IA v6 Final

[mikel123]

Yeah, regarding time-sink, there's so much stuff in there that I just didn't feel like trying to "solve". Like finding all the squirrels for that quest (let alone knowing to use that spell on the first one, which I never would have unless I read somewhere).

 

I also spent a ton of time prepping for Cromwell after Underdark, but for some reason couldn't go in his shop when I finally got there. (Heard you had to face Kruin first, which I wasn't ready for, so I just gave him the blade). If there is a way to open up Cromwell's shop, it's pretty unintuitive, and I just don't care to spend hours tracking it down.

[Saros]

Yes well, the Kruin battle provides with nothing that great (apart from a +3 two-handed sword needed for the Warblade upgrade), but you shouldn't miss such encounters because you lose a lot of xp. That battle could be fought in Forest of Tethyr SE corner - so no Cowled wizard interferance - or in Trademeet. But it's best to fight it in the Forest of Tethyr since you can pre-buff for the fight too, and summon whatever you like. While prebuffing is possible if you choose to fight Kruin in the city limits, you still won't be able to summon anything there before the fight starts.

[mikel123]

Weird, I didn't bump into him in Trademeet. And actually, was able to deal with the Cowled Wizards pretty easily elsewhere in the city beforehand (near the Temple of Helm). I think you can summon there as well, without him showing up. But in any case, I just didn't like my chances against the two elemental golems, as I was worried about how quickly they'd be summoning other golems. Not to mention Kruin being pretty much invulnerable to me in the early going.

 

As far as experience goes, I think it's only around 150k for all the Gith and the elemental golems, right? Unless there's some quest experience in there.

 

Still no idea why I wasn't able to access Cromwell though.

[Saros]

Weird, I didn't bump into him in Trademeet. And actually, was able to deal with the Cowled Wizards pretty easily elsewhere in the city beforehand (near the Temple of Helm). I think you can summon there as well, without him showing up. But in any case, I just didn't like my chances against the two elemental golems, as I was worried about how quickly they'd be summoning other golems. Not to mention Kruin being pretty much invulnerable to me in the early going.

 

As far as experience goes, I think it's only around 150k for all the Gith and the elemental golems, right? Unless there's some quest experience in there.

 

Still no idea why I wasn't able to access Cromwell though.

 

Each elemental golem 60 000 xp, each newly summoned Gem or Coin golem respectively 24 000 and 22 000 xp, Kruin himself 25 000 I think, other gith 2000-7500 (Gith to Anti-Paladins). Thing is, this battle is hard, but there are harder battles ahead. If you despair for this no-so-very-hard fight, not good.

 

Cromwell's closure is partly my fault, since I described several times in my v5 runthroughs how I managed to visit Cromwell prior to Kruin's fight (and fight Kruin with the newly assembled artifacts like Crom Faeyr). Sikret apparently close this possibility in v6 by sealing all entrances until Kruin is defeated. You will notice such things in many other fights - until certain enemies (or all enemies) are defeated, you cannot go anywhere - neither leave the district, nor enter buildings.

 

Haven't tried the Trademeet Kruin-fight myself, probably triggers in a specific location. I'm just glad there is the safe outside location of Forest of Tethyr to battle Kruin.

 

Elemental Golems will gate in minor golems approximately once each 6 rounds. They can gate up to 6 minor golems each, which later turns into quite the cash&experience machine, if you can hold them long enough that is. There are many other powerful Anvil entities who can be safely "drained out" of summons for cash and/or xp, but there are some with which you'd better not take any chances (at least in a no-reload game) like Greater Elemental Golems for example (they have far more devastating abilities than an Elemental Golem and can gate in minor golems much faster, in their case those include Amber golems too).

 

Cowled Wizards are easy enough to deal with, provided you don't meet them and Kruin at once. Of course, the last Cowled group is not so easy to beat (Zallanora &co).

[mikel123]

Hah - so if you just give Kruin the blade, you don't get to visit Cromwell *ever*? Since this is a "bug-free mod", I have to assume that's intentional?!

 

I didn't realize you got experience from killing the minor golems being summoned. In most other fights, that didn't seem to happen. So indeed sounds like it's a lot more experience than I realized.

