Mysterious Island... Weapons "Ineffective"

[temps]

I've reached the mysterious island with the werewolves from Tales of the Sword Coast, but I noticed in combat that most of the parties' weapons are said to be "ineffective" vs the werewolves in the combat logs. Actually, my Branwen character seems to be the only one actually doing damage (she uses a warhammer and deals "crushing" damage apparently).

I take it swords, bows, etc all won't work here? This is a very unwelcome change of pace... as usually it is my Paladin tank Ajantis or whatever his name is that fulfills the tank role and deals out the melee damage. He of course, is a sword user..

[Centurion]

Yeah, so welcome to Balduran's Island, perhaps the most unfair areas added in the Tales of the Sword Coast.

You need enchanted weapons (magic) to hit werewolves. +2 for the harder ones. Spells and flaming oils work as well, but if you mostly brought regular weapons & arrows, you're hosed. And they don't warn you about this ahead of time. The designers assume if you made it this far you are loaded for bear, um,... werewolf.

And it gets worse : The boss on this island can only be hit by one of 4 weapons in the entire game, and he is guarding one of them. Even then, I routinely find this to be the toughest battle in original BG1 (non-SOD).

My advice is that if you have a relatively recent save from before you went there, go back to it and start over. Don't go to this hell island unless you have all the anti-werewolf gear you can get. There is actually a sword made for Ajantis that would help here, a lot! I am guessing you left it behind.

[temps]

Ah, I think I have a +2 sword for Ajantis but I took it off of him because it also prevents him from being effected by my mass haste spell.

Too bad I don't have the Greater Magic Weapon spell from Neverwinter Nights.

I'm guessing they naturally don't sell any of these magic weapons I need to hit werewolves on this island, do they? Lol. My character has a lot of gold I could blow.

To clarify, a +2 weapon will work to hit the boss, right?

[arsenicBumpnip]

Originally posted by temps:

Ah, I think I have a +2 sword for Ajantis but I took it off of him because it also prevents him from being effected by my mass haste spell.

Too bad I don't have the Greater Magic Weapon spell from Neverwinter Nights.

I'm guessing they naturally don't sell any of these magic weapons I need to hit werewolves on this island, do they? Lol. My character has a lot of gold I could blow.

To clarify, a +2 weapon will work to hit the boss, right?

Correct that you need +2 weapons or better, thankfully there's actually way more than only 4 of them in the game. It's more like 20, excluding bows/crossbows as iirc it's the + of the arrow that counts rather than the + of the bow.
It's possible that one of the more popular enemy rebalance mods like Sword Coast Strategems might make the boss only vulnerable to +3s, in which case there -would- only be ~4 weapons available (unless you count stuff like the Cursed Sword of Berserk, but even then that's still only like 7 weapons), but everywhere I looked people were saying you just need +2.

[Eowyn113]

I don't remember exactly but try :
throwing fireballs with mages
some arrows : fire or ice or piercing ?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/258143-baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition/faqs/78542/tales-of-the-sword-coast
There are four weapons that are capable of damaging the boss so equip them:

Werebane +1
Flame Tongue +1
Kondar +1
Albruin +1

[philos3]

The ship is tight quarters so a fireball or skull trap might blow back on your party. Load your mage up with precision damage spells like Flame arrow, Melf's Acid arrow, and magic missiles.
No collateral damage that way. Also the innkeeper at Ulgoth sells a Wand of the Heavens. If you have a save from before leaving for the island, buy it and give it to Jaheira or your cleric). Halbadazzar in Baldur's gate sells them too. Having 2 of them really does a number on him.

Other useful wands for this fight are wand of cold, wand of magic missiles (again precision damage). Using summons to keep him busy is another viable tactic so a wand of monster summoning can be helpful. I know the magic missile wand only shoots one at a time but you can give it to any party member who doesn't have a helpful spell or weapon. Every bit of damage you can do adds up.

The boss is a greater wolfwere, they do not have a huge hit point total but they regenerate at a ridiculous rate so overwhelming them quickly is the key. [/end]

[Centurion]

Originally posted by arsenicBumpnip:

Originally posted by temps:

Ah, I think I have a +2 sword for Ajantis but I took it off of him because it also prevents him from being effected by my mass haste spell.

Too bad I don't have the Greater Magic Weapon spell from Neverwinter Nights.

I'm guessing they naturally don't sell any of these magic weapons I need to hit werewolves on this island, do they? Lol. My character has a lot of gold I could blow.

To clarify, a +2 weapon will work to hit the boss, right?

Correct that you need +2 weapons or better, thankfully there's actually way more than only 4 of them in the game. It's more like 20, excluding bows/crossbows as iirc it's the + of the arrow that counts rather than the + of the bow.
It's possible that one of the more popular enemy rebalance mods like Sword Coast Strategems might make the boss only vulnerable to +3s, in which case there -would- only be ~4 weapons available (unless you count stuff like the Cursed Sword of Berserk, but even then that's still only like 7 weapons), but everywhere I looked people were saying you just need +2.

