Duoing

[Celeborn]

Chapter 4 was fairly challenging. The first 7 of the 8 chambers were easy; I did them all with my fighter without too much trouble. Did have to heal up in between chambers though. Then the 8th chamber - holy macarel! I had the worst time here. I must have attempted this 20+ times with no luck. Switched to the sorcerer and tried a few things, no luck. Then I finally read a hint to hit once and move and that pretty much solved it for me. I had to use that technique a few times, but I could tell I was improving each time. I had been squatting at level 14 for a while and I had enough xp to level to 16. It had been my plan to level at 16, but I hadn't really felt that I needed too, until the immolation chamber. So I used a 16 level fighter with 208 hp, but in the end I only took about 100 hp in damage. I took dash on that level up, thought it might help moving around the immolation room.

I gave the iron golems a try, but I was unable to hurt them. I had an ice axe +1 and haft over head and you need +3 weapons to hurt the iron golems. I read some hints on the forums and found that battle squares gives some +3 weapons. Or just pass by the golems and buy weapons in the next section. I went ahead first and had to fight the dwarves from the river caves. Fairly easy fight, and I picked up a lot of items to identify. Well I didn't see any +3 weapons from Malavon's crowd and he couldn't identify all the stuff I had, about 15 items. And in the process of learning that battle squares gives nice weapons I learned that I hadn't completed any of the ranks because I had only fought until I got 3 in a row. So, I decided to make the long trek back to battle squares. I wanted the throwing axe of shocking burst. I also completed rank 1 for the belt and rank 6 for club. Another reason for returning was to get zack to identify all my stuff. And he's cheap to boot. Not that I need to save money, I have about 150K at this point. Anyway it was pretty fun, and with a level 16 fighter not too tough.

I made the trek back to the iron golems. It was a tough fight. I used 4 undead to keep the golems occupied, but I only managed to kill one of them before they took out all the undead. I managed to almost kill a second golem before I had to run for healing. I came back healed and used the hit once and run technique again to finish them off. They're slow and the throwing axe of shocking burst seemed adequate for the job. I only got 800xp for each golem, but that's not bad considering I hadn't gotten any xp for monsters in a while.

Next I went back to Malavon and followed his request to get rid of the driders. I headed east to the drider lair. The south east battle near the pools in the drider lair was tough. Imphraili wasn't bad. The myconids were kind of tough because they tended to put hold on the chars a lot. I think confusion helped out a bit here. I went back to the Malavon area and discovered the merchants with the +3 weapons in the south west corner. I may have not gone back to battle squares if I had found these guys before, but they ask 500 to identify items. I sold a few items to them and bought a battleaxe +3, but I have been mainly using the throwing axe of shocking burst and the valofore hammer which has 33% chance to inflict fear and is a +3 weapon.

I went to attack the mind flayer guarding the door, but I got my butt kicked when everybody else on the screen came to join the fight. I was running out of spells, so I rested and killed all the thralls and others guarding the pools first. Then I went back to the mind flayer guy, created 4 animate dead before starting the fight. I started the fight with a cloudkill over three of the drow wizards and all three went down. Disintegrate on the 4th wizard. Horror worked pretty good on the formorian giants. Used valofore with the fighter and cleaned up pretty easily. Maybe a little overkill here, but I was tired of getting my butt kicked.

Inside the citadel. None of these battles were too bad. The lightning generators caused a lot of damage. A few times I managed to use an undead to take the lightning damage, but I ran out of my animate dead since I was also using them against the mind golems. The mind golems gave 800xp. I figured if I attacked the elder brain everybody else would come to it’s aid, kind of like the viscicamera, so I killed everyone else before going for the brain. I didn’t get any xp for anything but the golems and the brain; it gave 450xp. Kind of not worth it. I think next time I play one or two chars, I’ll just kill the golems and talk my way out.

