting the high level monsters, unless he is high level himself (probably not at this stage of the game). Just give the F all your good stuff, use the cleric to buff him. Also a 5th level cleric can cast Animate Dead, the best summons for the BS. You will have a hard time getting the cleris to heal your fighter as the golem will always keep the lever puller in his sight and all healing spells are touch spells. Better to just load up on healing potions.

 

Which combatant would be the best depends also on character stats and levels, different classes get different boosts when reaching a new level.

Summoning shouldn't be a problem with your party, you can get enough greater boneguards with your cleric and there's also the spell "giant vermin".
The bigger problem is the lack of arcane buffing spells like "stoneskin", "emotion: hope", "haste" and "improved invisibility".


My advice is: skip the battle squares !

You have to win at least 250 fights for finishing them, considering the buffing, healing and other preparation you'll be busy for at least 8 hours even without reloading.
Reloading and retrying will also take it's time (without arcane spells it's even harder) , so you'll spend days just for finishing them.
There are better ways to spend your precious LAN time.

There's a mod which allows getting the items from the squares without having to fight each battle, install it and spend your gaming time for funnier things than endless reload orgies.

 

Battle Squares are going to be exceedingly boring in multiplayer, as 2/3rds of your party will be sitting on their butts. I suggest doing only the bare minimum to advance the story.

I also suggest switching the Monk out for a sorcerer...

 

As an aside, what is the latest point in the game where you can come back & do the Battle Squares?

 

Up until you get on Oswald's skyship to go to Kuldahar.