Gearing Up For My First IA Run-Through

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Thanks Mongerman. That's a little cheesy for my taste, but if I can't get around it any other way, I may just try that.

I managed to take out Samia's party in Firkraag's dungeon tonight, but man, it was still a hard fight. I ended up positioning my party opposite where Samia and her goons spawn in (and just sent my swash to collect the sword and shield). Doing this allowed me to run when I got in a bad spot, rather than being cornered in that little cubby. By using Minsc to distract some of the baddy's, I was able to divide and conquer a little bit, which made the fights a bit more manageable. Was still like 5 or 6 reloads until I got it right. Wow, that Akee with the SNT is just a monster!

I managed to take out Firkraag on my 3rd attempt. Too bad Carsomyr doesn't have a home in my party.

Currently what's got me stumped is the Rune Assassins. There are just way too many hard hitting assassins spawning in. I figure I need to take out the guildmaster to stop the spawning, but I just can't seem to get to him. If anyone wants to share a hint or two on this one, I'm all ears.

 

Cheesy? Cheesy is spamming planetars from project image. Even the demon prince and ancient dragon can be taken out with ease using cheese. Just summon 20 planetars and you're set.

In my last attempt, I took out the guildmaster using haer delis and my f/m as tanks. Both had SI: Abjuration and PFMW. Took out the mage first, then both ganged up on the guildmaster. Meanwhile, nalia moves in with a CC: triple horrid wilting that killed all the assassins. Then, rest of the party gangs up on the guildmaster. Clean up the golems afterward. They should be mere annoyances by now.

 

Well if Nalia had 9th level spells, your party was definitely higher level than mine is. Nalia only recently got 8th level spells in my game. Though I suppose that doesn't have to mean it's not doable for my party.

I'll try again tomorrow when I get home from work. I've got plenty of scrolls of PFMW, so that's not a problem. I just need to figure out a way to kill whoever is responsible for spawning them damn assassins, as it doesn't take long before I can't keep up anymore.

 

Kill the guild master and the spawning will stop. You could also try protecting your f/m and haer delis from acid, fire and cold, and casting icestorm, death fog and incendinary cloud. This will heal your characters while damaging the assassins. I'm sure your f/m and haer delis can cast death fog and icestorm themselves =)

 

what guild master are you talking about? Borinall? Man I try to beat him but he's invincible seems my party's level 9-11. Am I nuts to even try this?

 

No, they are talking about a worse one. They are actually referring to a guild master of rune assassins.

Not to mention that even the one they are talking about is not the most powerful assassin in IA. He has a boss (Grandfather of Rune Assassins) whom you can meet only if you play a ranger protagonist.

Apart from these two, there is at least one other very high level dual-class Fighter-Assassin in the game while playing IA.

Borinall is not even comparable with them. But don't be disappointed. You have probably still a low level party.

Just play it. There are plenty of new things you will gradually discover in the game and you will need to play it more than once with protagonists with different classes if you want to see everything.

EDIT: A typo fixed

[ June 08, 2007, 18:52: Message edited by: Sikret ]

 

Ok Sikret then I will give up on Borinall for now - I'm just helpless againstr greater whirwinds and the Amber Golem for now, all the more than no magic seems to dent him!..., and try to build XP in other quests.
Btw, here is the party I want to play, let me know if you think IA is "doable" with it:

- Protagonist: Blade 18 str / 18 Dex / 16 INT. dual wields long swords / short swords. Main decoy with arcane + defensive spin.
- Jaheira - with shield and club (main mage disabler with insect spells, need to get her STR improving items though)
- Minsc - longswords and later perhaps flail of ages and some good shield?
- Anomen (or Viconia? I'd rather Anomen, better rounded tank / caster)- long term he will use crom feyer, cleric spells
- Kelsey - primary arcane
- Jan -thief / secondary arcane

or I'm thinking of dropping Jaheira and Minsc for Korgan and Keldorn (for crasomyr and true sight and dispel)
I'm also thinking I should have created a f/m or a f/t (to take care of the thieving skills ossue) instead of a blade, but I never tried palying a bard so I'll stick with it.

 

Grrrr, I don't know about the time limit on the Roenal battle. I'm decimating his army, yet he wins. He's "near death" and most of his army is destroyed. ALL of my party is still alive, yet he wins.

F### it. I'm going to the underdark now to get some levels. Everything I'm doing in chapter 3 at the moment is just an exercise in frustration!

 

@elric13

With a bard protagonist you won't see the new quests/contents added to any of the two expanded strongholds. Have you considered this?