The fight outside the citadel at the airship was somewhat funny for me. I was down to half hp and out most of my spells, but I thought I would go ahead and do what I could and run away for healing after I got a few kills. Well, as soon as I saw how many opponents there were I wanted to run away, but I gave it a go. The fighter was already invisible from the previous battle, so I added some haste as everyone converged on the sorcerer. The fighter ran right up to mirabel and slew her in about three strikes. Then on to majrash, he took a bit more time and some of the elementals and harpies picked up his trail. At this point the fighter had about 100 hp and sorcerer about 35 hp. This is where things started going downhill. The sorcerer hp went 30,25,20,15,10. I finally got her invisible, but not everyone stopped swinging, so I started running her around. The fighter killed majrash, but his hp was now 20. It was time to go. So I ran the fighter to the doors, locked. Uh-oh. I must have tried to force them about 8 times, no luck. At the same time as I’m clicking to force the door I’m running the sorcerer all over the place. The fighter is down to 15 hp. I give up on the door and start trying to figure out how get these guys. There are still about 8 elementals and 15 harpies. I put haste on the sorcerer to help run her around. I squeeze in a couple of healing potions; sorcerer was down to 4 hp. I start using every spell I got left, a few stuns, some disintegrates, one horror, one confusion, and one pw:blind and I was out. The pw:blind seemed very effective though. Things started looking better. I was worried the elementals would be tough, but they actually weren’t too bad. The fighter cleaned up. I was amused to have pulled it off on the first go.

And that’s it for chapter 4.

[Celeborn]

Chapter 5

I haven't pointed out that there are spoilers ahead before, since it was already done earlier in the thread. Plus, you are reading a narrative, so it seems unavoidable, but I have tried to avoid quest specifics. Anyway beware if you don't want to read about guardian killing tactics or dragon's eye procedures.

The battles in Kuldahar Pass were quite easy and fun. I think mostly due to the club of disruption. I was disrupting those undead left and right, most only took one strike. Hrothgar's Glen area was similar, a lot of undead to disrupt.
Hiepherus wasn't too bad either. I made sure to attack him first. Wow, no reloads yet. This could go to my head. The battles in the Kuldahar area were a little tougher, but still not bad. I had to be a little more careful with the sorcerer, but as long as I could get everything to attack the fighter things went fine. Still level 16; I've been squatting here for a while now. I could level to 17, but hoping to eke out a little more xp. I'll wait until I can level to 18. Didn't use too many spells, a disintegrate here or there for yucks and a couple of pw:blind. Had the hardest time finding Conlan. I got confused between towers and I went back to the Kuldahar Pass to look for him. I spent a bunch of my money at his shop about 100K of my 220K. I didn't get the Assimar armor though. Thought about it seriously; it would add another 2 pts to ac, but the armor I have on now gives +2 to reflex. I may go back and get it, but I guess I have gotten attached to my money and getting the armor would have wiped my out.

The Jungles weren't bad. I'm kind of enjoying this easy pace. Of course I've read the forums and walkthrough enough to know the guardian is coming up. Those poor initiates...they fell with one hit. The yuan-ti temple was a pain. I tried solving the treasury room puzzle, but it just wasn't working out. I looked at the walkthrough and the answer there didn't match up at all with what the viper assassin and the yuan-ti cook said. Maybe they were counting the bricks in a different order. The walkthrough said I had a few choices about how to move on: wipe out temple only, wipe out guardian only, wipe out temple and guardian. Well, I haven't been getting much xp for the battles, so I thought I would avoid wiping out the temple. There was one conversation there that you can have with Ojatha that I went ahead with for the xp. Also I wanted to see what kind of xp Ojatha gave. I think it was about 200xp. It didn't seem worth going through that hallway/wall trap that crushes you for some 40+ hp to clear out the viper gang and Ashra. I never could find how to disarm that. Maybe my search skill isn't high enough. Plus I was anxious to try the guardian.

Well, I had read a lot of forums on tactics for the guardian, but none of them did me much good. My plan was to see how many different ways I could kill him. I wanted to try out all the tactics I had read about. I still do, and may try him again, but for now I'm just glad to be moving on. One of the easiest seemed the lower resistance followed by disintegrate. The opinion is that the lower resistance spells stack. I don't know. Well, I tried 2 lower res followed by disintegrate and the guardian made his save. I used another lower res and another disintegrate and the guardian made his save. So that tactic didn't really work. The disintegrates did damage him a good bit, about 20 hp, so I decided to keep using them along with a few dead and the fighter's axe. The guardian was making mince meat of us. I got him to hurt, but no better. I tried all the running around tactics I could do. Tried blocking him on the platform with the caster using Otilukes Sphere. One of the tactics I read and liked was to get the guardian attacking the sorcerer. Use a fire shield and Otilukes Sphere and have the dragon kill himself on the shield. Well the guardian stops attacking as soon as the sphere went up. The alternative to this is using mirror image. I want to try that out, but I don't have that as one of my spells. Kind of a big mistake I think, but I haven't had to defend the sorcerer too much. I can usually get things to attack the fighter. Except for those hook horrors which is why they irritated me so much.

