Last time i played I decided to omit the Battle Square game. this time i plan to do it. i've reached rank 4 so far. i had some questions regarding this.

1....Does it make a difference who fights within?

2....Is the Battle Square critical to the game?

3....I notice that differnt ranks give different gems and gold. does it give anything else?

4....Are there any quests that need to be done to be able to complete the Battle Square more satisfactorily? I'm not able to free the creatures stuck in the first level Northeast corner. i've opener the door but I think I need to open the room directly beneath them (if i remember from last time). How do I do that?

5....Do the people in the trapped room in the southeast part of the second level have anything to do with the Battle squares? Can they be freed in any way (say by finishing the battle squares)?

Please help me by giving clues alone and don't give away answers.

Completing battle squares has NO effect whatsoever on any other quests.
It does give somevery very good items as reward.

People in the trapped room? You're referring to the Iron Collar Mercenary gang, right? Nope, you can only kill them for items and XP. Not bad loot.
Oh, and I'm not sure you know this, but the battle squares require 250+ battles to complete. Just so you know.
To free the prison you have to kill/banish A***-K******t. Good luck with that!

Righto with BoB, except thats not the iron collar, thats the... I-something, but not Iron Collar. Iron Collar was our friends from Targos, remember? ;)

Aw heck! Yes... this is the talisman... Somehow I always manage to mix those two...

I had read somewhere on the web that its possible to place your party in a certain spot, and they wont get teleported away when you do battle squares thus enabling your whole party to tackle it. Does anyone know about this? I have not been able to find this again.

Defeating the entire battle squares the hard way is very difficult, but also very satisfying when done.

Alan

I believe the patch fixed this.

whoa! yes it sure is tough. i just finished a rank just now took me an hour and lots of quicksaves. i don't know which rank since the golem says rank 4 completed but it was the fifth lever. so must be rank 4 assuming that there is upto rank 9 even if there are 10 levers.

but whats the idea of more than 3 squares? last rank had me secure about 6 squares. my party is as follows:

1> (m) dwarf fighter-barbarian
2> (f) human-aasimar paladin
3> (f) human-aasimar cleric
4> (m) human-aasimar monk
5> (m) human-tiefling rogue-wizard
6> (m) drow wizard

so far all but the last rank was obtained by my monk. but the last one (phew!) i had to use my paladin.

how in blue blazes do you bring down the elementals?! i used to reload till an umberhulk or a zombie lord used to come. SHEEEESH! i'm going to be stuck on this for ever this way.

whom do you think i should send in? my paladin uses the winged blight. and my fighter-barbarian is a dual wielding axe fighter. my cleric also was a disaster. her summoned monsters were stomped out in a couple of instants! plus the elementals are immune to slashing, bludgeoning and piercing damage. at least in the beginning so by the time i start to damage it my character is on the verge of dying. the last rank drained me of about 20 healing potions. i hadn't used any since the begining. but my stock is now severely depleted.

AAAARRGHH!!!!!

Serak, a few points. I'll try to stay away from any spoilers. ;)


1. Do you realize that it takes 5 victories to complete each "rank"? You have to play that little game of tic-tac-toe 5 times for each rank and there are 10 ranks. To complete a rank, you have to fill in the board with 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 X's. That's a total of 25 solo battles for each rank, 250 solo battles in total.

Not to scare you away. ;) It just takes a lot of patience and work to finish off the entire Battle Squares.

2. Another FYI ... you only are *required* to complete 1 rank to complete the ice Temple. Finishing all 10 ranks is optional.

3. Yes, elementals are very tough.

4. Here's the strategy I use for battlesquares.

Select your very best warrior. Give this warrior the very best stuff you have. it's a good idea to have him armed with your best slashing, piercing, and blunt weapons you have, so that you have some options against whatever foes you face.

Without knowing the stats of your characters, I'd choose the paladin, for the improved saves and a little extra self healing.

Buff up this character to the MAX. Spare no spells. Stoneskin is a must. Haste is useful as well.

Don't bother with summons. They'll just get teleported in with the rest of your party.

Start the battle. Monster knowledge is useful. Select the best weapon for dealing with the monster you face. Blunt weapons for skeletons, etc.

One mini-spoiler. IIRC, the prize for completing rank 4 or 5 is a club that is **VERY** useful for dealing with those elementals and other monsters to come.

And BTW, you do not have to complete the ranks in order.

On the issue of summons, you can't summon before the square starts, but you CAN summon after the rest of your party are off screwing around ;) . I beat the squares with a fighter4/cleric, and having 6 greater drowned ones really helped (great strength on them, and even better resistences)

If you have a good warrior/cleric, I'd recomend them over a paladin for summons and the Heal spell, and since they can re-buff themselves. It is your choice what you want to do.

