Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Jazz_]

Sooo, Yxunomei is brutally raping my party time and time again, does anyone know what's most vulnerable to? what school of magic? any tactic in general to defeat her? she resists a lot of my spells and physical damage is suicidal because she rapes my barbarian in 2-3 hits, and to even hit her you have to have +2 weapons anyway, that makes my monk completely useless in this fight it seems. My party is: sorcerer ''dragonfaggotry specialization'' (lvl 8, mostly has aoe fire spells..), druid (lvl 9, this is my main ''direct'' caster), monk (level 7, frail as hell but does good unarmed dmg usually, in this fight seems to be completely useless tho), archer (lvl 7, this is the slayer of my party, accounts for 40% of the enemies killed, my main dps basicly), barbarian (lvl 8, high hp, this is my ''tank'', mediocre dps, shield and one-handed axe, thing is here the tank can't tank shite as he gets owned in 3 hits by the boss). I think I should have invested in more (or better?) cc spells maybe? I only have web, stinking cloud and slow right now.

 

[octavius]

You have classes like Monk and Barbarian in IWD?

Anyway, Haste is always good good. And summons/skeletons to keep her occupided.

 

[Jazz_]

You have classes like Monk and Barbarian in IWD?

Anyway, Haste is always good good. And summons/skeletons to keep her occupided.

I think they weren't in the original IWD, added in the EE, along with the sorcerer.
Ok, I'll give it a try with some summoning scrolls then, I don't really have summoning spells.

 

[Seaking4]

Those classes exist in the Enhanced Edition.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Of those classes only Druid existed in the original game. When you say archer I had no idea archer was a class, do you mean fighter or ranger or something?

Anyway, Yxunomei is one of, if not the toughest battle of the game, if it's your first run then dying lots there is a right of passage. Do you really want spoilers? Have you really exhausted all your possible options?

If you haven't got a trap remover in your party then her lair is littered with traps and you could well be gimping yourself by walking all over them. I dunno if the EE version makes it a lock-in or not, but if not you can always kite and flee in an aggressive retreat formation, leave the area, rest up and come back and finish her off. If it's a lock-in but you still get the run of the whole level then kiting or preplanning a defensive line is good. Don't forget all those potions of fire everyone's been handing to you left and right, you can always lob a few of those at her. Potions of speed or haste spell. Are your fighters stoneskinned?

So many options, its difficult to know what's the actual problem without watching a vid and knowing your character sheets inside out.

 

[Jazz_]

Archer is a specialization/subclass of Ranger in EE, like my dragon disciple/sorcerer.
My monk can detect traps, and although I don't have a class that can disarm them I avoid them without any problem, and yeah the area where i fight the boss is locked in. What does stoneskin do? can i cast/fight while stoneskinned? and can I stoneskin my whole party? If it's really worth it I can load an older save and respect the last lv of my sorcerer to get it.

 

[Average Manatee]

You picked a rather bad selection of classes. I'm guessing neither Archer nor Barbarian gets heavy armor? You need that to stack that AC high enough if you want a character who can go toe to toe with her. And you're also really caster weak with no cleric spells (i.e. the buff spells that also contribute to keeping you alive and getting your THAC0 to where you can hit her well) and a sorcerer who will miss out on lots of stuff because they aren't a Wizard. To top it off Monks are always kind of the gimp class of D&D even before Yxuni's BS. Obviously IWD wasn't balanced for these new kits and you happened to choose some of the weaker ones.

You sure you are locked in there? That must be an EE change to make it harder, in which case you might just be completely screwed. Do try summon spamming though.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Holy cow, if you don't know what stoneskin does then you are indeed a D&D n00b. I don't mean this disrespectfully, everyone has to start somewhere, but taking a mage class and not choosing stoneskin at the first opportunity is pretty wtf emoticon. It soaks up the first 20 points of damage from any melee strike until it wears out after absorbing XYZ amount of damage. So your fighter will get 2 or 3 rounds in before it wears off.

 

[Jazz_]

Yep 100% sure it's locked in, and yeah barbarian can't use plate armor, the archer can only use leather armor. I know the party is shit (and yeah I'm a DeD noob) because I don't remember having so many problems with her when I played vanilla IWD when it came out.
But I shall prevail even with those bums.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah picking a Sorcerer is a bad idea if you don't know D&D and know what the best spells to get are. You want a Wizard who can learn every spell, Sorcerers are like min-maxed Wizards for people who plan everything. And no Cleric = always a horrible choice unless you really know what you are doing. Druids are like lite Clerics with some damage spells but way weaker buffs and support spells.