 

Seems like most people who had played this mod had done so in prior versions; I had not. So my party was largely under-itemed, under-experienced, and pretty malformed for much of the game (not to mention, at the time of meeting Kruin, I still had a level 15 berserker dualed to a mage at around level 14, who was essentially dead weight for most encounters... if I were playing this for the second time, I would not have made that mistake). On the plus side, some encounters for me were likely much easier than they were for a more well-rounded party that would have an easier time in other parts of the game. For example, the last Cowled Wizard group was a piece of cake for me. On the down side, some encounters are much harder. Kruin for one, but even the troll mound was an enormous pain, since I only had one +4 weapon (Phosphorus) for a very long time.

 

I later realized that Watcher's Keep was quite doable after the Underdark, without visiting Cromwell, so if this was my Xth playthrough, I probably would have just cleared floors 1 and 2 and most of 3, had a bunch of level ups, and mopped the floor with Kruin thanks to some level 9 spells. And of course, after reading about how you yourself play this game, I honestly couldn't give less of a shit what you think is hard and "not-so-very-hard", since you are playing a completely different game than I am. So feel free to save your opinions of that sort for someone who cares.

[Saros]

Hah - so if you just give Kruin the blade, you don't get to visit Cromwell *ever*? Since this is a "bug-free mod", I have to assume that's intentional?!

 

I didn't realize you got experience from killing the minor golems being summoned. In most other fights, that didn't seem to happen. So indeed sounds like it's a lot more experience than I realized.

 

Seems like most people who had played this mod had done so in prior versions; I had not. So my party was largely under-itemed, under-experienced, and pretty malformed for much of the game (not to mention, at the time of meeting Kruin, I still had a level 15 berserker dualed to a mage at around level 14, who was essentially dead weight for most encounters... if I were playing this for the second time, I would not have made that mistake). On the plus side, some encounters for me were likely much easier than they were for a more well-rounded party that would have an easier time in other parts of the game. For example, the last Cowled Wizard group was a piece of cake for me. On the down side, some encounters are much harder. Kruin for one, but even the troll mound was an enormous pain, since I only had one +4 weapon (Phosphorus) for a very long time.

 

I later realized that Watcher's Keep was quite doable after the Underdark, without visiting Cromwell, so if this was my Xth playthrough, I probably would have just cleared floors 1 and 2 and most of 3, had a bunch of level ups, and mopped the floor with Kruin thanks to some level 9 spells. And of course, after reading about how you yourself play this game, I honestly couldn't give less of a shit what you think is hard and "not-so-very-hard", since you are playing a completely different game than I am. So feel free to save your opinions of that sort for someone who cares.

 

Well, I'm just trying to help...I have never given the blade to Kruin to start with (ok only once since I was in a hurry, but still was able to visit Cromwell afterwards). Anyway, if you're still using that install order you posted on the BWL forums, that may be responsible for many bugs which are not encountered if the installation order is correct (meaning, IA on top of everything else to start with).

 

There are fights in which you do get xp and treasure from minor golems, there are fights in which you do not. There are even some Elemental golems which yield no xp (try Wishresting with a penalty). Most of the times you do, however. But in Kruin's battle I actually cannot prolong the fight in order to kill the 12 lesser Gem and Coin golems. OK I can, but it's not a safe no-reload insane tactic, so I actually do as everyone else in this fight does - focus on slaying the Elemental golems fast, they usually still summon 2-3 lesser golems before dying. In any case, the average xp from this fight total is something like 250 000 - not to be underestimated.

 

I get it it's your first runthrough of the mod, but since this is the hardest tactical mod IMO, you shouldn't be surprised that your party has such big problems.

 

About Cowled Wizards - strange...didn't the last Cowled wizard group have 2 high-leveled mages - one under SI:Divination named Zallanora - who casts Absolute Immunty from scrolls and can't be dispelled at your present levels (she's lvl 31), and gate Coin Golems and additional Cowled Wizards until slain? This is not an easy fight in my book.

 

In the beginning of chapter 6, you should have collected several +4 weapons. Halberds naturally - the Wave +4 and the Dragon Breath +4. You can also buy Warblade +4 at the Adventurer's mart. I usually by that time have an 18-level mage (or even Berserker9-Mage 18-19) who can buy and scribe the Black Blade of Disaster scroll. Some powrerful summons have +4 claws (Elite Trolls, Greater Yuantis, Smilodons, etc, I think even Aerial Servants, though not 100% sure about them). You should also assemble Crom Faeyr before going into the Mound (this of course means a hard battle with Alhoon, but at least there you don't need +4 weapons).

