Icewind Dale: Yxunomei Difficulty Spike

[Gauldur's Bait]

Where is this? Is it supposed to be in the section where you fight Presio?

dropped by high archer (5th level dragons eye)
http://mikesrpgcenter.com/icewind/maps/ar4005.html

What he ^ said.

I remember having an elf F/M/T with dex 19 in a two-character party who really ripped Yxunomei a new one with that bow,+2 arrows, and haste.

 

[Lilura]

Let us now debate the quality and necessity of IWD:EE.

No need.

 

[pippin]

Well if you decide to cheese it you actually need like 2 characters to kill Yxu.
Another thing that kinda let me down about the game was that the weapons sold at Kuldahar are actually useful through the rest of the game. When I played IWD I though the fights would turn into chaotic shitfests like in BG2 (in a good way, at least until it became a rock paper scissors style match to see who casts Time Stop first) but mages have a very limited spellbook in 1. The fun comes with clerics and druids as I've said. Since most fights involve dozens of enemies at the same time, AOE is king.

I still love this game for being the "spiritual successor" to the Gold Box titles.

 

[Kayerts]

One of the links in my signature has a rundown of how to beat her with a solo character in Heart of Fury. It is entirely irrelevant to your predicament, but half this thread is people touting their mastery of obsolete 15-year-old combat systems, so I'm doing my part.

The Yxunomei fight occurs in one of the few confined, do-or-die areas in the game, so kiting with missile weapons won't be easy, especially with only bad hybrid casters to try to slow the enemy down. It's still probably your best bet. The movement bonuses from Oil of Speed and Haste stack, which should help. If your goal is to avoid engaging in melee, then your target priority shouldn't be the big melee-only heap of HP. Target the mage(s) and priest(s) instead, then the melee minions, then you can pick off Yxunomei at your leisure.

Just so you're aware, you have one of the theoretical worst party compositions and are thus giving yourself a challenge run. That might be fun for you, but if it's not, you'll have a much easier time if you restart. Single class thieves are the weakest class in the IE games, followed by single class fighter-types. They are heavily outclassed both by pure casters and by multiclassed fighters. The big issue is that not only do casters provide greater tactical flexibility, but they also artificially become far tankier than any single class fighter can be. (Especially in IWD, where there are like 4 opponents who bother to strip buffs.) The strongest melee powerhouses are things like F/M, F/M/C, F/D, because they all gain the ability to ignore physical damage from attacks.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Yxunomei was hard, but she has nice titties.

She is harder in base game, without addon. If you play with Heart of Winter, she was banalced and became trivial lol.

Also, druid. Maybe two. And game becomes trivial with or without addon.

 

[pippin]

Yxunomei was hard, but she has nice titties.

 

[Wayward Son]

Okay, for whatever reason, she was easy to fuck up this attempt by just backing off a little bit. Messenger of Sseth helped a ton though thanks.

 

[Tigranes]

Your ranger will now basically kill 80% of every remaining enemy in the game.

 

[Melcar]

Your ranger will now basically kill 80% of every remaining enemy in the game.

Heh, reminds me how utterly non-fun the Archer kit is in the EE.

 

[Wayward Son]

Your ranger will now basically kill 80% of every remaining enemy in the game.

Actually, that honor goes still to my axe wielding fighter at this point. Also, I took some advice from here and rolled a human fighter->Druid for a caster.

 

[Tigranes]

You'll see. Just haste him, and see how many die before your fighter ever gets there. Sometimes I'd basically send him in alone, maybe with a few summons, because on Insane it's too easy for your front line members to die from a crit or something.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Obligatory:

(those small lumps of matter flying out from the yellow circle are yxunomei)

[Also, yxonemi is a name I've written approximately 50 times in the last 10 years and have seen possibly 1,000s of times, but I am still entirely incapable of remembering how it's spelt, even 2 seconds after seeing it]

 

[pippin]

yxunomei

yxonemi

 

[the_shadow]

This thread inspired me to replay Icewind Dale with the expansions (but not EE)

I made a magic heavy party consisting of the following:

1. Bard (since I've never really used this character much).
2. Cleric
3. Druid
4. Illusionist
5. Mage
6. Mage

Yeah, I know the party is poorly balanced, but I wanted to give a party of six spellcasters a go for fun, since I've already beaten the game a few times with more balanced parties. I'm almost up to fighting Yxunomei, and my thoughts so far...

