2 hard battles - too hard?

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Last time I played normal mode, I think I played it at easy or beginner, now that I'm playing Insane (double damage), I wonder if 2 battles have become too difficult:

The Iron Golems
I got the Reforger, but I think it will take too long for anyone to destroy all 4 golems. I was thinking about luring them away with my rogue/illusionist (she doesn't have any hope of damaging them anyway), then letting one golem chase another character on the other side of the map. And maybe my monk/druid can be more effective with the 'sure-striking-returning-throwing-axe-with-electrical-damage'.
Another possibility is to wait till the singled-out golem casts its poison cloud, lure it out of the cloud, and all 5 of my characters can lunge in with +3 slashing & bludgeoning weapons. When it targets one of my characters, it falls back, and leads the golem in circles around the other 4 characters. It's going to be very difficult to keep my rogue in mind, who is running from the other golems.
I went peek-a-boo on the golem's info in NearInfinity, and 52GOLIR.CRE has 32STR, AC30, 108HP, lvl18 fighter, Blind-fight feat, fort/refl/will = 11/6/6, 100 resistance to all elements, spells (SR) and even magic damage. 20 resistance to piercing and missile damage (does this include thrown weapons?). Is the Reforger my only hope of defeating them?

The Drow ambush
just north of Malavon's camp, a Drow priestess, 2 deathsingers and 6 assassins lie in wait. It's the assassins that I'm having so much trouble with: 53DROAS.CRE are rogue 10 / fighter 4 with 18STR, 20DEX, AC20, 100HP, fort/refl/will = 7/8/4, 24SR. Their measly +1 longswords deal a terrifying amount of damage: They get 5d6 sneak attack damage, which is doubled by Insane mode, meaning I see 50-80 damage on non-critical hits! Their SR makes my level 10-12 casters' spells get resisted over half the time. To make matters worse, they drink invisibility potions after hitting, so I can't even cast the quickest of spells (Chromatic Orb) on them.
The best way I can think of affecting them with spells, is to cast Confusion (they're innately immune to my Greater Command) on them, so maybe some assassins will fight eachother. It just seems that I'll need to find a way to get them to use up their potions, so I'm thinking of summoning a horde of monsters with loads of hitpoints (maybe the berserkers from the Bardic Horn of Valhalla can't be backstabbed...), then send them in with a hidden character, the rest will move in later. I'm just worried that my summons won't have enough hitpoints to make them waste all their potions. What makes these assasins worse than the Ghost Lights, is that they don't randomly become visible, but only after hitting, so running around and hoping to hit them with arrows just won't work.

Any ideas are welcome. I know these fights are optional, but I don't want to skip them, and I'd rather not waste any potions or arrows.

 

IIRC, Iron golems can be brought down with bludgeoning weapons (Summon earth elementals works well if you like to use summons) and they aren't too fond of electricity.

You have to be a bit sneaky with the drows, try and draw a couple out, nuke 'em and then go draw the others out. Don't let yourself get stuck between them!

 

These are two of the toughest battles in the game. Hit and run tactics work well, but I'd strongly advise using potions here! As I said, these are two of the toughest battles you'll get into... if you're not using potions here, when are you using them?

 

IIRC, you don't have to defeat them to complete the game. Take the loot and run...

 

It's definitely worth taking out the golems because they are worth plenty of XP. There are lots of different approaches that can be used but they include:
- lots of summons to sit between you and the golems (set them up before you open the chest)
- electricity and bludgeoning
- going through to the Underdark and buying a better two handed weapon to bypass their resistance
- lots of hit and run

The Drow are just an exercise in knowing your enemy. Set yourself up with a range of pre-buffs and summons. Try and immobilise some of them if you can to make the job easier. Sometimes you just get unlucky and one of them will get off a spell that stuffs you up completely but that's what the reload button was invented for.

 

I believe the Drow can't be lured away one at a time anymore, since Tactics makes them move as a group. I think I should take out the priestess fast, and hope my Siren's Yearning will stop them enough (and with the priestess gone, no Remove Paralysis) for me and my gang of buffed summons to make it through the enslaught.

I had some success with the Mind Golems by just getting them to chase one character, while the rest block the path and hack away. The dumbass golem keeps trying to walk around the group, and rarely retargets. If I don't run too far, just slightly behind my party, the golem won't retarget. And even if he does, it's just a question of the targeted party member becoming the new decoy.
With the Iron Golems it's more dangerous, because a poison cloud goes off if he gets too close. It's going to be one helluva delicate procedure, and all the time another decoy is leading the 3 other golems away... many frustrating reloads ahead.

