IA v6 Final

[Saros]

In my previous v6 run (which was with the same installation as the current one, i.e. only allowed EoU components and IA v6 itself) i've battled on lvl 5 of WK and was able to exit the portal at will during combat. Will write in this run about that location if and when I reach it.

[mikel123]

Having a tough time with the Ancient Dragon. Kill the salamander almost immediately, the noble efreeti takes a lot longer (largely due to fireshield and stoneskin and the dragon's lower-fire-resistance), and oh yeah the fire shield is un-dispellable. Can't really make a dent in the Elite Nishruu before the dragon shows up and cleans house. Nishruu has 200 HP, I've got him down to around 165 or so, before things go haywire. Dragon is not easily distracted by summons, and when he is, he kills them immediately.

 

Might try Chapter 7 at this point, and Twisted Rune, and revisit Ancient Dragon before the dragon in Ch. 7.

[Saros]

Having a tough time with the Ancient Dragon. Kill the salamander almost immediately, the noble efreeti takes a lot longer (largely due to fireshield and stoneskin and the dragon's lower-fire-resistance), and oh yeah the fire shield is un-dispellable. Can't really make a dent in the Elite Nishruu before the dragon shows up and cleans house. Nishruu has 200 HP, I've got him down to around 165 or so, before things go haywire. Dragon is not easily distracted by summons, and when he is, he kills them immediately. Might try Chapter 7 at this point, and Twisted Rune, and revisit Ancient Dragon before the dragon in Ch. 7.

 

Unfortunately cannot give you any advice on the Ancient Dragon fight without an unsilenceable mage (Necro PC). But one thing I know - you must leave the Elite Nishruu and focus on the Ancient Dragon. Here is a video link that shows how to deal with the Noble Efreeti fast:

 

 

Of course, if you consider this to be too cheesy, simply deploy rain of sequencers on him (it's not likely you'll be using those on the Ancient dragon anyway), and one trigger with triple Lower Resistance, remove his Spell Turning (you can even use Secret Word for that), and shower him with magic missiles and melf's acid arrows.

Get some distraction for the Nishruu and focus on Breaching the Ancient dragon. Yeah I know about Greater Silence, yet you should be able to continue Breaching the damn thing even 1 time after that (Chain Contingency). Disperse arcane casters, you have 3 after all, so that only one is Greater Silenced at a time. Use potions of FIre resistance, those are un-breachable. Resist fire/resist cold is a good way of the cleric to help with refreshing buffs (don't expose him to the Greater Silence, best have him distract the Nishruu). If by any chance a mage is targeted by the Nishruu, cast Absolute Immunity and the Nishruu will swap targets. Use triggers to be able to instantly shoot Breach and then run away from the dragon's sight before he can take notice of your mage doing that and shoot Greater Silence in response. Best if you approach the dragon from the tail with your mage who attempts a Trigger-Breach or simply Breach. Silenced mages should remain in the front line, serving as distraction (Ruby Ray magnet). Envelop everyone that can with spell protections to the max (Spell Turning, GoI, SI:A)

 

This is one of the fights where you may regret not having pure warriors, since the Ancient Dragon's AC is really astounding and only pure warriors have decent chance of hitting him. Even your berserker (15)-mage will have a hard time. Plus, he loves casting Armor of Faith after his PFMW are depleted, and even has one Regeneration available. Hammer of Thor helps enormously here (thunder strikes) and Poseidon's Wrath as well. You can also deploy the Spectral Brand, provided you have it, at least as an off-hand weapon (dragon is vulnerable to cold damage).

[mikel123]

Hmm, from the video, it looks like you Vampiric Touched the efreet and somehow bounced back and forth with fireshields? I think I like the contingency/sequencer plan, may go for that.

 

Yeah, Ancient Dragon (and a bunch of other fights) are a lot tougher without the immunity to silence in a necromancer.

 

That said, I did manage to kill the Chapter 7 dragon on the third try to so, and things are pretty chaotic in there for a while. I'll head to Twisted Rune and see if I can level up in there and make things easier. Ancient Dragon does indeed have an absurd AC but my fighter/mage is now level 19 fighter, so he's only down 1 in the Thac0 department. The dual is down 5, which indeed will make him almost entirely unable to hit. But Vagrant, Riskbreaker, and F/M should be fine, provided I can indeed breach.

