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CHAPTER 2
When you first crash in Oswald's ship, you'll run into a variety of foes, including Tundra Yeti, Boring Beatles, Frost Spiders, and Fomorian Giants. All of these involve straightforward physical attacks, and thus shouldn't be all that difficult. Your first noteworthy fight is ...
Beodawyn
In the northwest corner is a small camp, with a fellow named Beodawyn and several of his followers. He sells an interesting assortment of items. The one that I bought was an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 for Markus.
If you insist on searching through his cache, the character that does will temporarily go berserk, and Beodawyn will reveal his true form as a Werewolf. His followers aren't that tough, but he himself is highly resistant to any kind of physical damage. His notable weakness is magic damage. So Elanna cranks out Magic Missile non-stop. Markus, having the highest attack bonus in the party, packs the Moonblade just for this fight in order to bring down the Werewolf as fast as he can.
Andora
Your next major battle is with the Rangers and Druids of Andora. Odea will lead several Druids and Rangers from the south side, while Illium and other Rangers will open fire from the north.
For the group to the south, Alliria can now start a highly-effective crowd-control sequence as follows: Entangle, Spike Growth, and then Spike Stones. Elanna chips in with Web, and then lets loose with Fireballs. Since there will be quite a few Druids here, Stygar also casts Silence.
Odea will leave behind Nature's Vengeance (10% chance of inflicting Bane on whoever strikes its wearer). This will be Alliria's cloak for the game.
Illium will fire away until he runs out of healing potions. At that point, he'll retreat, obliging you to pursue him and a couple of other Rangers up the cliffs. Illium leaves behind Hagnen's Folly, a +3 crossbow that Tithian can use in the meantime.
Glacier
Once you first enter the Glacier, you'll get introduced to two now frequent kinds of foes, Barbarians and priests of Auril. The entry point seems a little wide for crowd-control, so instead I opted for summoning help. Barbarians can raise their Strength and Constitution, and can become quite dangerous in large numbers, like when you first enter. In addition to summoning spells, you can also make generous use of Hold Person, or any other abilities that will stun or paralyze the Barbarians.
Aurilite Priests won't be particularly dangerous by themselves, but their spells can become troublesome if they make you vulnerable to the physical attacks of the Barbarians. Therefore, have your archers take them out as soon as possible. Fire-based missile weapons such as Arrows of Fire or Melf's Minute Meteors are two such examples.
Another potent enemy is a large worm-like creature called a Remorhaz. Each time it hits, which is often, it will inflict both bludgeoning damage and fire damage. Its critical hit can kill outright. As much as possible, try to immobilize it with something like Ice Lance, Chromatic Orb, or Stunning Blow.
Another foe, albeit an irregular one, is a Crystal Golem. Slashing damage won't do much, but blunt weapons will score bonus damage. Have your strongest warriors switch over to their blunt weapons. Your weaker characters can try to use things like Impact Arrows and slings from a distance.
Once you grab the Holy Symbol of Auril, Vassilus and the other Doom Guards will attack you. In Tactics, they simply have better stats, so you should be able to take them out with persistence, and the odd healing potion or two. Vassilus will leave behind the Flaming Star +1.
At some point, you're going to have to do battle with the Queen Remorhaz as well as a few Aurilite priests. My earnest recommendation is to take out the Queen at a distance with missile weapons. One reason is that when the Queen dies, she'll explode in a Firestorm type effect, so you obviously want to be well away from her when she dies. Another reason is that with any luck, you just might be able to avoid fighting the next foe right afterwards.
This is by no means easy though, since the Queen herself has long-range attacks that can inflict heavy damage. Be generous with your healing potions. If a character is getting his or her hit points whittled down quickly, put that character out of range so that he or she can gulp down on potions, while another character can step forward and demand the Queen's attention. Rotate your characters in this fashion if you need to. Burn the Aurilite priests with Fireballs as well.
Next up is the undead Lord Rengar, another tough foe in Tactics. He can teleport, and will periodically cast Fireball (without any harm to himself), or Power Word: Stun. He also has significant damage resistance to any kind of physical attacks.
First, drink up on your health potions. This will be a lengthy battle, and you want to brace yourself for the next inevitable Fireball.
Second, I would advise switching to any two-handed weapons for this battle, simply to increase the damage range of your attacks and thereby score more damage with each hit. Trust me, every little bit of damage you can score in this battle will count. The faster you can take him down, the better.