Take the loot and run? The loot is the XP, the items aren't much good. I made much more money by resting (well, attempting to) outside the monastery and skinning Yetis. I'm a regular fur trader.
As for potions: Since the assassins do avg. 65 damage per hit, it would take 2 Spirit Essence potions and 2 rounds to make up for the damage. The only useful healing here, is Heal, and staying mobile might even be better. I have high hopes for Siren's Yearning: They get stalled for 10 rounds (Enthralled is as if asleep), unless they take damage. The Deathsingers are bards, and don't do any area blasting, so I can just take out the priestess, and hopefully most of those assassins will be occupied by Siren's Yearning and summons long enough for me to take them out.
I thought it'd be easier to just lead them into Malavon's camp, and get some Drow aid, but the area spells made the camp go hostile too, so bad plan.

 

I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT!!!

Summoning was the answer, and buffing up of course. Siren's Yearning wasn't effective, and I couldn't wait long enough for it to work. But taking out the priestess was the right way to go: no enemy summons. Then the Deathsingers, because they stay visible - they just use Improved Invisibility. I didn't even need Invisibility Purge (which would be pointless for the assassins, since they can just drink another potion). It was a delicate balance, and I really needed to micromanage my parties' switches from ranged to melee weapons because of the close quarters fighting, very frustrating. The assassins were hard-hitting of course, and the last one was a real pain: it's so typical that it targets and kills my only cleric with Resurrection still memorized - Power Word: Reload. I pulled through the second time.
My sorceress is just able to cast the awesome Mass Haste, and I knew I'd have to use my 4 castings wisely: 2 spent in the Z'hinda Citadel, one when leaving, one when killing the boss. Then I cast one before being 'ambushed' by the Drow. Just had one more left.
With the buffs I had cast for the Drow battle, I quickly moved south to the traders, and had no easy time defeating them, actually. It's because I didn't have Mass Haste for that battle. insect Plague took care of the cleric and mage, but the fighter and rogue were hard hitters, just like the Drow. I'm glad I memorized Ray of Enfeeblement: they both didn't resist or save against it! Lucky me.

So I still had a casting of Mass Haste left, if I wanted to tackle the golems. But I was losing hope of ever taking them on properly in Insane mode. I had almost resigned by the fact that they would have to be skipped, so I tried an all-or-nothing pretend battle, to convince myself it was hopeless: I threw caution out the window, and just decided to meet them head on one last time! None of that 'luring 3 away, while my party takes on one'. I cast 6 Animate Dead, buffed all I could (I had even saved Stoneskins in anticipation of the golems, which made a big difference). Then it was time to get down to business: My rogue2/illusionist drew their attention, and lead them to my little army. The last buffs (Hope, Mass Haste, Recitation, Prayer) were cast moments before the engagement. My bard sung Tymora's for a change, since I thought lucky attacks and Poison Cloud saves would be much more useful than slow healing & weak AC bonus against such hard-hitters.
I was amazed to see that the golems took damage, and some were targeting my summons. I had slain 2 golems before they gained the upper hand, so I thought: 'Ok then, I'll try again, but now seriously.' Switching off Power Attack made a difference. I set my Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst to melee, because it does piercing damage when thrown. They went for my clerics, but each one managed to retreat on time, leave the battlefield, heal elsewhere, and come back with Holy Power!
So not only did I kill the golems, but all of my Stoneskins are still active, only one of my summons was killed by the golems, and even my Mass Haste hasn't worn off. That means it was all concluded in under 12 rounds (70 seconds)!
In retrospect, I don't know why I made such a fuss about these battles. I put my best foot forward, and the golems yielded their XP! Thanks for the interest everybody.

 

Well done sugar! xxx

 

What weapons did you find most effective against the Iron Golems? I normally just send my invisible and hasted rogue in to grab the treasure and take off, exiting the area. Not to my liking as I do not get the xp, but it would be a realistic tactic if you were in that situation in real life.