[Saros]

Hmm, from the video, it looks like you Vampiric Touched the efreet and somehow bounced back and forth with fireshields? I think I like the contingency/sequencer plan, may go for that.

 

Yeah, Ancient Dragon (and a bunch of other fights) are a lot tougher without the immunity to silence in a necromancer.

 

That said, I did manage to kill the Chapter 7 dragon on the third try to so, and things are pretty chaotic in there for a while. I'll head to Twisted Rune and see if I can level up in there and make things easier. Ancient Dragon does indeed have an absurd AC but my fighter/mage is now level 19 fighter, so he's only down 1 in the Thac0 department. The dual is down 5, which indeed will make him almost entirely unable to hit. But Vagrant, Riskbreaker, and F/M should be fine, provided I can indeed breach.

 

Well, not exactly bounces. It's simply collision of fireshields. Have to be really close to work, but probably can be done with another spell as well (probably not even touch-required one). I personally intend to focus on the Noble Efreeti with all kinds of weapons which disregard his Stoneskin by dealing significant amount of elemental damag (preferably electrical and cold).

 

Nizi is easy, if you know what to expect from him. I usually challenge him with powerful summons only (he's neutral, you can summon a whole bunch), then dispel all of his PFMW by running back and forth with a mage (usually one gets Silenced in the process), and when he doesn't have any more protections, I go forward with the fighters. They bring Nizi to near-death, then he buffets everyone, heals completely and gates those 3 Hardwood golems, now is the time to focus Hardwood's attention to some of the powerful summons, leaving the pure fighters the opportunity to finish the dragon in one mighty critical.

 

Hardwood golems do thremendous damage even through combat protections like Hardiness. Their off-hand is considered to be normal weapon, which applies Miscast magic on each successful hit. Also, their hits dispel specific protections. You can protect your mages and make them viable tanks by using spells like Mantle or Improved mantle + Stoneskin naturally (for the R-C use the boots of Etherealness, because Aura of Flaming Death will be dispelled).

 

Edit. As far as I know, Hardwood golems cannot see through regular Invisibility, you can hide yourself from them if need be by using potions of Invisibility, Invisibility spell, Pixie Dust or Invisibility radius 10'.

 

The Twisted Rune has similar golems called Twisted Golems. Layene gates them fast if given the opportunity to. Kill her ASAP or you'll have one hell of a fight. BTW Layene cannot die until she uses her one-time always-beneficial Wish. Use chained True Sights on every party member to dispel her SoTM recurring Invisibility and triggers/contingencies to dispel her spell and combat protections in a flash. She has to be brought to near-death ASAP, you may even use magic for that. Only lower her resistance beforehand and then shower her with magic missiles and acid arrows.

 

Vaxaal uses something called Soften Target, which will lower all of the target's resistances (physical, magical, elemental, magic) by some %. And he uses an ability called Wondrous Strike which is a ray that applies damage from all types on a target. He won't use Improved Anti-Magic ray on a pure fighter, ranger or paladin, but won't hesitate if a mage, cleric or druid of any kind enter his field of vision. Shyressa always dispels specific protections on hit and uses multiple Hardinesses. Ravanek is probably the least of your worries, but he also uses Hardiness which makes him pretty resistant. Shangalar, naturally, is a Grave Lich, beware.

 

My tactic is: Assemble everyone in upper-right corner ASAP, leave a powerful summon (preferably Greater Djinni) to distract Shangalar and lead him to the southern staircase, away from the fight (use Farsight to navigate summons), a bunch of powerful summons in the middle to occupy Ravanek and Vaxaal's attention, your fighters eliminating Shyressa in a flash (first spell should be Breach on her, best use a Trigger), then Layene, then Vaxaal and Ravanek (no priority here, Vaxaal is simply far more damage resilient, Criticals help kill him faster), and you can kill Shangalar at your leisure, provided you did everything right. If you didn't - welcome Twisted Golems.

[kreso]

Here is a video link that shows how to deal with the Noble Efreeti fast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Ik7szsRic&feature=youtu.be

Wow. That's some epic stuff here. I so wonder what Sikret will do about IA7 once he finishes reading this....IA7 will be on delay until further notice , at least until Sikret "fixes" all stuff Saros exposed.

Enjoying these videos, btw.

[Saros]

Thanks, but this particular exploit is not my discovery. However, plenty of others are

[mikel123]

Twisted Rune... tons of bugs. Once walking through the arch, there's a cutscene to each party member around the table, all buffs dispelled. I assume that's intentional.

 

Despite dispelling my F>M's Chain Contingency, it still happens. It calls upon Limited Wish, the dialogue of which disrupts Shangalar's trash-talking. If I choose Protection from Undead, it's dispelled before I regain control of the active screen. About 1/3 of the time, Shangalar stays on the table and no help comes. 1/3 of the time, Shangalar comes off the table and help arrives in the form of 5 Vampire Brides. 1/3 of the time, Shangalar stays on the table and the Vampire Brides arrive.

 

Under the third scenario, I took care of the vampire brides, but Shangalar is still standing on the table. I go into the foyer and am able to save and play around with things from here.

 

As soon as Shangalar dies, the four friends arrive (Beholder, Layene with the staff, Vampire, Warrior) in their normal spots. Layene is essentially unkillable, given that she arrives invisible and returns to invisibility every second or so. Chaining True Sight doesn't work, because as far as I can tell, they all dispel at the beginning of the round, i.e. all at once. I have no idea how I could manage to time 3 Ruby Rays and a lower resist x3 trigger, all while she's visible, let alone the spells from there that actually kill her.

 

Not sure how often Layene summons a Twisted Golem... looks like there's up to 6 of them. However, if the PC (who is targeted with the double-time-stop-improved-alacrity madness) is not near her when Layene wants to begin that, a Greater Twisted Golem is summoned every 18 seconds.

 

I suppose it is possible to get the timing right on the invisibility usage, get Layene to "Near Death", survive the double-length time stop, and kill Layene before she summons the twisted golem(s). However, it seems like it might be better to focus on the vampire, the warrior, and the beholder first, moving away when needed to take out the twisted golems one at a time, and then finally Layene when she's out of spells.

[htrt]

If you get caught offguard by the double-lenght time stop rampage, a good bet can be drinking a potion of magic shielding when time unfreezes by pausing really fast at the right moment, provided your aura is cleansed (actually, was cleansed before time stop began). At almost the same time you want somoene to activate golden cat figurine or some natural restoral quick casting because many perverted guys in this fight love to cast a power word kill in a fraction of a second when they have the opportunity to do so.

 

What you ideally want is to get rid of layene and the vampire pretty much at the same time and quickly, but realistically you can go for vaxall and shandalar and leave layene for dessert (vaxall in particular is really despicable)

 

Ravenek is more like a pawn in this fight in my opinion, slaughtering him between two ennemies is like taking a sip of gatorade while running

 

I would guess that your party didn't find vecna robe yet (it is randomized every game)...maybe a quick kill of the vampire and vaxall can be a good opener for your battle because layene tends to be quick in refreshing invisibility which could lead to frustration without vecna, then at some point you could charge shandalar and try killing him fast with critical strikes. He doesn't use stoneskin and refreshes his protection from magical weapons only if you threaten him by standing close to him to a certain range. So at the 5th round let's say he casts a ruby ray well you can get a good kill with critical strikes and good movement. Vampire vaxall and shandalar out of the game it becomes possible to win even with twisted golems because there's only one annoying caster to check for and she can't attack physically. Those golems are very tough but killing them + layene is roughly similar to trying to kill layene without vecna with the fat eye and shandalar still alive

[Saros]

Twisted Rune... tons of bugs. Once walking through the arch, there's a cutscene to each party member around the table, all buffs dispelled. I assume that's intentional.

 

Despite dispelling my F>M's Chain Contingency, it still happens. It calls upon Limited Wish, the dialogue of which disrupts Shangalar's trash-talking. If I choose Protection from Undead, it's dispelled before I regain control of the active screen. About 1/3 of the time, Shangalar stays on the table and no help comes. 1/3 of the time, Shangalar comes off the table and help arrives in the form of 5 Vampire Brides. 1/3 of the time, Shangalar stays on the table and the Vampire Brides arrive.

 

Under the third scenario, I took care of the vampire brides, but Shangalar is still standing on the table. I go into the foyer and am able to save and play around with things from here.

 

As soon as Shangalar dies, the four friends arrive (Beholder, Layene with the staff, Vampire, Warrior) in their normal spots. Layene is essentially unkillable, given that she arrives invisible and returns to invisibility every second or so. Chaining True Sight doesn't work, because as far as I can tell, they all dispel at the beginning of the round, i.e. all at once. I have no idea how I could manage to time 3 Ruby Rays and a lower resist x3 trigger, all while she's visible, let alone the spells from there that actually kill her.

 

Not sure how often Layene summons a Twisted Golem... looks like there's up to 6 of them. However, if the PC (who is targeted with the double-time-stop-improved-alacrity madness) is not near her when Layene wants to begin that, a Greater Twisted Golem is summoned every 18 seconds.

 

I suppose it is possible to get the timing right on the invisibility usage, get Layene to "Near Death", survive the double-length time stop, and kill Layene before she summons the twisted golem(s). However, it seems like it might be better to focus on the vampire, the warrior, and the beholder first, moving away when needed to take out the twisted golems one at a time, and then finally Layene when she's out of spells.

 

What you're describing is not a bug. You simply have Limited Wish being cast (in this case in Chain Contingency) by someone with low wisdom. A request for "I wish to be protected from the Undead" from a low-wisdom person not only gates in 5-6 Vampires (Vampire Brides?), but also sets your clock to midnight (0 hours). That explains your buffs expiration. It has nothing to do with the Twisted Rune - that is definitely not one of the fights where all buffs are dispelled.

 

This also explains Shangalar's weird behavior, I've had similar problems in a test run. My Limited Wish worked fine (NPP), but Shangalar's dialogue was disrupted and couldn't resume (thus his four allies couldn't spawn).

 

BTW, you can notice that buffs aren't dispelled by the simple fact that if they were, True Sight should remain intact (it's undispellable in IA). They simply expire.

 

If you're wondering why low wisdom, probably you Wished for "set the party wisdom on 3" beforehand.

 

My advice is to reload a save where you haven't prepared a Chain Contingency with Limited Wish yet. That thing interrupts Shangalar's dialogue even if the wish is successful (i.e. Negative Plane Protection). Limited wish for NPP is still essential, but if you intend to load it in a Chain Contingency, set another trigger - I for example prefer being triggered "on hit", since you can always cast LMD on yourself. Or simply use Limited wish as a last prebuff spell.

 

The setting around the table is IA feature, no escaping that. But with your buffs intact (as it should be) it's no problem to assemble everyone in the upper-right corner of the battlefield.

 

In short, your entire problem is from that Chain Contingency triggered on "enemy sighted" which has Limited Wish in it.

[mikel123]

That's really interesting, you're right. Just did some testing (actually beat it shortly after I posted last night)... indeed the limited wish was cast by a char with WIS of 3. However, even when I killed that character and walked in, it still triggered, summoning two elite trolls (but no limited wish at all). No idea how this happened.

 

So anyways... the limited wish somehow disrupts Shangalar's trash talk, and that makes it so none of the rest of his party shows up. Thankfully when he dies, they do show up. So in my case, the difficulty was dealing with the vampire brides that spawn immediately with my unbuffed party, plus a grave lich who is relatively immobile. I dealt with the vampires by tossing the Amulet of Power to my F/M who summoned them, allowing him to PFMW because they switch to a non-NPP character. Other F>M does PFMW too. Imoen hastes the party (not enough time to cast anything else before she's overwhelmed), Cernd alacrity and begins NPP-ing Vagrant, Riskbreaker, and Imoen (so she doesn't die of level drain and get chunked, but rather simply damage).

