[Celacena]

I posted yesterday about the staff and backstabbing - what it enables is for the thief to run away, equip with a stabbing weapon - e.g. arguvadural +4, hide (not go invisible) sneak back and stab, go invisible, run away and repeat. combined with the ring of free action, boots of speed and cloak of non-detection - you never get caught.

it got a bit boring, but I cleared out the nest of eye-tyrants single handed in that fashion and last night did the same for the illithids guarding the hammer of thunderbolts. I combined it with setting traps behind closed doors - nobody has mentioned that setting traps and then opening the door blasts everything within range. when that includes a couple of spike traps and 4 normal traps that is some blast!

rest and repeat.

also - if you want to stay vanilla on the weapons - using an attack from invisible with the sotm means that you always get the initiative in de-buffing. that is very useful, for example on the final seal/key level of WK or in the underdark. when mages jump you, you can de-buff them and then start to eradicate them. combining a hasted Keldorn with Carsomyr and sotm and you have even powerful mages in trouble. HOWEVER if there are triggered contingenices, use Keldorn's dispel magic ability - I only wish the scale was bigger and you could see the faces of an uber-mage who loses all those protections in seconds flat and then gets whalloped within an inch of their life in less time than it takes to say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

keldorn and the PC thief wiped out all the summoned mages without breaking sweat last night. it works in practise, as well as theory.