Loading up BG2, Archer = Kensai w/ranged weapons, which is cripplingly overspecialized and weak at low levels. Barbarian = Fighter trading heavy armor for rather weak rage and d12 health. Monks = always crap until really high levels. I'm assuming IWDEE didn't change the kits, meaning they are all pretty bad.

What's your 6th character?

 

[Jazz_]

The party is 5 people, I usually like to have a smaller but a bit more powerful party, less shared exp, faster levelling up. Anyway let's see how it goes with them summonings.

 

[Barnabas]

Make sure you give all your companions bows or slings, you can crush most encounters this way

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Make sure you give all your companions bows or slings, you can crush most encounters this way

Oh look, a shitposting retard. The challenge in question is immune to non-magical physical attacks, dumbass.

 

[Average Manatee]

In the future it's really not worth doing less than 6 characters like that. 20% more XP from 1 less party member will take until around level 15 or so to put your party just 1 level ahead of the normal leveling curve. It's only worth doing if you drop down to 1-3 characters and completely blow away the leveling curve with OP spells early.

Since I think IWD lets you edit your party at any time I'd recommend adding a Wizard or Cleric to your party, they'll level up pretty quickly once you escape your current predicament.

 

[Barnabas]

Make sure you give all your companions bows or slings, you can crush most encounters this way

Oh look, a shitposting retard. The challenge in question is immune to non-magical physical attacks, dumbass.

I love you no matter what friend

 

[Barnabas]

Sooo, Yxunomei is brutally raping my party time and time again, does anyone know what's most vulnerable to? what school of magic? any tactic in general to defeat her? she resists a lot of my spells and physical damage is suicidal because she rapes my barbarian in 2-3 hits, and to even hit her you have to have +2 weapons anyway, that makes my monk completely useless in this fight it seems. My party is: sorcerer ''dragonfaggotry specialization'' (lvl 8, mostly has aoe fire spells..), druid (lvl 9, this is my main ''direct'' caster), monk (level 7, frail as hell but does good unarmed dmg usually, in this fight seems to be completely useless tho), archer (lvl 7, this is the slayer of my party, accounts for 40% of the enemies killed, my main dps basicly), barbarian (lvl 8, high hp, this is my ''tank'', mediocre dps, shield and one-handed axe, thing is here the tank can't tank shite as he gets owned in 3 hits by the boss). I think I should have invested in more (or better?) cc spells maybe? I only have web, stinking cloud and slow right now.

There are +2 arrows in a sack in a room off the main corridor on your way there. Give those to an archer after using web or something and it's a piece of cake

 

[Jazz_]

In the future it's really not worth doing less than 6 characters like that. 20% more XP from 1 less party member will take until around level 15 or so to put your party just 1 level ahead of the normal leveling curve. It's only worth doing if you drop down to 1-3 characters and completely blow away the leveling curve with OP spells early.

Oh that sucks. But there are usually other considerations, smaller party = less micromanaging/clusterfuck in rtwp, more cash, etc. But yeah If I knew that it would've made a difference just at lvl 15 or so I would have gone for a party of 6. Thanks for the info manatee.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, just look at the experience tables and add 20%: http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Experience_tables

It's a common thing in games where there's an increasing XP cost to level, experience bonuses take a long time to pay off.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Some pretty bad advice itt.

Archer is an extremely good kit and always a worthy pick. In fact it's pretty much op for a game like IWD, with almost no enemies that can reliably protect themselves from ranged attacks. This is especially relevant to the scenario discussed, since on the very same level you had a fight with yuan ti archers that dropped pretty much the best bow in the game and some +2 arrows, making archer able to shred Yunshgsdhsghsgjjudhus in a matter of seconds.

Sorcerer is another safe pick and again, especially so in IWD. This is because the selection of available scrolls is fucking horrible for most of the game and wizard will overlevel the available spell pick when playing on a higher difficulty or with a smaller party. But even on normal sorc>>>>wizard always. I'm also not sure why stoneskin should be such an obvious pick for a caster that is not multi-/dual-classed into a fighter. It's not and there are much better picks on caster level 4 for a pure class sorc.