 

Cleric 1: Club of Disruption (from the Battle Squares challenges in the Ice Temple, +3, +5 enchanted)
Cleric 2: Moon Maiden's Blessing (from Undead Targos mod, +2, +4 enchanted)
my rogue/illusionist went in with a +1 vampiric dagger, but was only there as a distraction, just like the summons. Golems get 20 resistance to piercing damage, and are immune to anything below +3 enchantment. Actually I shouldn't have sold the Handaxe of Expertise (+1, +5 enchanted, slashing dmg, coded as Small Blade for finesse. probably a mod item).
My sorceress has warrior mix-ins, and is the best person to wield the Reforger hammer (+1, +5 enchanted, 10% chance to slay constructs, no save. dropped by Dragu, the duergar inventor who you help to build the Doom Bolter). I'm not sure if any golems were slain - it all happened so fast.
My druid has Axe proficiency from the monk mix-in, meaning she can wield the Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst well (+0, +5 enchanted, +1d6 electric dmg, electricity slows golems). She needs to set it to melee before engaging, or it will be thrown, and do piercing damage, which golems resist.
And my bard sat in the background and sang Tymora's, which gives +1 luck (good for hits and damage rolls, even saving throws) and +3 saves, which helps reduce damage from those poisonous clouds.

The summons don't do any damage, but they distract the golems long enough for your party to do the +3 slashing/bludgeoning damage the golems are vulnerable to. The quicker the battle is over, the better the results.

About vampiric weapons: I'm going to stop using them, because if enemies die from hitpoint draining, you don't get XP.

 

Thanks,

I never been patient enough to play through all 250 battle squares battles, I stop after I get the holy transference bottle, so I never had the Mace of Disruption, or the Brilliant Short Sword.

I'm going to keep my eyes open for those +5 enchantment weapons that pop up on occasion (and I sell because there are only +1, lol) and try my hand at beating the Iron Golems when I get to that part of the game (again ).

 

Last time, I said to myself: "OK, I want to complete the Battles Squares properly this time, so I can say that I completed it." But I got bored to tears after I clicked on the second square, and completely discouraged when I thought about the 250 tedious battles ahead. I just install the 'Skip Battle Squares' component from the ease-of-use mod, and be done with it!

 

The Lost Followers, Tactics enhanced

I'm just posting this to detail the Lost Followers' abilities. I'm having considerable trouble with them, so I took a peek at their strengths and weaknesses. Be advised that they are enhanced by tactics, so may not have all the weaknesses of the originals. Ultracool badass names, by the way.

After due consideration, running again seems to be the best option, or more precisely, decoy tactics. I plan to play 'run-around-the-acid-cloud', and expect that I'll only have to deal with Veddion Kairne if it succeeds. I have some innate acid resistance, and rings too, so I can just go into the acid cloud. Freedom-of Movement rings will hopefully protect me from the slowing effects of Acid Fog. I'll report how it went afterwards.

Spoiler

Kaervas Death's Head
30-16-22-10-12-10
200HP, 16fort, 10refl, 10will, 24AC
lvl20 Fighter w/axe
resistances: 20fire, 100cold, 20elec, 0acid!, 0 Spell Resistance!, 30slash, 10pierce, 10 missile, 1 luck. weakness: {acid} spells, and bludgeoning/acid melee

Veddion Kairne
34-16-20-18-14-18
240HP, 16fort, 12refl, 12will, 26AC
lvl 24 Fighter w/hammer
resistances: 100fire, 100cold, 100elec, 20acid, 50SR, 10slash, 10blud, 10pierce, 0 missile!, 10magic dmg. 1 luck. weakness: ranged is best

Broken Khree
22-16-16-10-28-10
160HP, 16fort, 16refl, 16will, 27AC
lvl20 Monk w/fist
resistances: 10fire, 100cold, 10elec, 10acid, 30SR, 10magicfire&cold, 5slash, 30bludg, 10magic dmg. 1 luck. weakness: melee or ranged w/pierce/(slash)/acid

Inhein-Who-Was-Taken
10-20-18-12-30-10
160HP, 16fort, 10refl, 16will, 26AC
lvl20 Cleric w/qstaff
resistances: 100cold, 20elec, 30SR, 10magiccold, 10slash, 10bludg, 5magic dmg. 1 luck. weakness: melee or ranged w/pierce/fire/acid

Jaiger of the Fanged Seasons
20-30-20-10-10-10
264HP, 17fort, 11refl, 11will, 24AC
lvl22 Barbarian w/longbow & greataxe
resistances: 100cold, 20elec, 32SR, 20pierce, 20missile, 20magic dmg. 1 luck. weakness: melee w/slash/bludg/fire/acid

Atalaclys the Lost
10-16-16-30-20-8
88HP!, 11fort, 11refl, 17will, 24AC
lvl22 Wizard w/dagger
resistances: 100cold, 20elec, 32SR 10magiccold, 5slash, 5bludg, 10pierce, 10missile, 10magic dmg. 1 luck. weakness: general melee w/fire/acid

 

Coin, actually, the weaknesses of the 6 Lost Followers are roughly described in the item description of the pommel or amulet (or whatever it is) for the HA sword, and are pretty much good enough to get the job done ... at least in lesser modes than Insane.


I have to admit that I usually use summons for this battle, if for no other reason than to provide some cannon fodder to keep their tougher tanks from attacking my party members immediately. And I'd make it my #1 priority to take out their nuking spellcaster ASAP, since your party starts the battle grouped together and their nuker could do horrific damage with one spell right at the start of the battle of you don't take him out ASAP. (I'd often try to take out their archer next, cuz he was such a massive pain.)

I have no doubt that this would be a really, REALLY tough battle in Insane mode, enhanced by Tactics. Good luck to you.

 

This battle has become completely impossible in Insane mode with Tactics and the other mods I installed. I just chickened out, and went for beginner. It was still a micromanaged battle of almost an hour.
Kaervas Death's Head takes ages to defeat with the Club of Disruption, and he never fails a save.
Broken Khree's quivering palm always kills someone regardless, and he's so fast, that running is pointless.
Veddion Kairne does 90-125 damage, and his critical hits are a minimum of 260! He's supposed to be beatable by missile damage, but his resistance is higher than I anticipated. He's supposed to only have 10 resistance to slash/bludg/pierce, but his armour adds another 7. With a total 17DR and buff spells from Atalaclys, he really has no weaknesses. It's the fault of my 'Armour and Shields add Damage Resistance' mod component.
One thing that really helped, was firing off these arrows form your Light of Selune mod. They could get Veddion to Near Death. But it's not enough to make them all beatable. If only you had included more than 4 of these arrows...
Unerring Arrows of Disruption
Damage: 1d6 +2
Attack Bonus: Never miss, no attack roll necessary
Enchantment: +1
Damage Type: Missile (piercing)
Special:
Lathander's Light: There are no known cases of an undead surviving a hit from one of these arrows. The Lost Followers do save, oh yes.

 

Oh, it's definitely one of the nastiest battles in IWD2. But while it is avoidable, like some of the battles you also mentioned earlier, they're actually really fun and challenging. And I always looked forward to them.

Never been a problem in my battles cuz he's one of the baddies that I usually keep occupied with summons.

I don't remember the baddy, though it might be Kaervas, but I remember that he always ended up chasing one of my characters and I was never able to get his attention focused on a summons. And he was too dangerous and tough for one character to deal with, so I usually had to have the single character he focused on running all around the battle field while the rest of my party dealt with everyone else.

Yeah, that's a pretty nasty component.

Wow. I guess that I haven't played IWD2 for so long that I didn't even remember those.

I'd have to check the details (and even remember how to do it) on the Lost Followers, but if they resist such an arrow, perhaps they aren't actually classified as "undead" in their CRE files.

 

Oh, they most definitely save against disruption, so they must be undead. The save they must make is very high, but they always make it. Each arrow does over 50 damage to them despite a successful save, so they're a godsend.
As for summons in Insane mode; they keep an opponent occupied for 3 or 4 rounds at most, because they're killed after that. Mostly Tactics mod makes the opponents retarget before that.
I actually think that this is the toughest battle of them all, now. They have become such hard-hitting and hard-to-hit opponents, that they are almost on par with Isair and Madae, and there are 6 of them. Maybe it's not impossible to complete in Insane mode, but you'd have to follow the Tactics modmaker's advice to the letter:

I hate using Protection from Magic scrolls. I also need to memorize more castings of ORS than just the Despana Insignia item, so I'll have to buy a scroll. Only Broken Khree is too hard to cage, for the rest I'll devote ALL my illusionist's level 4 slots to this.
Gelugons? Aren't they high-level Shades/GSC summons? I'm summoning Scrags and Umber Hulks at the moment...

 

Do you include these in Light of Selune, crucis? I've never found any. I do remember them in Undead Targos, though.

 

Acrux, I just checked the LoS files, and those arrows are not LOS items.

Been so long since I was familiar with LoS, that I couldn't say one way or the other without actually checking.

 

Oops, you're right Acrux. I thought the code was f#disarr.itm, but it's w#disarr.itm. My bad. It's one of the few unique items that the Undead Targos mod adds.