Shade Lord Help?

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Eh, I started the Umar Hills campaign pretty early in the game. I've already beaten this quest and the dragon many times in previous playthroughs, but this was like 15 years ago, and I'm just now getting interested in the game again. I completely bypassed the dragon because I know I don't have the required equipment to slay it yet. However, I ran into a huge problem when I ran off to fight the Shade Lord himself. What I did first was destroyed the Shadow Altar, then focused my whole party on the Shade Lord, ignoring the shadows and Patrick.

The problem I'm having is that your walkthrough says defeating the Shade Lord should be easy. However, I find that once I get the Shade Lord down to Near Death, he autocasts mirror image and two spells. These spells seem to reflect my spells and also reflect any physical damage my party does to this creep. So basically every time I hit this guy, it does no damage to him and it pretty much instakills my party. Remove Magic and Dispel do not get rid of his protections. All of this while he's casting his own spells and level draining my party. I don't even have a full blown cleric, just Aerie. I don't have restoration spells or raise dead yet. Here is the party I have and their noteworthy equipment:

Helena: Chaotic Evil Gnome Illusionist (10) Equipped with Arla's Dragonbane, mostly illusion and protection spells, maxed out skills except for Wisdom and Ring of Human Influence
Korgan10) Equipped with Battle Axe +1, Plate +1, and Helm of Charm Protection
Minsc: (9) Equipped with Sword of Chaos, Mail of the Dead, Helm of Balduran
Aerie (8/9) Mostly healing spells and offensive mage spells
Hexxat (11) Arbane's sword
Yoshimo (11) no good equipment

I'll update this if I make it through the fight.

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Problem solved by focusing initial attacks on the Shade Lord with Minsc (and Boo), Korgan, and Yoshi, while attacking the Shade Altar with Aerie (+1 war hammer), Hexxat, and Helena. The Shade Lord was wiped out pretty fast, and when he got to Near Death, it looked like the game was going to do an autocast, but maybe keeping the Shade Altar intact stopped him from doing that. In whatever case, he appeared to die, came back and stood there, got hit and died again. Problem solved.

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And in case anyone was wondering why I chose Helena as my protagonist name:

 

I don't recall what protection spells the Shade Lords casts on himself, but if you can't hit him with your weapons he may be casting stoneskin, in which case your going to want to have the 5th level wizard spell Breach available to cast on him. You need to pay attention to what spells an enemy casts, because taking those spells down often requires the rights spell(s) from your party.

Also, if fighting a level draining enemy it's best if you have some form of negative plane protection from whomever is tanking. Since you have Korgan, he can use his berserker rage which will grant negative plane protection, among other boons.

EDIT - and just noticed that you already defeated him. Okay, moving along then....

 

It's not stoneskin that he's casting. The spell makes the Shade Lord invulnerable and any damage I do to him is reflected. You even get a visual of your magic missile or chromatic orb coming back at you, and the physical damage you do becomes instantly apparently when your party starts dying unexpectedly. Whatever it was, it was a truly awesome spell that I wish I had. It said the name of the spell in the battle dialogue, but it's too late to go back.

However, I did not know that Korgan (and Minsc and Boo) had negative plane protection with their berserker rage. I almost never use berserk.

 

I believe Minsc has barbarian rage, which is more or less the same as berserker rage. I forget the details.

The shade lord's spell is probably a spell trigger with multiple spells inside, I don't recall exactly what he casts. Presumably something like stone skins and/or protection from magic weapons and some sort of spell reflection. Breach or something similar would take care of the stone skins and PfMW, and then it should be relatively easy to just melee him to death.

Getting items that grant negative plane protection are always a very high priority for me in BG2.

 

Not sure if Minsc's rage grants negative plane protection, but I don't think it does. It does turn him berserk, which means he might attack party members, which is a massive drawback, and why I almost never use this ability.

 

I never use it either, but I thought he only went berserk if Aerie died? Or was it that Aerie could talk him out of his berserker rage? Man I just don't remember ever using it, so I don't know.

 

Aerie is not a factor for going berserk, and she was not even present in the original game where Minsc also had this ability. If you're going to use it, generally speaking only do so when only enemies are in range of Minsc.

When Aerie dies, Minsc will something about his witch being killed. I don't believe he starts attacking anyone in sight though.

 

Speaking of the Shade Lord, I recall that quest being much more difficult when attempting it at a higher level, including a *lich* within the caverns. Can anyone confirm this is the case or was it a byproduct of some mod?

 

No, the mobs change depending on your level. Well, there are only two mobs, really, one with a lich and one without. They do it in more places, the one I remember the most if for instance at the upper level of the WK, where the number of statues that come alive is dependent on your level as well.