Druid is p cool in IWD, cause he gets some unique and useful spells. And yes, you can definitely do without a cleric when you have a druid. But both classes are definitely among the ones that start to shine when you dual-/multi- class them.

Your party is a bit light on the front line. Barbarian is only worth it for the passive res that kicks in much much later and monk is super sucky on lower xp levels and is pretty much a gimmicky class.

That said, it's not like it's some super weak party set up, you can tackle anything the game throws at you with it. For that particular fight, withdraw and deal with yuan ti casters that will teleport behind you. Then use some debuffs and shred the boss with +2 arrows.

If you want to reroll then take at least one caster/fighter multiclass for the easy mode. Remember that paladin and bard have quite a lot of unique dialogue in the game (with a lot of bonus xp) and do consider a rogue. Accidentally, BG2 kits added in EE make all three of rogue, paladin and bard actually viable and fun.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Some pretty bad advice itt.

Archer is an extremely good kit and always a worthy pick. In fact it's pretty much op for a game like IWD, with almost no enemies that can reliably protect themselves from ranged attacks. This is especially relevant to the scenario discussed, since on the very same level you had a fight with yuan ti archers that dropped pretty much the best bow in the game and some +2 arrows, making archer able to shred Yunshgsdhsghsgjjudhus in a matter of seconds.

Sorcerer is another safe pick and again, especially so in IWD. This is because the selection of available scrolls is fucking horrible for most of the game and wizard will overlevel the available spell pick when playing on a higher difficulty or with a smaller party. But even on normal sorc>>>>wizard always. I'm also not sure why stoneskin should be such an obvious pick for a caster that is not multi-/dual-classed into a fighter. It's not and there are much better picks on caster level 4 for a pure class sorc.

Druid is p cool in IWD, cause he gets some unique and useful spells. And yes, you can definitely do without a cleric when you have a druid. But both classes are definitely among the ones that start to shine when you dual-/multi- class them.

Your party is a bit light on the front line. Barbarian is only worth it for the passive res that kicks in much much later and monk is super sucky on lower xp levels and is pretty much a gimmicky class.

That said, it's not like it's some super weak party set up, you can tackle anything the game throws at you with it. For that particular fight, withdraw and deal with yuan ti casters that will teleport behind you. Then use some debuffs and shred the boss with +2 arrows.

If you want to reroll then take at least one caster/fighter multiclass for the easy mode. Remember that paladin and bard have quite a lot of unique dialogue in the game (with a lot of bonus xp) and do consider a rogue. Accidentally, BG2 kits added in EE make all three of rogue, paladin and bard actually viable and fun.

You start by saying there's bad advice been given but then go on to spew a whole tl:dr about stuff which is absolutely nothing to do with the question asked but is instead just a gigantic spoiler on the best way you consider to min/max the whole game. My irony meter just exploded in a vacuum of prosper, dickhead. And when you do talk about the challenge actually being talked about you ignore some pretty important salient facts already discussed as if you hadn't read them. Here, I've edited your post for relevance to the question asked:

on the very same level you had a fight with yuan ti archers that dropped pretty much the best bow in the game and some +2 arrows, making archer able to shred Yunshgsdhsghsgjjudhus in a matter of seconds.

use some debuffs

Which Barnabas has already posted like 2 posts ago and it's already established that Jazz doesn't have much in the way of debuffs. Fucking spastic.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Accidentally, BG2 kits added in EE make all three of rogue, paladin and bard actually viable and fun.

This.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Rogue and Paladin were always viable and fun. As was Bard, but Bard got improved in power with the original HoW expansion and if you want anything more powerful than that then your definition of fun is awesome button.

 

[Projas]

Archer is an extremely good kit and always a worthy pick. In fact it's pretty much op for a game like IWD, with almost no enemies that can reliably protect themselves from ranged attacks. This is especially relevant to the scenario discussed, since on the very same level you had a fight with yuan ti archers that dropped pretty much the best bow in the game and some +2 arrows, making archer able to shred Yunshgsdhsghsgjjudhus in a matter of seconds.

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.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

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.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Archer is an extremely good kit and always a worthy pick. In fact it's pretty much op for a game like IWD, with almost no enemies that can reliably protect themselves from ranged attacks. This is especially relevant to the scenario discussed, since on the very same level you had a fight with yuan ti archers that dropped pretty much the best bow in the game and some +2 arrows, making archer able to shred Yunshgsdhsghsgjjudhus in a matter of seconds.

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.

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.