Lord Rengar will leave behind a Longsword +2, a welcome upgrade for Markus.
Shortly after Lord Rengar you'll find two Cult of the Dragon Necromancers. The above is a picture of what can happen if you're not careful. At some point they will cast the Circle of Death spell, which will be automatic death for characters with less than 10 levels. And chances are, they'll get that spell off because they'll already have cast Stoneskin on themselves beforehand. So, first, get yourselves close to them. Have a character cast Dispel Magic. If it works, they'll both 'change color'. If it doesn't, reload. Once you've torn down their Stoneskins, they'll go down much faster and have a much greater likelihood of having their spells interrupted.
Towards the southeast corner you'll find several Snow Trolls. More hit points and better damage, etc. Given the numbers, it'll help if you have an ability that can inflict fire damage over time, such as Flame Blade or Melf's Minute Meteors.
Once you kill the sleeping Remorhaz, you'll free Zack. He'll give you:
Zack will also sell some interesting items. The one I bought was:
Sherincal
Now it's time for one of your key fights, the Half-Dragon, Sherincal. She can also cast Fear, Dispel Magic, and fire Lightning Bolts. She has a lot of hit points, and packs a lot of damage with her Greatsword, especially against good-aligned characters.
She also has a fair bit of help that includes Aurilite priestesses, a couple of Cult of the Dragon Necromancers, a couple of Barbarians, a Soarsman, and a Barbarian Shaman. A Crystal Golem will also approach from the rear.
The name of this game will be divide and conquer. Move back down south and head straight for the Crystal Golem. Take it out first and foremost with blunt weapons before it has a chance to join forces with any of Sherincal's minions.
In your efforts to divide and conquer, Sherincal may occasionally teleport in your midst. However, she will also teleport away if you hit her enough times. Do this, let her get away, save your game, and then resume your divide and conquer efforts.
Next, coax forward the Barbarians and the Soarsman. They can be led away from the others.
Next, you'll need Dispel Magic for the Necromancers. Have a scout hide and go forward. Then have a spellcaster use Dispel Magic from outside the fog of war. If it doesn't work, simply reload. If it does work, proceed and kill them off with missile weapons. Throw in a Fireball or two for good measure.
Now go for Sherincal. Keep in mind that she can only be hurt with +2 or better weapons. Make generous use of your healing potions cause this will take time and healing. Once she goes down, she'll leave behind the Winged Blight Greatsword, which only evil characters can use.
Now finish off the Aurilite priestesses, who will be on the platform leading to the Temple.
Temple of Auril
Throughout this temple you'll run into an assortment of foes, Barbarians, Polar Bears, priests of Auril, Winter Wolves, Barbarian Shamans, etc. You'll also run into the odd Ice Golem Champion, which you'll of course need blunt weapons for.
When you first enter, head towards the southwest corner of this level of the Temple. Your immediate objective should be to free the prisoners here, but without taking any rests. If you rest, one prisoner will get sacrificed each time, which will cost you an experience point bonus for that prisoner.
However, first things first, you'll have to deal with an Ice Golem Champion and a few priests of Auril as soon as you arrive. When you head towards the prison, you'll have to deal with a few Barbarians and a couple of Polar Bears as well. Hold Person and Hold Animal will definitely make this fight easier. Talk to Nathaniel, and then have your thief unlock the door to the prisoners' cell in order to free them. Now you can rest up after having racked up the xp.
Just north of the prison will be one of the 3 High Priestesses, Lysara. She'll have a lot of help: other priestesses of Auril, Polar Bears, Barbarians, Winter Wolves, and an Ice Golem Champion. The Priestesses will summon a lot of undead, so get some summoned help yourself before this battle starts.
Also, don't let yourself get caught and stuck at the door. Simply send one character ahead to talk to Lysara and get your xp bonuses. Then tail it back out the door. Let them come to you. Of course, putting crowd-control and offensive spells past the door can never hurt. Take out the Golem first, then everybody else except Lysara. Lysara can score pretty nifty damage with touch-based attacks, but you simply need to last for a certain amount of time against her before she retires in a sort of 'self martyrdom' for lack of a better way of putting it.
In one of the northeast rooms, the Ease of Use Mod adds the Knucklehead Buckler in one of the chests. Tithian uses it as his secondary shield beside the Moonblade.
The rest of the time will be small groups of the usual assortment of foes. That is, up until you near the exit to the next level of the Temple. Here, you'll run into Ice Trolls, a lot of them. Flame Blade and Melf's Minute Meteors will come in handy here. With the Minute Meteors, simply wait for one troll to fall to the ground, then nail it to kill it for good. Wait for the next one to fall, and so on.
Temple of Auril, Second Level
More of the same on the second level, with one proviso. The foes here seem to wander around a lot, so chances are you may end up running into a lot of them at once. Don't worry about expending healing potions, you'll be able to pick up plenty more once you loot their corpses. And hold onto all the ones you do find without selling them, its for the long haul.
There are two notable battles here.
One is against the Talisman Adventurers when they're released from the mirror in the southwest corner. You'll get hit with a Dispel Magic as soon as this battle starts, so don't bother with any pre-combat buffs. If you play it right, you won't need them anyway. The key here again is crowd-control, and packing everybody tight against the west wall so that the crowd-control will work.
I went with this sequence: First round, Alliria - Spike Stones, Elanna - Web, Tithian - Stinking Cloud. Second round, Alliria - Spike Growth, Elanna - Chaos, Tithian - Slow, then Alliria caps the sequence with Static Discharge.
Elanna cranks out Fireball after Fireball. Tithian and Alliria take aim at the Talisman Bishop and the Talisman Mystic. Markus, Stygar, and Akutagawa take down anyone who can make it out.
The Talisman Mystic leaves behind the Staff of the Elements +1 (25% chance of 1d6 fire damage, 25% chance of 1d6 cold damage). Elanna will use this as her interim staff.
The Talisman Bishop leaves behind the Flail of Shocking Cold +2 (50% chance of 1d6 electrical damage, +1d6 chance of 1d6 cold damage). This will be Alliria's blunt damage weapon in the interim, and actually her main weapon for the time being since its better than her +1 scimitar at the moment.
In the room south of here, which you'll have to open by using the prism device, I'll find the Stormbreaker (+2 Warhammer, sure striking, +1d6 damage vs. evil, cast Storm Shell 1/day), which is added by the Light of Selune mod. This will be Markus' blunt damage weapon for the rest of the game.
The next major battle is against Oria. First, complete one level of Battle Squares (more on this below) to get the key to Oria's room. Oria can cast both divine and arcane spells, and will be assisted by several priestesses of Auril and Winter Wolves. Take out her helpers first. You won't be able to get to her right away because of her spell protections. Again, don't be stingy with your potions in order to keep your hit points up. Go the distance with her, and she'll break her Staff of Power. She'll return as Oria's Essence. Simply go to the room in the southeast corner, activate the 'Inner Sanctum', kill her and then hit the switch to turn the mod off. She'll leave behind a scroll of Cloudkill, a Traveler's Robe, and a Wand of Magic Missiles.
Battle Squares
By now the party has made as much progress as it could without using The Game Room. It needs only perform one task to progress the game further. However, completing the Battlesquares challenge in full is worth the time and patience required, for the rewards are great. As such, this merits a section unto itself.
First, an explanation of the switches. You select a rank by pulling one of the ten labelled switches along the north wall. Two switches in the bottom corner determine whether the Mode is Inner Sanctum, Temple Maintenance, or Battlesquares. Set the mode to Battlesquares. The very bottom switch is used to activate the selected mode. Once you've pulled the activator switch, select one of the nine squares in the middle of the floor. A monster, whose difficulty depends on which rank switch has been pulled, appears for a one on one battle. The rest of party is kicked out of the room leaving only the character that pulled the game switch. If the character wins within 60 seconds, he has conquered that square and it is marked differently.
The ultimate goal of Battlesquares is to obtain all five levels of all ten ranks. A level of a rank is designated by how many squares you have conquered AT THE TIME you get three squares in a row. I'll provide some diagrams to give an example of what getting each level would look like:
Complete each level in a rank, and you have obtained that rank. Complete all ten ranks and you're officially the Battlesquares Master in addition to being rewarded tremendously.