1. Gold is really limited in this game. All the decent stuff is really overpriced, even with a charisma of 18+. This wouldn't be such a big deal if character inventories didn't change with each Chapter, but it's virtually impossible to buy all of Orrick's goods in Chapter 1 before he no longer offers them for sale in Chapter 2.

2. I had forgotten that Mirror Image is nerfed in this game. In Baldur's Gate II you could not be hit by any direct attacks until all the mirror images had disappeared. In IWD you have a probability of being hit, which is 1/(number of images remaining). This is annoying.

3. Spell selection for Clerics and Druids is terrible, at least up until Lvl 9. Mages have a far better variety of spells.

4. I'm playing on Insane difficulty, and am remembering how brutal it is. Back when I played with buffed fighters, I was getting hit hard all the time, to the point melee wasn't a viable strategy. I beat the core game and HoW with a ranged party using enchanted missiles + spells.

5. The Bard isn't really pulling his weight, but I haven't gotten the Sith song yet.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

When he gets the war chant he still won't be pulling his weight, but at least you will have to memorize fewer healing spells.

 

[pippin]

Spell selection for Clerics and Druids is terrible, at least up until Lvl 9. Mages have a far better variety of spells.

fake news

 

[Wayward Son]

Spell selection for Clerics and Druids is terrible, at least up until Lvl 9. Mages have a far better variety of spells.

fake news

Agree. They get Alicorn Lance, which while not great at damage, gives a -2 AC penalty. They also get many great buffs for fighter/druids. Lastly, they'll hit level 9 far faster because of their wonked up XP curve between 7-13.

 

[golgo21]

1. Gold is really limited in this game. All the decent stuff is really overpriced, even with a charisma of 18+. This wouldn't be such a big deal if character inventories didn't change with each Chapter, but it's virtually impossible to buy all of Orrick's goods in Chapter 1 before he no longer offers them for sale in Chapter 2.

you should loot every possible thing you come around,some weapons cost 30k-40k but they worth it.thats why i always bring at least 2 party members with 18/00 strenght.
also cast friends on your max charisma wizard,that will drop the prices even more

 

[the_shadow]

Spell selection for Clerics and Druids is terrible, at least up until Lvl 9. Mages have a far better variety of spells.

fake news

I meant character level, not spell level...

 

[Melcar]

Either way, spells for mages are shit in the vanilla games, coupled with the fact that spell scrolls are rather rare unless you buy them. Cleric and Druids get a few good spells that are actually useful. Mage spell selection in EE is much better, but most make the game trivial.

 

[octavius]

Icewind Dale is one of the few CRPGs that make Druids an interesting class to play.

 

[golgo21]

thats why you take at most 1 spellcaster,you dont even need one as there are none mage battles or hard counters like in baldurs gate.
last game i rolled with 6 melee dwarfs,it was a breeze but i spent like 3 years ingame from the times i rested.

 

[Wayward Son]

thats why you take at most 1 spellcaster,you dont even need one as there are none mage battles or hard counters like in baldurs gate.
last game i rolled with 6 melee dwarfs,it was a breeze but i spent like 3 years ingame from the times i rested.

Before I got my dual F/D I spent at least a year per dungeon.

 

[pippin]

I'm tempted to do a no mage run. I'm going to keep both a cleric and a druid, though, and go with fighters and rangers. There are two interesting spellcaster fights in the game, but they are still BG1 tier.

 

[golgo21]

yea dual or multi class clerics/druids are ok,also take a bard and use this mod http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/readme_rr.html with this skald lvl 1 song gets +2 to hit,-2 AC,+2 damage and immunity to fear must have for melee oriented parties.