 

The vampires are taken care of quickly enough, and then there's the matter of Shangalar, who is immobile. I run him mostly out of spells and buff up, and then (Ring of the) Ram him off the table and kill him. He's really hard to direct from there for some reason, so I'm not ideally positioned for his death and companions to show up, but whatever.

 

Basic strategy: kill vampire immediately, warrior almost immediately after. Summon some guys near the beholder beforehand (Djinn ring is ideal) to keep him stationary with them. Survive Layene's double time stop (tricky because she only begins it when you don't have a Pro Magic Energy active - though she doesn't mind blowing about 10 magic missiles and acid arrows when you have a globe of invuln active). That potion is a good idea... luckily I have Cernd nearby with his insta-heal, and this is one of the few times when being a PC vagrant is nearly as good as a necromancer... he has absurd elemental resistances, as well as the 50% magic damage reduction from his vqgrant-only armor.

 

Indeed the Twisted Golems aren't too bad... she summons one per character, based on who is in view. If you are really strategic, you can move your team in and out of view (one at a time) to summon when ready. I got the first two one-at-a-time, and then crowded my team in the NE corner (opposite of the beholder, who I was occupying with summons and wanted to stay out of sight of), so four more showed up in short order. Kill the six twisted golems, while surviving comets and stuff. Once the sixth golem is dead, you can likely kill the beholder at your leisure. Layene is nearly out of spells... use true sight to find her and surround her. I set the party AI to "on" at this point, and set each character to Standard Attack. So I wouldn't have to click during the 1/10th of a second she became visible each round from True Sight, they'd just start swinging. I'm not sure, when surrounded, she could move anywhere (kind of like how you used to be able to surround Drizzt with non-party members in BG1 and then pelt him with arrows). After two true sights in a row, she went down via fraction-of-a-second hits at the beginning of each round.

 

Seems like most people have success at this by managing to Ruby Ray and Lower Resistance her before the golems show up. I found them to be just a hindrance in the scheme of things... Vaxall and the vampire are the real trouble - if you're not using the Protection from Level Drain scrolls, you will have a vulnerable character that she will key in on immediately and kill very quickly.

[Saros]

No offense, but this looks some twisted variant of the Twisted Rune battle. To experience the actual fight, I'd suggest reloading to a much earlier save to avoid the 3-Wisdom-CC-Limited wish-self created bug. And your buffs will not expire.

[mikel123]

I assure you, no offense taken.

 

I have limited interest in continuing to play this mod as it is; reloading to re-do a fight that's 95% the same and 5% easier is not of interest to me. Good to hear you advocating for playing Sikret's vision of the fight though :-)

[Saros]

BTW, here is a quick way to do the battle the right way. Supposedly you cannot dispel that bothersome Chain Contingency - well then, simply don't wish for anything when the Djinni appears. Or wish for something different than "protection from the Undead".

[mikel123]

lol "supposedly"

 

I tried not wishing for anything. I think it's the text dialog of the wish (asking what I want) that messes up Shangalar's script. Because he doesn't move from the table to the floor at all, no matter what I wish or don't wish for. The way around this would be to revert back to an old save (or, CLUAConsole myself elsewhere), trigger the bugged contingency, and then rest and go back to twisted rune. Again though, I just don't care.

 

Mirrored Vipers were boring. Just block off a path with Vagrant (one of the few times he may be better than a necro) and a Riskbreaker with some potions of defense drunk. AC is around -20 or so, versus the Thac0 of the snakes of around -3. Battle of attrition.

 

Back to fix the mirror... Grandlord no problem at all. Wind Master... well, problematic. Has 100 resistance to everything: every element, magic, magic damage, every damage type. Can easily lower his resistance to magic itself, but that doesn't help since thus far he's also immune to the following spells (and/or their damage):

 

Air Elemental staff (and it's slaying ability)

Ring of the Ram

Earthquake

Horrid Wilting

Unleash Energy

Creeping Doom

Level drain (Black Blade of Disaster)

Maze

Bigby's Crushing Hand

Vampiric Touch

Fist of Nature

 

The final three I thought might work, since they "bypass" magic resistance, but no.