In the course of attacking the guardian with disintegrates and the numerous reloads the guardian failed one of his saves. Well, you're damn right I saved the game right quick. It was actually a nice save, because it had happened very early in the battle and I hadn't used up very many things. I hadn't even done a lower resitance, because the guardian seemed to take about the same damage without it. Well, while I'm not against reloading, I do want to feel like I'm learning something each time. And that when I'm done and the battle is won it is in such a way that I can reproduce the results. So while I did continue from that saved game, I have gone back to that battle a few times. Another easy method is just to run away and heal. The temple makes a good place to run away to. So just to prove to myself that I could do it in a reproducible manner I ran into the temple for healing...about 5 times. I'm still not too happy with that technique. I would rather be able to kill the guardian without running away from it. Even healing during the battle would be more satisfactory, but that small pause to heal is enough to let the guardian erase the effect of the healing potion you just took.

I didn't appreciate the automatic rest after killing the guardian. That added about 40 days to the game clock - not that I care about the game clock. I don't, right? At least you're all healed and full of spells for the return to Kuldahar. Again these fights weren't too bad. I did make a bit more of an effort than with earlier battles and buffed up, used the power words: stun, blind. I checked my xp and I'm finally able to level to 18. I'd been at 16 for so long! Ah, I am very excited about trying out power word: kill.

The frost salamanders on the dragon's eye path were fairly tough. My sorcerer got surrounded and was killed. I tried again and managed to squeeze her behind the fighter to one edge. That was enough protection to survive and get some spells off. After a confusion it wasn't so bad. And here I start to feel like I'm entering an infamous area. Dragon's Eye starts. I've read a lot of opinions on the area, so I tried to go in with a good attitude, try to stay positive. It helped me that the battles were fairly easy. I couldn't figure out how to open the prison door on level 1 so I went on down to level 2. I thought the lever or key may be found there. I find the lab. I've read things mentioned about this area, but nothing comprehensive. I have my alchemy of 15 skill as lightningpig suggested. I find the notes which basically explain how to make the brew, but I feel like I really need to get into that prison before going on. So I check out the walkthrough to get the answer to opening the prison door. The guards weren't tough, but the prisoner inside was. I had quite a bit of trouble with him. I think I used some animate dead to help me out. Meet Nherro and get his story. Find Mandal's body no problem. Can't find sword on levels 1 or 2, so check the walkthrough to make sure I'm not missing it. Move on to level 3. Iron golem. I've had some practice with these guys so they aren't so bad, not one at time anyway. Only got 500xp for him. Find the sword, talk to Mandal's spirit, get location of root, get root, intimidate D'hey-Jaz. Didn't need to, but he was right there calling guards, so I was hoping to shut him up. Got the potion, also made the 4 poison potions. Go back and explore more of level 3. Now, I have summarized here, but this took several hours over a couple of days. I tried to figure as much as I could on my own, but I checked the walkthrough several times.

(reaching message length limit; continued in following message)

[Celeborn]

(continuation of previous message)

At this point I was stuck for a while even after reading the walkthrough. I searched and found the trap for the metal door, where the slimes were, but I couldn't disarm it. For the longest time I was stuck on trying to find the "right equipment" as the text for the door says. I checked the forums and someone thought the lever from level 2 was necessary, but I couldn't picked that lever up. I finally gave up and made the 32 hr round trip to kuldahar to heal up. The door was open when I returned. Found the library the walkthrough mentions as the place to tell nherro to go, so back to nherro I go. My only options are to tell him to go to the second level lab, plus I don't know what these purple creatures they are talking about in my dialog options are, so I tell nherro to stay put. I go back to lvl 3, take the potion walk past the eye, and lower the draw bridge. The walkthrough suggested a rest before going over the drawbridge to rid yourself of the yuan-ti form. I had chosen the fighter to become a yuan-ti. I decided to try it out first with just the sorcerer. Well, the sorcerer and 3 dead, all zombie lords by coincidence. The efretti looked tough, but the zombie lords were very resistant to the efretti's fire damage. The fighter was useless and the sorcerer tossed in a few snowball's, old spell, but still delivered a bit of damage. Then came the fun. I hadn't used the power word: kill yet. I used it and 2 efretti went poof. I tossed in a couple of snowballs and pw: kill again and all but one of the remaining efretti went poof. Nice. I let the dead guys finish off the last one. The sorcerer talks to the boy, but no luck at seeing through the deception. Go back to nherro and now I have an option to ask about Thorassku. Great. He still wants to go to the level 2 lab though. Ok, fine. I go rest to rid myself of the yuan-ti form and I know that nherro is going to need some time. I check with nherro and he says that he didn't find the right materials is there another place he can research. Ok, got to lvl 3 library. I go straight there and check with him, but he needs more time. I check thorassku, but he is a boy. I go rest again. Kind of irritating when I have all my spells stills. Go back to nherro, he still needs more time. Ok, now this is irritating. I go back to the forums to check for alternative solutions or maybe I missed something. Apparently it is helpful to have a paladin or if you have a high enough intelligence you can read the sign at the pass and figure out thorassku's deception on your own. So I rest again, to give nherro more time. He STILL doesn't have anything to tell me. I must have really missed something I'm thinking, but before I start replaying from and old save I decide to make the 32 hr round trip to kuldahar just to waste a lot of time. Check with nherro and finally he can tell me what I need.

