Shadow Thieves...too hard!

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OK, I tried siding with Bodhi in my latest run. For a change and I believed it would be the best act, eliminating BOTH major evil forces in Amn at once. Plus I had a mod which said 'will improve Shadow Thieves greatly', so I was excited.

I sided with Bodhi and went to assault the poor Shadow Thieves. We entered the building and result...my fighters got slaughtered.

There were so many dual-wielding high level assasins who went invisible constantly, went for not stone-skinned fighters and dropped them in one hit. (playing on insane) There were lots of mages who casted Confusion, Web, Slow etc. and they did great job disabling my group. They even used a Symbol:Slow spell, wow! And those archer ladies on the top...they used poisonous bolts.

I was shocked. I didn't wait so much resistance. I loaded, my fighters (Minsc and Viccy) gulped inv. potions and hided, whilst protected Jaheira, F/M/T and my very own Druidic Sorcerer killed them. Fast.

Anyway I enetered the inner sanctum. And beset with more and more annoying enemies. They came in so high numbers and acted very smart. It was pain. Minsc and Viccy HAD to stay invisible or they die. I killed the first group. Only to find I was UNABLE to turn back to the outside for a rest! GREAT!

This made me feel stressed. My DS had tons of spells but should use them carefully.

I was foolish not to bring a thief with good Find/Remove Traps skill. Those acidic traps (green acid drops)kept killing anybody with on hit, sometimes irreversibly. I had to be VERY careful, but still reloaded a lot.

Then those archers near the windows, you can'T reach them via melee, but they use Arrow of Detonation! Always! It hurts! And they are all immune to fire damage for some unknown reason! Used skull traps+wand of freeze to kill them.

That corridor with lightning traps. Triggered so many! It was painful. That potions of absorbtion and scrolls of prot. from electricity payed off at least.

I fought so many enemies, and it was painful, I went to some place, only to find out I needed a key or do something else first, turn back, go with all those traps AGAIN and AGAIN and I was about to screammm!

Final Fight. Aran Linvail. He had an army of assasins, a high level cleric and high level mage, and he buffed:Stoneskin, Mirror Image, lots of protections, Imp. haste, Black Blade of Disaster, and Tenser's Transformation. OH MY! That was too much! And his room door had nasty dispel magic on hit traps! I was about to cry!

I killed him, with extreme cheese. My DS, wielding the SoM, used the wand of the apprenti on the crowd, then immediately turned invisible. Only this way I managed to kill them all. I had NO other spells left! I was not protected, my stoneskin continously dispelled by the trap! Aaargh.. it was long and painful but Aran fell to my wand. Rejoice!

Only I had to go back to the exit, passing all those DEADLY traps again and again! I had NO spells left. I just CTRL+Jed and bedon with it. (assume that once the Shadowmaster is dead, traps are de-activated.)

So what do you think? I have NEVER fought normal, unmodded shadow thieves so I odn't know if the mod was succesful or not. What strategies would you recommend as I feel little satisfaction and great emberassment right now. I wish to play more skillfuly in my next run so I am open to your suggestions. Please share your thoughts with me! Thank you!

[ January 05, 2006, 10:45: Message edited by: Silverstar ]

 

Sounds like that cheating Tactics mod to me.

That one definitely went over the top. The unmodded shadow thieves are a joke, but the modder really shouldn't have gone that far.

 

The un-modded shadow thieves in my opinion while perhaps not much of a real fight seemed to be one of the few that were really a well planned out encounter. They could have done well to just act more like thieves when they fought and not just in the way the encounters happened.

But like Rastor Says. Sounds like you ran into some super cheese like the Tactics mod is full of. Way to many enemies pulling twinkish level tricks.

 

It was not Tatics mod I guess. I found it here:
http://www.gamesector.co.yu/avenger/

I believed it was balanced, unlike Tactics. Or I played on insane and this could be the reason.

I wish I COULD say I had fun. I had fun with Imp. Ilych, Liches, Kangaxx, Firkraag, and others. But this just tested my limits so badly and I couldn't even rest or disarm milions of deadly traps!

 

Try to lower the dif just to "core" now and then ... Sorry to say it, but the way you've been experimenting with cheesy mods on insane, you sort of had it coming

I've played through the imp. Shadow thieves on Core rules, and though they were hard, they were nothing like what you describe... again, the difficulty, methinks.

 

Yes I suppose I asked this myself.

Still, thanks to the Wand of Apprenti (bless that wand!) I killed them all!

ARGH I accidentally slaughtered my fellow F/M/T hiding in the room with Aran. I mis-calculated the radius for the cold blast, and he died. (on insane, I don'T remember if he failed a save vs wands or not. But since wand of apprenti is capable of doing massive damage...)

Thankfully his body was not frozen solid so I was able to ressurect him immediately after Aran bit the dust. My DS then apologised and said: 'So sorry pal! Hope it did not hurt too much! '