With the patch installed, anyn monsters you summon will join the rest of the party outside after a round or two.

thanks guys!

i am on the 9th lever when it dawned on me that i need to fight 25 battles for each rank. does the comp remember that i have done the previous levels if i return to do the previous ranks? i hope so or else i may have to take a break from the dale to get the frustration out.

when BoB mentioned 250+ battles i thought that i was an approximation.

Spoiler!
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I don't seem to be needing that patch to keep my party in the chamber. I just position them in the far corner - out of sight grom the golem - and use them to bombard the monster with ranged weapons. Only thing, if you keep the monster on the central square (and within the golem's field of view) the other party members do not get transported away. If you allow the monster to mave away and the golem sees your friends, they get teleported away to that waiting room. Also if the golem leaves the doorway (obviously since you tried to fight away from the field of view of the golem) there is a chance that the monster may flee and then you may not be able to kill it within the stipulated 60 seconds.
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end spoiler!

this is my strategy but then i'm still to devise a method to deal with galugons, elementals, glabrezus and the like. I prefer shadows, werewolves feyrs etc. so as of now i quick save and reload till the monster of my choice appears. Also between monsters, I sometimes wait for the periapt of healing to heal my fighter's 140-odd HP. Life is crawling along...

Yes!! The computer will remember whatever you completed!

You misunderstood me. The patch fixes this problem, in the sense if you have the patch the party should be always teleported away (AFAIK). Your party members are not supposed to stay in the chamber.

One of the rewards for one of the levers (5 IIRC) is something that will help you very very much against those. ;) The fights will become much easier after that.

btw, if you go outside there is that gnome who was eaten by the Remorhaz... he can cast some cool protections on you (for a price, but money shouldnt be a problem; selling the ammo you get from the battle squares gives you tons of gp), including improved invisibility, and both fireshields (improved invis is very helpful here)... It would be good if only the fastest guy goes to him (monk or barbarian if you have one) while rest wait at the door because duration of those is limited

[ 02-18-2005, 03:30 AM: Message edited by: ZFR ]

Your dwarf barbarian should hav plenty of hit points to last for until the end of each rank and be fast enough to take out the monsters quickly. Use barbarian rage.

AAAHH! If only it were that simple. By the time my dwarf fighter has eliminated a feyr (anything more, even a werewolf, is too much for him) he has about 10-20 HP left. After finishing IWD on Insane, I fancied myself quite a good fighter but even with the rest of the party shooting arrows at the monster, the situation is nearly the same. I have a few interviews coming up in the next few days so will take some time off from the dale. Hope when I return, things will be brighter...

Try having a wepaon that has greater reach, ie two-handed sword and stand outside the northern door way. The bigger cretaures can't get out, but the sword can hit in. Halberds also works, as do rnaged weapons, but these lend to take longer to kill the monsters.

That's a good idea, Aragorn. It also helps to have a variety of weapon types, since different monsters are vulnerable to different types of damage. For example, if a bone golem appears, you should switch to a blunt weapon.

well hi again!

thanks for all the posts.

I have my paladin who wields a two-handed sword so i guess she should be my next choice.

but another thing...
to complete one rank we need to finish 3,4,5,6,7 squares. i.e. we need to do the same lever 5 times securing one of each of the above each time. right? at least i think that is the objective. but when i played the first lever i got 3 squares once, then 4, then 3 again, and 3 again. so how do i finish the rank. After that i tried the second lever and a similar thing happened. what do i do?

Ranks finish when you get 3 squares in a row. To avoid it, do the squares in a different pattern.

Also, you will want to eventually switch your paladin over to long swords.

I can't claim the credit myself, I read it somewhere else, can't remember where.

@Marty: I'll try out your strategy today. But otherwise, I'll try freeing those winged creatures and learn to use the painting.... and perhaps the prism too. BTW are you a Star Wars fan???

Are you looking at my location? That depends on my mood. See, now I'm a BG2 fan ;)

Well I tried your tactic today. but after finishing the first lever set about 15 times, the golem says level 4 of rank one complete ( i had 6 squares then).
after about another 7-8 times, it said level 2 of ramk 1 complete (i had 4 squares then). it the times between i had finished with 3, 4, 5, 6 squares at various occasions but no announcement of any level completion. whwnever i try for 7 squares, i'm stopped at 3,4,5. Why? Why? WHY? [img]graemlins/1pissed.gif[/img]

[img]graemlins/help.gif[/img]

@marty: yup was referring to your location. had noticed it several times before but always forgot to add it in my post.