 

WK is doable early in chapter 6? Strange. Didn't you have an encounter on the 1st floor with the Spider Queen (who can only be hit by +4 or higher weapons)? I wouldn't tangle with her unless I first assemble Crom Faeyr. And preferably, Poseidon's Wrath.

 

Lvl 2 is a bit tricky as well, with the Chromatic Demon fight. Also, the 3rd level - you have to fight a Green Wyrm, who is more dangerous compared to Kruin. Did you actually meet all these opponents?

 

Well, about really hard fights - I was referring to some of the battles inside Suldanesselar, but mostly to the fights with the improved Twisted Rune, Orcus and the Improved Githyanki in WK lvl 4. Barring the Ancient Dragon on WK lvl 5, these are hands down the toughest SoA fights, much more harder than Kruin. Of course, if you use other mods and tweaks on top of IA installed, don't be surprised if some fights look easy - they most probably have been altered (eased a lot, changed) by other mod components.

[mikel123]

I'm 100% certain that install had nothing to do with Cromwell's door not appearing.

 

Because two-handed weapons largely suck in every other version of the game I've played, I went with dual-wielding (or single-hand wielding) for all of my characters. I didn't find Dragon's Breath, but I do see where I should have. Maybe it was dropped behind an object or something. The Warblade is such garbage, and as mentioned I didn't go for any two-handed proficiencies. I guess I could use Black Blade as a scroll, but the # of scrolls available is quite limited. Smilodon is nice, but I only get one. And I think the swanmays (at least the Greater) have +4 or better. But still, they're hard to keep alive. I suppose if I absolutely *had to* do those battles at that point, I would have, but given the choice I'd rather save the scrolls and pursue a path of less resistance. I tried Alhoon but the first battle seemed difficult, and I figured it would only get worse, and I couldn't retreat out, so I didn't feel like wasting time in the first couple of rooms only to find I couldn't win the finale yet.

 

As for the spider queen, I didn't realize she needed +4 (I thought her immunity had something to do with the summoned spiders still being alive). Actually might have been able to kill her with Phosphorus, but didn't bother. Just gave her the statue - I never use it and wasn't going to pay for the upgrade. Sucks to lose the experience I suppose, but if I'm vigilant elsewhere, I don't expect it to make a difference.

 

Zallanora was the last to die, I'm not sure how many Absolute Immunities she has, but apparently it's not enough. Just mostly brute-forced this one as well, meleeing through fireshields and stoneskins and such.

 

Chromatic Demon, I just brute-forced on a second or third reload. On the first, he eventually summoned an Elemental Golem, so I realized I needed to kill him before that happened. Not sure I even used spells in this fight.

 

Green Wyrm was a piece of cake. Very high AC, so I just used 4 Lower Resistance, Doom, and about 20 Flame Arrows from Alacrity of my Sorceror and Auramaster. Maybe got a lucky hit or two with my riskbreaker as well. Again, fights differ depending on playstyle and party. Just because you find a battle more difficult than me, does not mean you're better than me, nor does it mean that I'm "in trouble" for other fights. You just told me about a "hard" battle that I won in less than 3 rounds. This is not because of other "mods" I have... you sound like Sikret, blaming things on floating ioun stones and level 1 NPCs... it's because you're not as good as you think you are, and I am apparently not as bad as you think I am.

[Saros]

I'm 100% certain that install had nothing to do with Cromwell's door not appearing.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, that may not be true. Simple conclusion comes from the fact that no one with a clean install has ever complained about that before (as far as I know).

 

Because two-handed weapons largely suck in every other version of the game I've played, I went with dual-wielding (or single-hand wielding) for all of my characters. I didn't find Dragon's Breath, but I do see where I should have. Maybe it was dropped behind an object or something. The Warblade is such garbage, and as mentioned I didn't go for any two-handed proficiencies. I guess I could use Black Blade as a scroll, but the # of scrolls available is quite limited. Smilodon is nice, but I only get one. And I think the swanmays (at least the Greater) have +4 or better. But still, they're hard to keep alive. I suppose if I absolutely *had to* do those battles at that point, I would have, but given the choice I'd rather save the scrolls and pursue a path of less resistance. I tried Alhoon but the first battle seemed difficult, and I figured it would only get worse, and I couldn't retreat out, so I didn't feel like wasting time in the first couple of rooms only to find I couldn't win the finale yet.