 

Jeez that Suni Seni encounter is tough, I managed to not be able to go anywhere without triggering the fight - I was in the promenade and going to the gate district triggered the fight, as did the temple district, government district and bridge district (Slums was ok, but moving out triggered the fight). After a couple of failed attempts I ended up lowing the difficulty from core to easy and sacrificed Nalia to buy me some time (I figured whoever it was would end up unconscious and at least she could have a stoneskin and a mirror image). Well, she went pretty quick, but it did buy me enough time to cast haste hide my thief. I managed to down Suni quickly enough, but Jaheira became the target of a whole lotta mage spells, I managed to keep her alive, but she ended up enfeebled and died when I was dealing with their thief and fighter. It was down to me (Fighter/Mage), Minsc and Anomen and I had no way to dispel the Mages protections (I tried bashing it for a while to no avail); about the only spell I had left was invisibility 10" radius, so I cast it and hoped that the mage didn't have any way to dispel it. It didn't, but I almost crapped myself when it kept following my invisible characters (part of the anti-cheese script i guess). I left the game unpaused while I grabbed myself a drink, came back and a few the mages protections had run out so I just bashed it to death. I colected the gear, sold some of it, and just had enough to raise Nalia and Jaheira.
Tough fight.

 

As mentioned before, the following sequence of movements will not trigger the Suna Seni battle early in the game (there may be other safe sequences as well):
Slums->Government district->City Gates->Umar Hills->Trademeet. (And then you can do the trademeet quest to collect some XP and be prepared for the Suna-Seni encounter.)

 

Loaded up an older save and it works like a charm
I've got Keldorn in my party now, and I've done a few little minor quests around Athkatla (Jaheira's curse, Xars tiff with the Harper and a few others), so it all kinda worked out well! The Improved Rakshasa was pretty cool and it managed to dish out a few high level spell before I could take him out, I ended up louring him out with a hastened invisible character (so that his kobolds couldn't do much), ran around until his absolute immunity ran out (he was hastened as well as me, so he got a few hits in and a few spells off during the 4 rounds or so) and then mobbed him with my party. The party in the top right hand corner of the map destroyed me, so I reloaded, took a few of em out and got absolutely destroyed again. So anyway, I've got Keldorn at least and I'll probably go off into the wilderness for a bit and give the party in the sewers a shot a bit later.

 

hmm now new stronhold for bards, hmm, guess I'll need to start a game over (i'm not that far anyway,and I realize that my blade, although having really good stats. is still a blade and his THACO is too slow too progress so a F/M might be better in the end, atlhough the pickpocketting and defensive spins were useful)...
hmm so now I hesitate: F/M, M/T, Mage, or Ranger? hmm...
Any suggestions?

 

@Sikret:
Out of curiosity, did you design the battles in IA under the assumption the player will be buffing up before the battle?

 

Suggestions...well theres two Mage/Thief Npcs, 2 mages and 2 rangers, so personally I'd probably go with whatever suits the party you want to build... or roleplay . Ranger/Clerics can be pretty powerful as well and should allow you the expanded Ranger stronghold.

[edit] Decados, have you tried any of the improved battles un-buffed?

 

Yes the Blade will have problems with his bad THACO (especially against ToB enemies). Still though in SoA can be quite powerful and Timetraps are very effective in the SoA part of the game (while time is stopped THACO doesn't matter against enemies non immune to timestop).

From the classes you mentioned the F/M is the most powerful and probably the most powerful character in IA.

 

By buffing up pre-battle, I meant using knowledge the character wouldn't have (for example, I wouldn't use spells like Bless if the party didn't know something big was ahead, but I'll quite happily have Protection from Evil 10' Radius active). Once I've spotted hostiles, I'll be quick to use DUHM and the like. My question was to discover whether this is feasible to continue with or whether I'm going to have to use OOC knowledge.

 

It's very difficult to play a mod like IA (and most of the other challenging mods) without the use of metagaming .

For some of the improved battles it is possible but for the most difficult ones probably not.

But this is true also for the original game IMO (for example Kangaxx).

And if a modder wanted to make a very challenging mod without taking into consideration that metagaming (reloading) is after all one of the advantages of the player, then that mod wouldn't be so challenging IMO.

 

Ok, so I think I will opt for a ranger cleric, especially for the iron skins and draw from holy might . I would go with a straight Ranger or kit, but I'm afraid he might be a bit limited in IA w/o some security spell like iron skins.

So, befor I go ahead and start a new IA game with a R/C 2 quick questions:

1- Pls confirm the R/C has access to the improved Ranger stronghold

2- To get the ranger stronghold, should I be careful to not do the cleric stronghold giving quests before the umar hills?

thanks!

 

Yes he does.

Yes, I think that it is like in the original game. Do first the Umar Hills quest.