Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

If I remember correctly, Messenger of Sseth just grants you 3 attacks/round, making it the best bow for pretty much everyone except for an archer. There's much better bows for archers.

 

Would need to test how it works with archer in EE, since it was a bit unclear in previous versions how its extra speed worked exactly. But if it caps at 3 apr then sure, there are better bows although it's still an obvious asset at this point in the game.

 

There are, but at that point in the game the other two are random drops whereas Seth is hand placed, so it's possible not to have them. The only other competitor that's not random at this point is a regular Composite Long Bow which has +1 more damage but at the cost of -1 thaco and slower. You're probably thinking of the random drops of either Long Bow +2 Defender or Protector, both of which have +1 Damage and +1 thaco more than Messenger of Seth. If you have all three to choose from then that's what you call an enjoyable equipping dilemma.

 

The problem is that the boss is immune to my archer's dmg, even with +2 bows and special arrows equipped apparently, I have 2 good bows: messenger of sseth (+1) and Long Bow of Defender (+2), they both give me the same result with the boss: weapon ineffective. I went all the way back to Kuldahar to have special ammos identified thinking it made a difference but here's the same result with fire ammo equipped:



Is this something that they changed in EE or am I missing something?

 

At least on the screenshot you're not using the +2 arrows required to hit her.

 

Are the Arrows +2? The Bow rating doesn't effect striking as the bow itself is not striking, the Arrows have to be +2 (+1 wont cut it). If you have acid arrows or any other added elemental arrows then the physical wont hit but the elemental/acid part should.

 

ah right, well, the special arrows I gathered clearing that level are all +1 for me wtf, not +2, odd... So I'm pretty much screwed I guess.

 

What did you do with all your flaming arrows and acid arrows?

 

There should be two locations on that level that supply +2 arrows. Acid arrows are found on the first level of Dragon's Eye. Arrows of Fire from Skeleton Archers in The Vale of Shadows. Have you had issues looting stuff?

 

Toss Icelance spell and slice her in half with your magic swords whilst she's stunned.

 

Look, screenshot taken with a save editor, those are all the arrows available in the game, the acid arrows and fire arrows seem to be only +1 in my game for some reason:



I think I will just add myself a bunch of +2 arrows via save editor and fuck it.

 

Like I said, added acid/elemental arrows don't need to be plus anything, the elemental/acid damage is not physical damage.

Anyway, you're not completely locked in, you have a means to retreat. Use your area of effect spells like web etc in the area outside her lair, in the second doorway, they'll come rushing out and walk into them, pick off all the henchmen, then load everything you've got onto Yx, potions of speed for fighters, haste spell if you have it, any magical spells, potions of fire etc. To improve your fighters AC you can quaff potions that boost dexterity, bull's strength to improve attacks. There's tuns there. For the location of the +2 arrows on that level:

http://mikesrpgcenter.com/icewind/maps/ar4005.html

 

Yxunomei can see through invisibility, her underlings can't. Try baiting her with an invisible character, she tends to be very party unfriendly with her cloudkill spells; you can severely wound, if not kill her posse that way. Or you could just lure her out and slam the doors.

As for +2 weapons, moonblade and star metal cudgel (cleric or druid spell - I don't remember) count as +4. Melf's meteors count as +5 (if your sorcerer has them). Spiritual hammer enchantment depends on the priest's level - you'd have to check if it works against Y.

 

Zboj Lamignat

I your rating. How the fuck is linking the fucking walkthrough map of that level a fucking . is your butthurt problem?

Edit: Haha @ pippin and all the people who'll now rate my posts as wtf for the lolz, yeah, yeah, yeah, same old same old, love the humour etc. Hey guyz, free WTF rating spam available here, get your predictable wind-ups while they're hot!

 

It's great at higher levels. At low levels its pretty marginal (note that, as a BG2 kit, Archer and the rest of the crowd were designed for a game with most of the content being around the 10-15th level range, not starting from level 1). Yxunomei has tons of HP, it takes plenty of time to kill her. +2 isn't going to help much compared to getting a normal fighter w/ cleric buffs who could actually become almost unhittable for her, thereby effectively neutralizing her immediately while you deal with the spawned enemies.

I totally agree Sorcerers are good if you have an idea what to do in D&D. He doesn't, and he's playing on a normal sized party. Also IIRC IWD:EE adds a ton of spells from BG2 so wizards becomes more powerful with more spells while newbies using sorcerers. have less of an idea which spells to take.

He's got a 5-person low-magic party where he desperately needs buffs because his physical-focused members neither have good AC to survive nor great offense to mow down enemies. Not saying Druids are bad, just that it's going to be used as a second, worse nuke-bot. A cleric, even one behind on levels, would double the effectiveness of 3 members of his party with pre-buffs.

 

Holy mother of duck, finally!