The only 4 items refers only to Keroug, not +2 weapons in general.

[arsenicBumpnip]

Originally posted by Centurion:

Originally posted by arsenicBumpnip:

Correct that you need +2 weapons or better, thankfully there's actually way more than only 4 of them in the game. It's more like 20, excluding bows/crossbows as iirc it's the + of the arrow that counts rather than the + of the bow.
It's possible that one of the more popular enemy rebalance mods like Sword Coast Strategems might make the boss only vulnerable to +3s, in which case there -would- only be ~4 weapons available (unless you count stuff like the Cursed Sword of Berserk, but even then that's still only like 7 weapons), but everywhere I looked people were saying you just need +2.

The only 4 items refers only to Keroug, not +2 weapons in general.

ah mb i got mixed up and was thinking of TotSC's final boss in general w/ Aec'Lec

[Centurion]

Originally posted by temps:

Ah, I think I have a +2 sword for Ajantis but I took it off of him because it also prevents him from being effected by my mass haste spell.

Too bad I don't have the Greater Magic Weapon spell from Neverwinter Nights.

I'm guessing they naturally don't sell any of these magic weapons I need to hit werewolves on this island, do they? Lol. My character has a lot of gold I could blow.

To clarify, a +2 weapon will work to hit the boss, right?

Sorry, I missed the last one. No. Ordinary +2 weapons will not work on the boss. There is a +1/+3 sword you get from the hunters in the Cloakwood, a flaming sword from Durlag's Tower. and a silver dagger you get on the island. There is also the Sword of Balduran. Unfortunately, it is behind the boss and very tricky to get to while fighting him.

[temps]

Originally posted by Centurion:

Originally posted by temps:

Ah, I think I have a +2 sword for Ajantis but I took it off of him because it also prevents him from being effected by my mass haste spell.

Too bad I don't have the Greater Magic Weapon spell from Neverwinter Nights.

I'm guessing they naturally don't sell any of these magic weapons I need to hit werewolves on this island, do they? Lol. My character has a lot of gold I could blow.

To clarify, a +2 weapon will work to hit the boss, right?

Sorry, I missed the last one. No. Ordinary +2 weapons will not work on the boss. There is a +1/+3 sword you get from the hunters in the Cloakwood, a flaming sword from Durlag's Tower. and a silver dagger you get on the island. There is also the Sword of Balduran. Unfortunately, it is behind the boss and very tricky to get to while fighting him.

Oh dammit, I'm already partway into the ship now. How much further in is the boss? I've cleared two rooms in the ship.

I wonder if I could just kill him with 100% direct damage spells from my mage. I don't think I have any +3 weapons.

[Centurion]

Originally posted by temps:

Originally posted by Centurion:

Sorry, I missed the last one. No. Ordinary +2 weapons will not work on the boss. There is a +1/+3 sword you get from the hunters in the Cloakwood, a flaming sword from Durlag's Tower. and a silver dagger you get on the island. There is also the Sword of Balduran. Unfortunately, it is behind the boss and very tricky to get to while fighting him.

Oh dammit, I'm already partway into the ship now. How much further in is the boss? I've cleared two rooms in the ship.

I wonder if I could just kill him with 100% direct damage spells from my mage. I don't think I have any +3 weapons.

Not a question of +3 weapons. He is hard-coded to just those 4 weapons. This is why I said, go back to a save before you got that far.

There are any number of cheese techniques you can find to magic him to death. I don't suppose you brought any useful wands? To be honest, they all need a little luck. (He has good saving throws!) You also need to whittle down his guards by killing them and retreating a deck to recover. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Last thought, because you really have walked into it: There IS a way to get out of this. You do all the ship, but leave the top deck alone. Go back to the village, make it hostile to you, kill them all, and then you should be able to escape.

Don't feel too bad. Like I said, this is perhaps the most unfair quest in the game, because you have no warning how specific you need to be to win it. And even then, if you have the right gear, it's a killer. The final battle of the game is kid's stuff compared to Karoug.

[Urumi]

You can steal the sword of Balduran in the room next to him. I turned my thief invisible and unlocked the desk. There's a few traps in that room though.

I managed to kill him with that sword and the werebane (a silver dagger which can also be found inside the ship) and some wands of fire. I gave Khalid the Sword of Balduran and gave my thief the werebane. I only used three party members and kept the rest on the level below and casted fire protection on Khalid, my thief and Xan (I used wands of fire with Xan while the other two attacked with their silver weapons).

Haste and all sorts of buffs obviously help tremendously.

Some people used wands of paralisation or polymorphing but I didn't have that at the time so I just went for a burst strategy.

[temps]

Yeah that was the key to winning... basically do some cheesy stuff to get the sword of balduran BEFORE you attack the werewolf boss; then retreat, heal, rebuff, then regroup and attack him. Wands and spell damage from my wizard also made it possible. That's how I pulled it off.

[Vyadhi]

This is why you want to make sure someone in your party can use bastard swords. Hell, I like to do that for my MC plus there's foebane in BG2.