End game frustration...SPOILERS

[Stonewarrior]

I was getting ready to face Improve Irenicus last night (my 2nd attempt of the evening), I had a new strategy I was going to emply with traps set in what I thought were the right locations, I had some pretty good summons strategically located and my party was set. After talking to Irenicus he wisked away and the inital shadows died instantly. I ran into a slight problem when we ran over to help the skeleton warriors and plantar deal with the dragon (I forgot to disable turn undead and one of SW's exploded). The dragon died fairly quick, followed by the elder orb. The sword of greed was a pain b/c nothing seems to harm it...I ended up killing it I "think" with a finger of death spell from Kelsey, but everything was moving so fast I am not 100% certain. The wraith of wrath died next, he was a bugger as his HP's seem to be insanely high! At this point the part decided we'd best deal with Irenicus himself! I sent my undead hunter (with carsomyr), Saeritleth had a mace of holy blight, Anomen the impaler and Jaheira the gnasher...the pounded away on Irenicus while Imoen used the Gesen bow and Kelsey took down his spell protections. He dimension doored away but not b/f killing Anomen. Unfortunately, hew as the only person I had that could resurrect anyone as Jaheira had been level drained to about level 12 or 13 and my PC used the last charge in the rod of resurrection on himself as he was down to about 10 HP's. Shortly thereafter we finished him off for the first time. In his second appearance Kelsey used the last of his spellstrikes and no one had any ruby ray of dispersal spells...and it seemed the other protection removing spells were pretty useless. So, after chasing him around for a few minutes and trying in vain for to get a solid hit and remove his protections with Carsomyr, the axe of bala or the staff of the magi the though dawned on my to try "normal" weapons...duh! He kept casting PFMW...well, after quickly switching to regular weapons...even regular bullets from Kelsey Irenicus died in short order...next up I am thinking is the Slayer...but wait the game pauses b/c any enemy died (I love the autopauses) and I hit unpause and the game FREEZES!!!! Between setting up, the actual battle and the time I spent scratching my head with the game paused trying to figure out what the heck to do next I spent close to an hour and a half all for nothing! I could not save, I could not get the game to unfreeze...I eventually had to shut the game down through task manager. Mere words can not express how angry I was. I had tried improved irenicus on another game a few weeks back and eventually uninstalled it b/c I kept getting my butt kicked. Then on my second try this time around I was past the worst of it...at least I hope it was as I was running out of spells with no way to get them back. LOL I will try again to night and even have a few ideas on how the battle might go smoother, but oh the frustration!!!

Peace, John.

[Aragorn1]

Ahh, reminds me of the days when I was on dial up internet and the connection broke after trying to down load something for an hour. Very very frustrating.

[Stonewarrior]

SUCCESS!!!!

SPOILERS


Well, it took two tries, but I finally be Improved Irenicus. The first try through I had to restart b/c after I killed the first Irenicus nothing happened. I grabbed the cloak real quick (b/f it said your party has gained an item) and I think that is what prevented him from returning. The second time through was both exciting and nerve wracking.

The battle started out well with the Orb of Fear quickly dying from well placed Spike Traps. The Dragon of Pride went next, though it took a while. The Skull Traps I left for it either didn't do much or missed it entirely. Kelsey cast time stop and hit it with a Pierce Magic and two Lower Resistances followed by a total of 7 Magic Missles spells (triggers and sequencers) and put it at Badly Injured. A few well placed swipes with Carsomyr and it was gone. Next Imoen used a Time Stop spell and unloaded on the Wraith of Wrath with a sword (can't recall...got it from the Unrepresented Items Mod) and got it to injured. I had a Mordy sword, Saerileth and Anomen also attacking him and he was soon gone. Meanwhile, Kelsey cast a couple of Death Spells at the Sword of Greed and it to was soon gone. That left Irenicus. What transpired next was almost comical. He had so many protections up the only thing that would do any damage to him was regular weapons. Unfortunately, every time we injured him in the least he would Dimenson Door away and we had to start all over. I tried a Time Stop in vain. Almost the instant Time Stops Irenicus DD'd away and I could not find him. What a freaking waste. However, I still send a few ADHW's in the direction he was. Well, after about 20 minutes of chasing the fool I guess he got tired b/c everyone caught up and our incredible "regular" swords, bullets and arrows finished him off. With the next incarnation (I think it was just him again) pretty much the same thing happened...except when the batter started he seemed to cast about 30 protective spells on himself. My initial thought was this is gonna be fun chasing him around again. LOL Kelsey cast 2 more Mordy's and a Plantar so they were somewhat helpful. I tried a little cheese by having Kelsey cast a Wish spell and a Wish scroll...well, everyone got Improved Hasted and some Hardiness...but no rememorized spells. Also, somewhere along the way all of Jaheira's memorized spells went bye bye. That blew. LOL In the end we chased and chased and again our regular weapons took him down.

What happened next I was not at all prepared for. Somehow everyone was frozen except me, the Slayer and a Plantar. There were also several shadow's. Well, I kept receiving "1" point of damage it seemed every second and I had no weapons, no potions, no armor or anything. Lots of fun. lol Fortunately, the Plantar did a lot of damage to the Slayer b/f it was killed. Meanwhile, the shadow's killed Imoen and I kind of took advantage of the situation by grabbing some of her gear. The Equalizer from her Bag of Holding worked quite nicely and soon the Slayer was gone. I made sure to grab all of Imoen's stuff during a "pause". The forth and final version of Irenicus was somewhat of a letdown...though at the same time a relief as I think I spent about 2 hours of real time doing this battle. It didn't last long at all as he didn't DD away...the party pretty much pounded at will. This time though we used magic weapons as they seemed to work. I have been playing on Core rules (not ready for Insane or even Hard yet...though I enjoy the stories posted about playing on those levels) and had found regular Irenicus to be almost easy. The entire battle without Improved Irenicus lasted about 20 minutes. I am now anxious to see how the rest of the Tactic's mod changed ToB as it definitely increased by enjoyment of SoA!!!

Peace, John.

[pjotr2005]

lol,that must've been some battle,congrats!