My approach was to have Akutagawa do all the fighting. Before he starts a level, the rest of the characters layer him with these spells; Mage Armor (an Armor Bonus without taking away his Wisdom bonus), Bark Skin (generic bonus), Protection from Evil (Deflection Bonus), Champion's Strength, Emotion: Hope, and Haste. Haste won't last long, but it makes winning the early battles for the 4th and 5th levels of each rank easier. Markus also lends him his Amulet of Natural Armor. Any time you complete any level in the game, you get a random reward, which can vary from spell scrolls, missile weapons, gold, gems, or an xp bonus. Always reload until you get the xp bonus as a reward for completing a level. It will go a much longer way for you.
1st Rank - Monsters that you fight include:
All of these monsters can be easily stunned and killed without using a healing potion. The first time you complete a level in the Battlesquares challenge, you obtain *** Oria's key ***. You'll also get a spell effect cast on the character corresponding to the Rank of the game. Here, it's Armor of Faith. It is not very often that this spell rank will be worth the need to go straight to another level without resting.
Each time you complete a rank, you get a prize. The prize for the 1st Rank is the Dragon's Belt (+3 to Reflex saving throws). Stygar is rather weak for his Reflex Saving Throws, so he gets this belt.
2nd Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect for completing a level is Luck. The prize for the 2nd rank is the Potion of Holy Transference (permanent -1 to Dexterity and +2 to Wisdom). Akutagawa drinks this potion. This in fact was the point to adding a point of Dexterity at 4th level. It makes up for the point of dexterity lost by drinking the potion, and keeps the dexterity modifier at +4. The wisdom increase in turn improves A.C., Will saving throws, DC of both Stunning Blow and Quivering Palm. The potion might be equally handy for a Cleric that wants to raise Wisdom but is wearing heavy armor where Dexterity may not matter much.
3rd Rank - Monsters you fight include:
Most these can still be stunned and killed. The spell effect is Strength of One. The prize is the Abishai Hide Armor (A.C. +3, damage reduction of 5/+1). Alliria didn't bother. She already has better armor. This and other items which provide damage reduction which can be overcome just for having a +1 weapon will be useless in the latter stages of the game.
4th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is Stoneskin. The prize is the Boots of Grounding (+6 to electrical resistance). Alliria gets this by default since I have other boots in mind for the other characters.
5th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is the Shield of Lathander, which only lasts for three rounds. The prize is the Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst (+5 enchantment, +1d6 electrical damage, 10% chance of another 1d10 electrical damage). Definitely an improvement for Stygar.
6th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is Regeneration. The prize is the Club of Disruption (+3 to attack bonus and damage, +5 enchantment, outsiders and undead must make a fortitude save or be disrupted). Stygar will be packing this weapon for most of the rest of the game. Tithian already has an anti-undead weapon, the Moonblade. In melee, Markus will be using a hammer for blunt damage while Alliria will use a Flail. That leaves Stygar, who switches from axe to club whenever there is undead, demons, or monsters vulnerable to blunt damage. In the meantime, Akutagawa uses the Club for the rest of the battlesquares challenge.
7th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is Seven Eyes. The prize is the Ice Spear +4 (Ice Lance 1/day). Alliria packs this for when she needs to reach over her comrades in tight quarters, for the time being.
8th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is Divine Shell. The prize is the Composite Long Bow of Empowerment (whenever character is struck, a random ability score is improved by 4. You can't have more than one such bonus at a time). I didn't bother. There's better bows out there that are better at doing what bows were designed to do in the first place, nail an enemy at a distance. The bonus could come in handy in the heat of melee combat. That is precisely the moment when the character should not be having her hands on a bow. What it does have going for it is that it can be sold for a wad of cash.
9th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is Aegis. The prize is a wand with 50 charges of Animate Dead.
10th Rank - Monsters you fight include:
The spell effect is Executioner's Eyes. The prize is the Brilliant Short Sword +5 (ignores the armor and shield bonuses of the target). This is Tithian's weapon for the rest of the game. This also allows him to crank his Expertise feat to the max for 5 bonus points of Armor Class.
The GRAND PRIZE for the Battlesquares challenge is the Bracers of Icelandic Pearl (+4 bonus to Armor Class, -2 penalty to dexterity, Lesser Planar Binding: Water Elemental 1/day, Cone of Cold 1/day, Horrid Wilting 1/day). These make good interim bracers for Elanna. They still improve armor class, and allow early access to the Horrid Wilting spell, which is quite helpful. When Elanna learns Horrid Wilting as a Sorcerer spell, she'll trade these in for Bracers of Defense +4.
So anyway, now it's time to see Nathaniel to conclude this chapter and move forward.