 

In Improved Anvil, some of the most powerful weapons are 2-handed, that's why it's always worth it to have a character able to wield those. Warlord's Blade +5 which increases physical resistances of the wielder by 10%, grants immunity to Charm and Confusion, the halberd Poseidon's Wrath +5 with its 1/3 chance of 30 additional magical damage (there is one more powerful halberd, but it comes too late in the game to matter except for the final fight) and the Royal Elemental Staff +5 are all very good examples. The vanilla examples would include Staff of the Ram naturally. Dragon's breath +4 can be assembled in Drow form from its vanilla location, from Boz in Underdark (that group is improved though). if you skipped the Drow city altogether, it may be the reason why you missed the halberd. It is, however, a most needed ingredient for the Dragon Lord halberd, which is essential for the last fight (grants immunity to Dragon Breath spell).

 

Yeah I didn't say you should use the BBoD scroll. Was just saying that you should have enough xp for mage level 18 prior to that fight, so you can cast the spell instead with the B-M.

 

Indeed the battle with Alhoon is harder than the one with his slaves, but they should be doable if you have a mage with Alacrity. Actually, for me four Chain Contingencies, loaded with 3*ADHW spells + summons to soak the damage from Skeleton Warlords and Gem Golems make the fight with the slaves trivial somewhat.

 

As for the spider queen, I didn't realize she needed +4 (I thought her immunity had something to do with the summoned spiders still being alive). Actually might have been able to kill her with Phosphorus, but didn't bother. Just gave her the statue - I never use it and wasn't going to pay for the upgrade. Sucks to lose the experience I suppose, but if I'm vigilant elsewhere, I don't expect it to make a difference.

 

The Golden Spider Figurine is a very essential item, and can only be assembled if you fight the Spider Queen. The figurine can certainly make a big difference in many hard fights.

 

 

 

Chromatic Demon, I just brute-forced on a second or third reload. On the first, he eventually summoned an Elemental Golem, so I realized I needed to kill him before that happened. Not sure I even used spells in this fight.

 

Hmmph. Chroma is vulnerable only to +4 or higher weapons, has decent AC too, lowers elemental resistance in various form, and uses other nasty abilities like Freeze Mortals and Burn Mortals. I mean, he's pretty damage resistant, and starts the fight in fire form (most difficult to harm). His minions are not to be underestimated either, he has a starting Amber golem and two Salamander princes to begin with.

 

 

Green Wyrm was a piece of cake. Very high AC, so I just used 4 Lower Resistance, Doom, and about 20 Flame Arrows from Alacrity of my Sorceror and Auramaster. Maybe got a lucky hit or two with my riskbreaker as well. Again, fights differ depending on playstyle and party. Just because you find a battle more difficult than me, does not mean you're better than me, nor does it mean that I'm "in trouble" for other fights. You just told me about a "hard" battle that I won in less than 3 rounds. This is not because of other "mods" I have... you sound like Sikret, blaming things on floating ioun stones and level 1 NPCs... it's because you're not as good as you think you are, and I am apparently not as bad as you think I am.

 

Yeah, provided you have casters immune to Silence, that's quite possible. Correct. You're still in trouble for incoming fights, that's for sure. Unless you choose to give them the item they desire again (the Orcus fight in the Catacombs level 2). But that's for you to decide. Since you keep on doing that, it's no wonder you won't have enough xp (and party levels) for certain fights.

[kvote]

@mikel123

 

Sorry, I am a bit late, did you solve your problem with Cromwell closed? (if you gave sword to kruin, he should not be closed, I can dig and give you some command to reopen Cromwell if you would like it)

 

I am not as gifted, skilled, inteliigent and superior to common people when talking about IA as Saros and Sikret both believe they are, but I would just humbly say that "cold chunking" is something that might explain you did not get dragon breath. ;-)

[Saros]

 

I am not as gifted, skilled, inteliigent and superior to common people when talking about IA as Saros and Sikret both believe they are, but I would just humbly say that "cold chunking" is something that might explain you did not get dragon breath. ;-)

 

Really sorry if I sound like that. I'm trying to be helpful here, just not too good with common people relations. If I sound somewhat arrogant, it's because of who I am as a person, not because of some over-obsessive knowledge that I know everything about IA or am the best IA player ever. In fact, I myself have learned tons of unknown so far to me info about the IA mod just recently.

[mikel123]

In Improved Anvil, some of the most powerful weapons are 2-handed, that's why it's always worth it to have a character able to wield those.

 

As Adam Sandler would say, "Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention yesterday!" Certainly would keep that in mind if I were to ever play again.

 

At the time, just starting WK level 4 (but not having completed Bodhi), I only had one mage capable of level 9 spells. Actually, the others (Fighter/Mage multi, Fighter(15)->Mage(15)) can't even cast level 8 at that stage I don't think.

 

What's so great about the spider figurine? It doesn't look that great on paper. I believe I've fought a fair number of noble spiders and they seemed similar to the Smilodon in power.

 

As for the green wyrm, he only silenced once, and I soaked that up with one of my non-important casters. Orcus seems more worthy of fighting since the upgraded Daystar looked, to me, like something useful. Triple damage against undead would hopefully help carve through some of those upgraded skeletons that appear out of nowhere all the time.

 

kvote, I did give the blade to Kruin, but Cromwell's door did not appear to be openable thereafter. I didn't bother looking into NearInfinity to track down what caused this issue. I just CLUAConsoled myself inside the shop.

 

Cold chunking is an interesting explanation, I wonder if that's it. Is it only caused by cold damage? I think my only cold weapon at the time was the Frostreaver, which I only used if I needed slashing damage (my main weapon was Rifthome for general use and piercing, Flail of Ages for crushing, and Frostreaver only if I needed slashing *and* it happened to be on top of my bag, above Stonefire). Far more likely is that I just didn't see the item drop due to the dimness of the Underdark and/or it being occluded somewhere. Like behind the bridge or something.

[mikel123]

I am not as gifted, skilled, inteliigent and superior to common people when talking about IA as Saros and Sikret both believe they are, but I would just humbly say that "cold chunking" is something that might explain you did not get dragon breath. ;-)

 

Really sorry if I sound like that. I'm trying to be helpful here, just not too good with common people relations. If I sound somewhat arrogant, it's because of who I am as a person, not because of some over-obsessive knowledge that I know everything about IA or am the best IA player ever. In fact, I myself have learned tons of unknown so far to me info about the IA mod just recently.

 

This is all I'll say about this. Yes, you sound arrogant. And explaining that "it's because of who I am as a person" does not assuage anything. That's sort of a tautology... arrogance is, in general, independent of one's knowledge of a subject. You have an overinflated sense of your importance to this mod. I.E. earlier in this thread, I recall you positing that both Firkraag's skeletons, and the Amber Golems in Spellhold, are "anti-solo, anti-Saros" devices. This is utterly ridiculous. You have a poor sense of reality - you insult my playing choices and/or skill based on my first playthrough of a game that you've played, I dunno, a half dozen time. I.E. criticizing choices I made with the information available to me. Obviously if knew +4 weapon requirements were so frequent, I would have made more preparations for such a thing. And you constantly harp on your "no reload" style of play, when (a) you're quite candid about how much you cheat (er sorry, "exploit"), and (b) are quite candid about what you consider "no reload". On both of these things, you opinion VASTLY differs from that of most people. Not saying you're right or wrong, but just that it's so apples-to-oranges that it's meaningless and not worth harping/bragging about.

 

To be fair, you also have also been remarkably immune to Sikret's BS in terms of not letting it bother you.

 

I hesitate to post this, but given the nonsense earlier in the thread, it seems relatively appropriate. And with that said, I'd be more than happy to continue the discussion about the game.

[kvote]

 

kvote, I did give the blade to Kruin, but Cromwell's door did not appear to be openable thereafter. I didn't bother looking into NearInfinity to track down what caused this issue. I just CLUAConsoled myself inside the shop.

 

Cold chunking is an interesting explanation, I wonder if that's it. Is it only caused by cold damage? I think my only cold weapon at the time was the Frostreaver, which I only used if I needed slashing damage (my main weapon was Rifthome for general use and piercing, Flail of Ages for crushing, and Frostreaver only if I needed slashing *and* it happened to be on top of my bag, above Stonefire). Far more likely is that I just didn't see the item drop due to the dimness of the Underdark and/or it being occluded somewhere. Like behind the bridge or something.

 

You did simple and efficient for Cromwell

 

Cold chunking happens AFAIK only with cold (that is one reason why some IA items where tweaked to deal magic instead of cold damage).

Weapons likely to provoke this are (again AFAIK, do not consider me as a spin-guru): Frostreaver and Flail of ages (both weapons gained early) then weapons like Rimed club (IA item), spectral brand (basic or upgraded) and icestar (not 100% sure of name, club worn by gromnir IIRC) may also cold chunk (I was more then often quite pissed losing items or loot in vast quantity because of those...)

 

Improved spider figurine is not as powerful a summon as Smilodon or greater Djinni (IA item, one I have to say I consider by far as the best in game) who are top guns, it has nevertheless the advantage not to count as summon for the "limit to 5 summons".

Improved spider is different than noble spider you encounter as enemies IIRC

 

I mean when you summon from spells (MS x, ...), once you reach 5 monsters, you cannot summon more, nor cast WIsh or limited Wish. If you have say 4 skeleton summoned, then a smilodon, then improved spider, then greater djinni, you can still summon one more monster or Wish. This may help....

If you wish for "make as if rested", you may also be able to re-summon smilodon etc.. which make for a quite handy reinforcement

Swanmays summoned with a vagrant do not count as regular summon either btw

 

Hope this helps, that said I (humbly as a low-gifted IA average player) I would not qualify you as a "damsel in distress" here since for you first run you did IMHO quite well (remembering my first IA runs where I could not even defeat a gem golem with level 20+ party....

 

Improved daystar I forged once was a disapointment to me. It looks sexy wielding it against vampires, but once you will have forged it you may just have 2 "vampire" fights worth noting (Bodhi and crypt in Saradush) where it is of relative use. Against other undead in great numbers, well, for skeletons, blunt rules, (even with additional disrupt undead here and there, slahing weapon is poor, very poor), and liches use pfmw or Absolute immunity...

[Saros]

This is all I'll say about this. Yes, you sound arrogant. And explaining that "it's because of who I am as a person" does not assuage anything. That's sort of a tautology... arrogance is, in general, independent of one's knowledge of a subject. You have an overinflated sense of your importance to this mod. I.E. earlier in this thread, I recall you positing that both Firkraag's skeletons, and the Amber Golems in Spellhold, are "anti-solo, anti-Saros" devices. This is utterly ridiculous. You have a poor sense of reality - you insult my playing choices and/or skill based on my first playthrough of a game that you've played, I dunno, a half dozen time. I.E. criticizing choices I made with the information available to me. Obviously if knew +4 weapon requirements were so frequent, I would have made more preparations for such a thing. And you constantly harp on your "no reload" style of play, when (a) you're quite candid about how much you cheat (er sorry, "exploit"), and (b) are quite candid about what you consider "no reload". On both of these things, you opinion VASTLY differs from that of most people. Not saying you're right or wrong, but just that it's so apples-to-oranges that it's meaningless and not worth harping/bragging about.

 

 

First of all, I am a human and thus have my own quirks. But I'm not in discussion here, just the mod itself. BTW as far as I remember countless implementations in IA v6 were not called "anti-saros" by me in the first place , it was other people's first impression on seeing them. If you wanna see the pure logical explanation because here they're called "anti-solo" or "anti-saros", it's simply that the IA mod had lived up to v5 without all of them being implemented - and the whole bunch of such "anti-solo" modifications were implemented after I posted several successful solo no-reload insane runs (with pictures, didn't make videos back then) of IA v5.

 

As for your playing choices, I don't try to be offensive, just helpful. Although you're most probably right - I've should just disregarded even your first questions on the BWL forums and let you play the game as you like and discover all for yourself unless you turn to me with a specific question. This is my big mistake, I know that everyone has to learn from their own mistakes. I remember having a wrong installation for quite some time when I first started with IA v5. But you really sounded like someone who doesn't want to spend endless weeks with this mod, like I did.

 

As for "no-reload", when I say it I mean it. I still have a nasty memory of my v5 Fighter-Illusionist solo no-reload, reaching the end of SoA and Watcher's keep and dying on lvl 5 WK by the Eternal Warrior skull machine, where winning somewhat relies on pure luck. Or are you going to suggest like other people on BWL forum that a "no-reload" is only considered successful when you implement a difficulty-enhancing mod for the first time and make a successful runthrough right away? As you all know, that's not possible even for the vanilla game, much more with a difficulty enhancing mod. If you're referring to the exploits I sometimes use in my runs, according to Sikret in IA v6 those were non-existent or they should be, he spent so many years trying to eradicate them all (yet he left so many).