The +2 arrows made the difference, that and a shitload of potions guzzled down, it was still a tough battle and had to try several times again but at least it wasn't hopeless like it was yesterday, with my main dps out it was pretty much unwinnable. The trick is to take out the 3 mages that spawn behind you asap, I'd say 70% of the difficulty of the fight is because of those fuckers, they dispel all your buffs, they immobilize/charm/mind-fuck your guys if you don't take them out in a heartbeat, and since I couldn't take them out fast enough with my mediocre dps in previous attempts I just hurled bomb potions at them with my monk and warrior while doing dmg with my archer as well, the problem is that my party got caught in the aoe ''friendly fire'' of the bombs a bit, but desperate times call for desperate measures, once the nasty fuckers were out of the picture I guess I got lucky with some rolls because still no enemy made it past my ''crowd control'' Maginot line at the door, most of them were unconscious and rooted thanks to stinking cloud and web. At this point I just kept doing dmg with my archer while sorcerer did aoe dmg on the door area, a nasty wave spell with my druid did a ton of dmg and I also managed to find a role for my useless monk as potion bombs thrower, I unleashed hell on that door, still Xyanuenoaw was still pretty much unfazed and came forward, thankfully my tank was well buffed and enraged and well supported by my druid, so he was able to tank her while my archer did dmg.
By the way, what the hell that green cloud spell Yxunomei throws at you does? Damage over time I guess?

 

I think it's Stinking Cloud, makes you fall asleep if you don't save vs. death. There was a particularly annoying fight in Durlag's Tower, where a bunch of doppelgangers spammed it and you had to save every second or die. You are having so much trouble because your party isn't very well optimized... or at all.

 

The High Archer you recently killed had the Messenger of SSeth and arrows +2. In this room there should be another 18 arrows +2 somewhere, maybe you've overlooked them and didn't waste them yet.

You can grind some XP by trying to rest in a dangerous place (like the level where cold wights were) and getting interrupted, an extra level for your druid and sorcerer will make quite a difference, clever use of spells (and there are a lot of druid spells, you could summon 6 boring beetles and use the iron skins spell for example) is the key to success. An often overlooked trick is lowering the difficulty setting.

 

Nope, Stinking Cloud is yellow-ish, this one is green and doesn't make people fall unconscious, of that I'm certain.

 

This closing off of the doors isn't unique to the EE. I am currently playing the original IWD. Just passed HoW this evening, now I'm returning to end the main campaign. So, in the original these doors are closed when the battle begins. Initially I thought the doors to Yxunomei's room were the ones that were closing. There are traps in there in addition to numerous enemies, so this would have made it really much tougher.

I passed this battle with an enchanter mage, so I wasn't able to cast cloudkill, web or fireball. I was spamming summons to distract the casters, turning undead with my cleric to chase away the skeletons, and concentrated on killing off the yan-ti spellcasters before going for Yxunomei. Cleric spells from the chant/prayer/recitation line (I don't think you would have recitation at this point, you need to be at least lvl 7 Cleric) are very powerful, they give you a bonus while inflicting a malus on enemies at the same time. Emotion: Courage and Emotion: Hope are also great for the bonuses to your to hit chance and armor class. Protection from Evil is another buff you should use. And there is always the all-powerful Haste. It will double the attacks per round you are making. Actually with these spells, I was able to go through the whole game, with slight variations or additions. The more useful use of the archer, IMO is that he can disrupt spellcasting from a distance, and not so much cause damage to Yxunomei herself.

 

^ I do have some good buffs even without a cleric, barskin and bless with my druid, protection from evil and shield with my sorcerer, problem was that they are often dispelled at the start of the fight by the spawning mages. Anyway in my party the archer is essential, my main dps really because my sorcerer somewhat sucks offensively (my mistake I guess, I went full dragon disciple larping and got mostly fire spells but those are often short-range aoe crap that often gets my party along with the enemies), my monk is also kinda sucky but when she crits she crits big, still I think the sorcerer and the monk are the weak part of my party by far. By the way, in EE they removed the option to reform your party midway, and with the new kits I suspect they also screwed up the balance a bit as another poster noted earlier, not very of them.

 

Melf's Minute Meteors man. It can do some decent damage, won't hurt your party members and even fits the theme you are going for.

Haste is actually just +1 attack/round, you are thinking of Improved Haste.

 

I had Haste of course, along with potions of heroism and many other buffs, I was buffed as hell, I even had cleric-specific buffs thanks to random buffs some cards I found give you. The problem is that you get debuffed by the mages and I don't even know if that's avoidable, because I took them out so fast this time and they still managed to debuff me. Oh, I also summoned a knight from a chess piece item I found, it was amusing watching him go alone to the door and get imploded by Yxunomei and her minions.

 

Rather, they were not able to re-insert it. The EE's are all using BGII's version of the engine + Beamdog's improvements, and the reform party is an unique option to IWD.

Ah, yes. It was the movement speed that was doubled.

 

Congratulations! It's a fantastic feeling isn't it. Consider yourself fully IWD initiated [secret handshake].

My first party for IWD was horribly unoptimised for the entire game, but, BUY GUM, they got to the end, and it still remains as one of my most memorable IWD runs.

It's called Cloudkill, a 5th level mage spell: