Skeletal mage boss fight

[Useless]

I've had misgivings about this games stupid difficulty before, but seriously, how are you supposed to win the skeletal mage fight without cheating (either by setting story mode on, farming exp, cheat codes, or other methods of 'not simply starting a game and proceeding directly through the story as normal')?

Dude casts stinking cloud, lightning bolt, melf's acid arrow, and a few other nasty spells. He as 20 friendly enemies around him including multiple archers with arrows of fire.

On 'core' even after I cheesed his stinking cloud (run up, run away, wait) his LB and acid arrow still did 16 and 20 damage to my front line fighters, and his archers did 10+ to them (and they are rocking shields and like a 1 AC, with 40-50 HP, and a bard song..).

After giving it a couple goes, I just went 'I don't have ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time for this, it's stupid' and turned on story mode.

I sincerely don't see how it's possible without cheating in some fashion or another (and yes, I include stupid things like abusing the line of sight mechanics to only draw in 1-2 enemies at a time cheating)

[cpc8472]

The fight is beatable without cheating. It's been 14 years since I faced him so I don't recall exactly how I finally won the battle, just that it took me several attempts. That is the beauty of games like this. They require much more strategy and changing up your tactics to win different fights unlike many of today's button mashfest RPGs.

In fights like this I'd try and disrupt his spell casting by hitting him with a Magic Missile spell or two as it's a quickly cast spell. I'd also have at least one ranged attacker shooting at him and follow up with Deafness or Silence 15' Radius or Miscast Magic. Also, in advance of the fight try casting spells that boost your party's saves and to hit rolls like Bless, Chant and so forth.

Part of it is also luck as the enemies might get lucky and make more saves than usual and / or your party might fail them more than usual.

Thanks for reminding me that I'll have this fight coming up soon as I just started exploring the Vale of Shadows. Don't give up or Evil will win the day!

[Useless]

Your post is completely pointless since they've jacked around the difficulty, but thanks for playing.

Bonus points for going all 'back in mah day games were hard and required thought and these modern ones are easy'.

[LordFess (Ancient Age Gaming)]

The way i did i just kept my party back at the entrance of the room and sent my thief up close enough to draw some agro and run back to the party..... A few of the party went down when he cast stinking cloud but I still had enough characters that were'nt effected by the spell to fend off the agro. Then once the cloud dispersed I had my priest cast her silence spell and I sent my crew in focused on the skeletal mage first and mopped the rest..... This tactic made it easy as pie.

[Alistor]

Uh yeah this fight wasn't terribly difficult. I cast every buff I had on my party and my main fighter and had him run in just enough to catch the mage's cloud and then ran back so my chars weren't fighting in the midst of it and that made it pretty easy. The mage only casts like 4 or 5 spells total.

This guy is going to ♥♥♥♥ bricks when he has to fight that Tana'ari ♥♥♥♥♥ later on.

[Luthius_Mac]

Originally posted by Risky Booty:

is this cpc8472 guy serious? I solo'd entire game with a sorc and you can't pull off this easy area with multiple characters?

1/10 nice try

Are you serious? I soloed entire game blindfolded as a naked gnome thief in Heart of Fury mode. Get lost.

[robomagon]

Originally posted by Luthius_Mac:

Originally posted by Risky Booty:

is this cpc8472 guy serious? I solo'd entire game with a sorc and you can't pull off this easy area with multiple characters?

1/10 nice try

Are you serious? I soloed entire game blindfolded as a naked gnome thief. Get lost.

The game is easier solo. Especially with a caster. This is a pretty widely accepted 'fact'.

[Useless]

Originally posted by cpc8472:

Originally posted by kroonermanblack:

Your post is completely pointless since they've jacked around the difficulty, but thanks for playing.

Bonus points for going all 'back in mah day games were hard and required thought and these modern ones are easy'.

Well then F**k You! Sorry I tried to help. I hope you just give up, thus wasting your money, and go back to playing Candy Crush, little ♥♥♥♥♥♥!

I was going to apologize for being in a foul mood last night, but anyone who uses sexuality as an insult is a pretty worthless person. 'Oh noes, he likes gender combinations which threaten me!!'.

I'll still apologize for being insulting, but man. You're a 21st century racist. Enjoy that.

Originally posted by Ragman:

The way i did i just kept my party back at the entrance of the room and sent my thief up close enough to draw some agro and run back to the party..... A few of the party went down when he cast stinking cloud but I still had enough characters that were'nt effected by the spell to fend off the agro. Then once the cloud dispersed I had my priest cast her silence spell and I sent my crew in focused on the skeletal mage first and mopped the rest..... This tactic made it easy as pie.

Maybe read the post then. You cheesed it by abusing the aggro system. Might as well have turned on story mode or used the control+Y kill.

Originally posted by Risky Booty:

is this cpc8472 guy serious? I solo'd entire game with a sorc and you can't pull off this easy area with multiple characters?

1/10 nice try

Since it was MY post, I'm willing to bet you also cheesed it. Did anyone bother to read the damn first post where I specifically said 'no abusing the draw distance mechanics'? Also, soloing it would have given you enough exp to be, what, 8th level by that point? I'm sure it was super hard to pull off a dungeon when you have 4th level spells.

[Bijat]

Originally posted by kroonermanblack:

Originally posted by cpc8472:

Well then F**k You! Sorry I tried to help. I hope you just give up, thus wasting your money, and go back to playing Candy Crush, little ♥♥♥♥♥♥!

I was going to apologize for being in a foul mood last night, but anyone who uses sexuality as an insult is a pretty worthless person. 'Oh noes, he likes gender combinations which threaten me!!'.

I'll still apologize for being insulting, but man. You're a 21st century racist. Enjoy that.

Originally posted by Ragman:

The way i did i just kept my party back at the entrance of the room and sent my thief up close enough to draw some agro and run back to the party..... A few of the party went down when he cast stinking cloud but I still had enough characters that were'nt effected by the spell to fend off the agro. Then once the cloud dispersed I had my priest cast her silence spell and I sent my crew in focused on the skeletal mage first and mopped the rest..... This tactic made it easy as pie.

Maybe read the post then. You cheesed it by abusing the aggro system. Might as well have turned on story mode or used the control+Y kill.

Originally posted by Risky Booty:

is this cpc8472 guy serious? I solo'd entire game with a sorc and you can't pull off this easy area with multiple characters?

1/10 nice try

Since it was MY post, I'm willing to bet you also cheesed it. Did anyone bother to read the damn first post where I specifically said 'no abusing the draw distance mechanics'? Also, soloing it would have given you enough exp to be, what, 8th level by that point? I'm sure it was super hard to pull off a dungeon when you have 4th level spells.

u can do it with a mage with 2 invis spell first turn on invis attack him then invis instantly and run away (hopefully u survive) then when the stinkin cloud is on the ground its simply waiting it out and then attack...doing the fight without the cloud makes it alot easyer...and to be honest alot of thease games is pritty undoable on insane without cheese..they kinda build the game around it

[robomagon]

Originally posted by kroonermanblack:

Originally posted by cpc8472:

Well then F**k You! Sorry I tried to help. I hope you just give up, thus wasting your money, and go back to playing Candy Crush, little ♥♥♥♥♥♥!

I was going to apologize for being in a foul mood last night, but anyone who uses sexuality as an insult is a pretty worthless person. 'Oh noes, he likes gender combinations which threaten me!!'.

I'll still apologize for being insulting, but man. You're a 21st century racist. Enjoy that.

There's nothing related to race in that post.

While I generally don't approve of personal attacks, the guy tried to be helpful and you insulted him for it. So I'm granting him a little leeway with his response. As for sexual preference: I'm not seeing it. He appears to be using the word as a general purpose insult. Like most people who use it do. Which makes sense, considering you haven't posted anything that could be used to identify your sexual preference one way or the other.

[Emily]

Here's what I do when I get to a difficult fight that's frustrating me:

1. Take a deep breath. Remember that in the end, the fight isn't real. There isn't an actual skeletal mage in your house.

2. Look in your inventory for tools or items you haven't tried using yet. If you have potions that give your characters temporary bonuses, don't be afraid to use them. Fights like this one are what those potions and scrolls are for.

3. Make judicious use of Pause, not just to direct your own characters but to watch the behavior of the enemies you're fighting.

4. Look around the room for anything that might be useful: walls to hide behind, dark spots for your thief to hide in shadows, containers that might have items you'd want to use, etc.

5. Look at your party and see if there's a different layout of spells and equipment that might work better. If your party's using melee weapons, switch them to ranged. If you have a cleric, try using Turn Undead to subdue some of those archers. If you have a mage, see if you have any area-effect spells that might be useful.

6. Don't be afraid to backtrack through the dungeon and look for things you might have missed the first time.

7. Take a deep breath.

Icewind Dale is punishingly difficult at times, and encounters like this one are a big reason why. If you still find yourself wanting to throw your mouse and keyboard out the window, maybe some additional information would be helpful to have: what classes/kits are in your party, what spells does your mage/cleric have prepared, what potions and wands do you have in your inventory, etc.

[LordFess (Ancient Age Gaming)]

Maybe read the post then. You cheesed it by abusing the aggro system. Might as well have turned on story mode or used the control+Y kill. / end quote


Well,what you call "cheesing " I call being tactically smart. I always send my rogue out to investigate an area (especially one as expansive as that one) before sending my party in to clear it out. Scouting is one of the main things rogues are used for in these games so get used to it and don't be such a jerk when posting asking for help.

[Will]

I suppose that when a game doesn't have a multiplayer component, it forces the community to be hateful to each-other on the forums...

[LordFess (Ancient Age Gaming)]

IWD has multiplayer capability.

[Will]

Originally posted by Ragman:

IWD has multiplayer capability.

WHAAT?!
Where was I when this multiplayer Baldur's Gate/SoA came out those many years ago!!

[LordFess (Ancient Age Gaming)]

??? LoL