Lilarcor gives immunity to charms and holds, right? NOT illithids' special ability!!! In fact they end up killing me faster than a buller passing thru a piece of paper!!! Any spoliers or hints on how to deal w/ these annoying murderers???

Okay, for illithids, try to lure 1 at a time. When he uses his hold abililty, make sure that one guy who's getting hit, is far away from the party. So he's only held, go in for the kill. Also, if you play a bard/skald kit, the bards song (at higher levels) makes you immune to this pesky hold.

Lilarcor gives immunity to charm and confusion, not hold.

Chaotic Commands is the best protection spell against illithids. The Shield of Harmony is nice as well, and have your melee fighters drink some int raising pots before engaging the mind flayers, try to get their intelligence at 11+ or 16+ so they can take a few hits from the Ulitharids who drain 5 int at a time ( when you reach 0 you die ). Keep NPCs without psionic protection away from the front line fighters, as the mind flayer stun is area effect. Max out fighters AC as much as possible as well. Illithids have been implemented incorrectly in BG2, they are only supposed to be able to drain int if a player has been stunned, in PnP anyway. This would make them far too wussy in the comp game.

I use Skeleton Warriors( need either a level 15 Mage or Cleric) to deal with the Mind Flayers, and Death Spell for the Umber Hulks.

You can also use Mordenkenain's Sword against them.

Cute trick, you can also cast Project Image and drown them in summons, because PI illusions have no summon limit.

Chaotic Commands will protect you from the illithid Psionic Whip stun ability. It will NOT protect you from their Psychic Drain ability (which drains your Int and is a melee attack). There's nothing that can protect you from Psychic Drain, other than maybe drinking a lot of Intelligence Potions to max your Intelligence up.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Memnoch:
Chaotic Commands will protect you from the illithid Psionic Whip stun ability. It will NOT protect you from their Psychic Drain ability (which drains your Int and is a melee attack). There's nothing that can protect you from Psychic Drain, other than maybe drinking a lot of Intelligence Potions to max your Intelligence up.<hr></blockquote>

The drain is ONLY temporary, right?

Yes

Dammit, then wut items protect against hold then?

Psion's Sword +5 works great, as does Carsomyr. Skeleton Warriors are indispensible, which is why you shouldn't go to the Underdark until your Mage is Level 15+.

[ 11-18-2001: Message edited by: Galadria ]</p>

one combo that really works great against illithids is:
Korgan + a good axe (like Frostreaver) + a good shield (like Saving Grace) + Chaotic Command + Improved Haste (doubles attacks/round) + Improved Invisibility (lowers AC by 4) + any AC lowering items.
his AC should drop to about -16 meaning he'll almost never get hit and with haste he has 7 attacks/round! illithids won't know what hit them [img]smile.gif[/img]

also what you can try is send in a mage protected with Chaotic Command and Protection From Magical Weapons (this DOES stop Int drain!) as decoy, than when they all focus on the mage just send in the fighters.

Uh, Caldria, psions sword is in ToB.

What is so good about skeletal warriors, when i used them they didnt seem to do anything, are they immune to their intelligence drain and stuff then?

The BEST summon spell against Illithids/mindflayers is Mordenkenain's Sword. The sword is completely immune to all mindflayer psi attacks.

Send it into any mindflayer room BEFORE any of your fighters. The mindflayers and umber hulks will waste their initial psi blasts on the sword.

The potion of clarity or chaotic commans cleric spell are essential to protecting your fighters. Also the potion of genius (+4 INT) or the potion of mind focusing (+3 INT, +3 DEX) are very useful to counteract INT drains.

Don't bother sending in summoned elementals. One INT drain seems to be enough to kill them.

Keep non-pis protected characters well out of range of the mindflayers, at least until you have completely engaged the MF's and UH's in a good melee. Then you can sneak up your other characters to supply long range fire support.

Keep a close eye on your melee fighter INT. If it drops below 6-8, withdraw that fighter or drink another INT raising potion.

Mindflayer lairs are really quite managable using these solid tactics.

I will quote another boardie here, with regards to Skeleton Warriors and Mordenkenain's Swords. ;)
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>
They have no brains, they have no brains.<hr></blockquote>
5 of any of each will be a force to reckon with against the Mind Flayers. Just remember to cast Death Spell to instant kill all the Umber Hulks.

... or just be fast. With my berserker, slap on the Boots of Speed, drink Oil of Speed (very good speed aftert that!), use Draw Holy Might (or whatever the special ability is) and charge heh. Target Illithids first. I went through the first Illithis place (with the Hammer of Thunderbolts) very fast. Gotta keep the eye on the INT though, I had 1 left when I killed the last one heheh.. Close call. There are potions which raise the INT, one raises INT and DEX. I suppose they should stack, so even better - get +7 to INT and +3 to DEX, and then charge the room :D

And, there is no resistance against it as such. What I don't know, have not tried, is whether the Restoration, or Lesser Restoration, would restore the INT. In a way, it's drain like any other there is. Maybe it works and could help, though you would need to rest after the battle, since restoration drains the juices..

The standard cheese way to beat them is to use a cloudkill wand (NOT the Cloudkill spell) if you have one. Open the door, cast, close the door. The super-intelligent mind flayers can't seem to open the doors of their own lair. Like I said, it's a Camembert solution. :D