 

With that said, back to the mod questions.

 

In Improved Anvil, some of the most powerful weapons are 2-handed, that's why it's always worth it to have a character able to wield those.

 

As Adam Sandler would say, "Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention yesterday!" Certainly would keep that in mind if I were to ever play again.

 

 

In order for an IA run to be successful, you have to plan from the very beginning - characters, proficiencies, classes, kits, alignments - all are important.

At the time, just starting WK level 4 (but not having completed Bodhi), I only had one mage capable of level 9 spells. Actually, the others (Fighter/Mage multi, Fighter(15)->Mage(15)) can't even cast level 8 at that stage I don't think.

 

 

A word of advice - don't go anywhere near Bodhi without a sufficient amount of crushing +4 or higher weapons. You probably already have the Flail of Ages +4, you'll either need the Rimed Club +4 (can be asssembled if you complete lvl 3 of Watcher's keep) or Crom Faeyr (for that, you have to face Alhoon). Bodhi has the support of various number of Skeleton Grandlords - I think the number is xp-dependant and varies from 4 to 8. They don't come at once, at least that's a relief.

 

 

What's so great about the spider figurine? It doesn't look that great on paper. I believe I've fought a fair number of noble spiders and they seemed similar to the Smilodon in power.

 

 

It's an additional gated summon, one which can gate Sword Spiders on its own. Each gated summon is precious. Besides, another thing is that IA is a difficulty-enhancing mod. What's the point of playing one and evading tons of improved battles? At a certain point you will have to fight very hard battles anyway, these smaller fights (Spider Queen, Kruin) are pretty difficult at present levels, but if you don't gain the max of them (items, xp, gold) later you'll have a much harder time.

 

As for the green wyrm, he only silenced once, and I soaked that up with one of my non-important casters. Orcus seems more worthy of fighting since the upgraded Daystar looked, to me, like something useful. Triple damage against undead would hopefully help carve through some of those upgraded skeletons that appear out of nowhere all the time.

 

 

With Cernd's help some fights do look trivial, like the Green Wyrm.

Orcus is much harder to beat, especially if you don't have the divine levels with Cernd to cast successful Dispel Magicks on him. The Hesperus +5 swords is hands down one of the worst IA upgrades, and expensive one at that. Not in the last place, there is a total of 6 Protection from Level Drain scrolls available in the game. Considering your party configuration, it's often required to use at least 2 of the scrolls, maybe even 3, in this fight, which leaves insufficient amount of scrolls to forge Hesperus. Also, it looks great on paper, but in reality it's not (forged it several times in v5 solo runs). Triple damage vs undead seems cool, but what you really want vs Skeleton Grandlords is a +4 or higher crushing (and not slashing) weapon. 10% on hit disrupt undead is too little to be reliable, and not that much damaging either. Protection from Level Drain is something you want for this particular fight with Orcus, and probably not needed seriously anywhere anymore (ok there is a band of 4 Master Vampires in WK lvl 5 - they're quite easily beatable with or without Hesperus). Maybe the blade is only good for rushing Liches who had just ran out of PFMW, but that's an overkill in my book.

 

That said, there are certain very powerful and useful IA items, and then there are upgrades which should not be considered at all - either far less useful items regarding the total cost, or simply a completely useless item. Good examples on wasted upgrades are:

 

Holy Avenger

Derlyn Family Legacy

Ring of Burglary

Jansen's Flasher Launcher (enhanced)

Jansen's Adventurewear (enhanced)

Supreme Chain Mail (this one's cheap at least)

Spirit of the Night

True Sword of Arvoreen

Greater Entropy

Hesperus

Volcano

Eternal Melody

Grandfather of Assassins (Guildmaster's dream is relatively cheap and somewhat useful, provided you have a thief in party, or better a F/T)

Supreme Shelter

Death of a Thousand Cuts

Grandmaster of Flowers

Gauntlets of Devastating

Diamond Sword

Cutthroat +5 (this can be done if there is enough gold left at the end of ToB though)

Improved Firecam Armor

Staff of Strength (mostly useless - too many permanency scroll requirements, still may be considered if party consists of 4 pure-class mages and 2 fighters).