Thorassku wasn't too tough. At least he didn't conjure a lot of help like I expected him to. I decided to try lower resistance and disintegrate. Didn't work on the guardian, but sure did work on him, pretty good. Well, this is a good stopping point and I haven’t gotten much further except to get my ass kicked on lvl 4.

[Celeborn]

Chapter 5 (conclusion)

I had finished dragon's eye level 3 last time. I finally got into chapter 6. Dragon's eye level 4 was pretty fun. I like the whole time shift thing. It seemed pretty straightforward so I was glad to be able to do it without consulting the walkthrough. There were a few tough battles here. I used the Otiluke's Resilient Sphere followed by Lower Resistance and Disintegrate tactic a lot, at least for the beholder and king lothar. It makes a big ass sphere when you put otiluke's on king lothar.

I didn't do the holy avenger quest. It seems like I should have done that before going to level 4 because it doesn't look like I can go back anymore. I don't have a paladin anyway, but it sounds like the lost follower guys make for a good fight.

Went back to the ice temple to help out Nickademus. These were pretty fun easy battles with the club of disruption.

I moved into the fields of slaughter and had one of the hardest battles yet. The fight with M'Darfien. I haven't heard too many others complain about this battle, so I don't why it gave me so much trouble but I must have attempted it about 20 times. First of all if M'Darfien went invisible or got horrid wilting cast there was basically no chance. Several times I got otiluke's sphere on him and managed to kill his cronies, but when he came out of otilukes I couldn't take care of him. A few times I managed to kill him with a lucky disintegrate at the beginning only to fail killing his cronies. It was frustrating. Finally I added 4 dead and did a little more running around and managed it.

The next battles in the fields of slaughter exit area were tough too, but I rested up before doing them, so I had plenty of ammo. I used up almost all my heal potions so that when I rested it would only be an 8 hour rest.

I've been looking forward to a time when I feel like my characters have advanced levels faster than the game difficulty and the game seemed easy, but I'm still finding plenty of challenging battles.

Hey ligtningpig are you still reading...or anyone else? Is there any way to get healing from the fields of slaughter to the end of the game? I'm just a little ways into chapter 6 and so far haven't found anyone to heal me. I have already had to take a 64 day rest to heal up in ch 6. Was I supposed to be able to stretch out my heal potions through the fields of slaughter and all of ch 6? I have failed to do so miserably.

[Ron_Lugge]

I'm reading

Of course, I haven't really finished IWDII yet... so I can't be of help.

[lightningpig]

sorry this is two days late - i've been busy lately, what with school starting up again, but i have been following this thread. there is no npc or potion source healing in the fields of slaughter. there is actually a way to avoid fighting anyone in the first screen of that area altogether - but you've gone ahead and done it so there's really no point in posting that here.

in any case, there will be a healer on the top floor (not the towers) of the severed hand (unless you have qualms about getting healing from a banite). and yes, it would be good if you were able to carry over a good deal of your potions to chapter 6, but it isn't that important that you won't be able to finish the game - but that's just me talking, and i had tons of potions leftover from the previous chapters, even if i didn't use most of them.

by the way, i saw your list of questions thingy and it's quite interesting - i'll get around to filling that out some time.

64 day rest!? oh well, the game clock only seems to matter to me anyway.

[Celeborn]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I feel a bit stupid. I didn't realize that I could go back to Kuldahar from the severed hand. It's a two day round trip, but that's better than resting for 64 days. Plus I got to unload a lot of my unidentified items. Good to know there is an npc healer in the severed hand.



@Ron_Lugge
Heavens, I almost forgot. Thanks for the note. I appreciate knowing others are reading. One has tried to tell himself that he did not care that others have not praised his genius and bravado. That they have not hailed his witty narrative. But one does, so sad.