Adamantite Staff of Str is absolutely useless. It is inferior damage-wise to the Staff of the Ram +4, and both are usually obtained at the same time (at least in my runs).

Scarlet Ioun Stone - unless you have a F/T who can make most use of this with UAI HLA, it's absolutely useless to forge it since only Necro PC will be able to wear it, where most of its powers will be totally wasted most of the time (like the physical damage resistance or THAC0 bonuses).

Improvised Blend and Enhanced Armor of Stamina - because I consider Swashbucklers to be a waste of time, and they come very late in the game anyway (ToB).

 

 

Questionable:

Improved Ankheg Plate - somewhat useful, but has no AC modifiers

Green Wyrm Plate - depending on party configuration may be pretty useless

Golem Slayer - I considered putting it into the "useless" upgrades but it has some uses if you exploit the Polymorph self spell...

 

 

kvote, I did give the blade to Kruin, but Cromwell's door did not appear to be openable thereafter. I didn't bother looking into NearInfinity to track down what caused this issue. I just CLUAConsoled myself inside the shop.

 

Cold chunking is an interesting explanation, I wonder if that's it. Is it only caused by cold damage? I think my only cold weapon at the time was the Frostreaver, which I only used if I needed slashing damage (my main weapon was Rifthome for general use and piercing, Flail of Ages for crushing, and Frostreaver only if I needed slashing *and* it happened to be on top of my bag, above Stonefire). Far more likely is that I just didn't see the item drop due to the dimness of the Underdark and/or it being occluded somewhere. Like behind the bridge or something.

 

You did simple and efficient for Cromwell

 

Cold chunking happens AFAIK only with cold (that is one reason why some IA items where tweaked to deal magic instead of cold damage).

Weapons likely to provoke this are (again AFAIK, do not consider me as a spin-guru): Frostreaver and Flail of ages (both weapons gained early) then weapons like Rimed club (IA item), spectral brand (basic or upgraded) and icestar (not 100% sure of name, club worn by gromnir IIRC) may also cold chunk (I was more then often quite pissed losing items or loot in vast quantity because of those...)

 

Improved spider figurine is not as powerful a summon as Smilodon or greater Djinni (IA item, one I have to say I consider by far as the best in game) who are top guns, it has nevertheless the advantage not to count as summon for the "limit to 5 summons".

Improved spider is different than noble spider you encounter as enemies IIRC

 

I mean when you summon from spells (MS x, ...), once you reach 5 monsters, you cannot summon more, nor cast WIsh or limited Wish. If you have say 4 skeleton summoned, then a smilodon, then improved spider, then greater djinni, you can still summon one more monster or Wish. This may help....

If you wish for "make as if rested", you may also be able to re-summon smilodon etc.. which make for a quite handy reinforcement

Swanmays summoned with a vagrant do not count as regular summon either btw

 

 

Thank you about the info that gated summons do not add to the 5-summon limit. Didn't know that, I was always wondering why sometimes I can have 6 summons and Wish and sometimes I had 5 and still wasn't able to.

 

Some info in return - "cold chunk" is nasty and unpleasant, but it's fixed quite easily by turning off the "Gore" button in the game options menu. After that you'll suffer no item loss from enemy chunking (be it cold, disintegrate, Flesh to Stone or otherwise).

 

Edit: You don't encounter any "Noble Spiders" as enemies. Unless you summon one from the figurine and then attack it...There are lots of improved spiders that resemble the Noble Spider, but not even one has the Noble Spider's abilities. If I have to rank a Noble Spider, it is maybe a bit weaker than a Whisper Spider.

[mikel123]

Hah, didn't realize the Swanmays and such don't count towards the limit of 5. I played the entire time imposing that limit on myself, woops.

 

Maybe I'll resurrect my playthrough, I still have the save (I think I left off in level 4 of Watcher's Keep). I just wasn't that into it because so many of the fights require such prepwork. I think Tactics struck a good balance between having some meaningful hard challenges, and having other fights where you can just haste up and breeze through. It's a game, not a life commitment.

 

Good point about Daystar and crushing damage. Actually, triple damage from Daystar probably just puts it on par with a generic crushing weapon against most skeletons. So probably should skip that one, agreed.