[ 03-01-2005, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: Serak Moonblade ]

To complete a level, you need to have three Xs in a row (just like Tic-Tac-Toe). To master a rank, you need to complete levels 3-7. The level corresponds to the number of Xs on the grid upon getting three Xs in a row.

For Example:
Level 3 could look like this:
O|X|O
O|X|O
O|X|O

Level 4 could look like this:
O|X|O
X|X|O
O|<FONT color=red>X</FONT>|O

You see the difference? Level three you have beat only three squares where as level four you beat 4 squares. The trick is to leave the square that will give you three in a row as the last battle (i.e. <FONT color=red> red X</FONT>)

So to continue...
Level 5:
X|O|X
O|<FONT color=red>X</FONT>|O
X|O|X

Level 6:
X|X|O
X|<FONT color=red>X</FONT>|O
O|X|X

Level 7:
X|X|O
X|<FONT color=red>X</FONT>|X
O|X|X

@vassago

OHHH!

I SEE...!!!

this seems logical. wonder why it didn't cross my mind...the squares being so arranged...

Thanks a lot!!

Argh. My hat's off to anyone who completed the Battle Square. You have a lot of patience, determination, and you had to have been at least a little bored one evening :D

It's tedious like those battles every few steps on gold box games, and it's HARD!

The load button and I became good friends, and I gave up (for now) at the 5th rank. The Frost Giant, the Water Elemental (could take him but too many potions/waiting with Periapt and ring of regeneration), Shambling Mound (same) are instant reloads. The Feyr and the Barrow Wight I can never seem to defeat in the time allotted. They Feyr even goes up to my other 5 members, which I gotta say are pretty damn useless lol all together they're 3:1 in eliminating it in 1 minute.

I'm playing with an old pen and paper party, and only three members actually filled up the allotment of attribute points. One of them only spent 5 lol. It's hard but fun, but I'm probably going to stop this while I'm ahead and move on. Even with my meager party I've only hit a few truly tough spots. We press on.

Its the most stupid bit of the game.Its pointless and tedious. I did it once and not its skip battle square for me thanks to ease of use, one of the only times i have used its components in iwd2 or bg2

No it's not. I find it a nice "training room" of sorts, to make you see what you can and can not kill. And it nets you best shortsword in the game... and a few other great items :D

I can find that out by meeting monster in the game, not by having them spawn. ANd i would rather face a powerful monster to get the items in a better context, like the dragons etc in bg2.

Battle Squares is too tedious for me now. Like Aragorn, I just use the "Skip Battle Squares" option in IWD2's Easue of Use mod to get all the treasure without spending hours of tedious solo combat.

Can you skip the forest too?

Don't think so. But my barb has high enough wilderness lore to get through so i probably didn't install that aspect, as as I said i don't tend to use ease-of-use components

I'm not aware of there being any "skip the forest" module anywhere. But I never really have any problem with it since I almost always have a character in my party that's skilled in Wilderness Lore.

battle squares seem to be too drawn out in this game. i stopped after the fifth rank. i started running out of ammo. anyways something wrong with my comp and had to reformat it. but still the problem persists. so net effectall of IWD + HoW + IWD2 till drider caves gone...........BOO HOO HOO!!!

5 months of WORK donw the drain....

I have wilderness lore too, but after a bunch of games, all the questing in there is just boring.

I'd rather be progressing with the game rather than be running back and forth between the town and forest on errands.

It is another point where you wish you could just move on.

Well, I think the forest is a nice addition, it's different, ya know? Plus, it's really not as annoying, since you can do all the wandering village quests in 30 minutes without missing out on anything.
And lately, I just try to win the 7-square victory on Battlesquares level 10, to prove I can do it, and then skip it.

I hate "skipping" it, per se. I want the swag. That's why I like using the Ease of Use option for skipping BS while getting all of the XP and treasure.

I've never really liked the design of the battle squares "game". I liked the general concept of challenges in Durlag's dungeon in BG1's ToSC. That is, multiple distinct rooms where the entire party could be involved.

Battle Squares just has too many solo battles and becomes too tedious, far too fast. By comparison, I think that the monk challenges is much more amusing because each room is a different challenge, but none are so terribly difficult that they cannot be beaten.

Ever since understanding that the true key to the Fell Wood is having a character with good Wilderness Lore, I've never had any problem with it. Any ranger, barbarian, or druid can take WL as a class skill.

Heck, even a cleric can be pretty good at WL, since it's a WIS based skill. If you don't have a woodsey class, just have your cleric take one point of WL and his WIS bonus will kick in, and ... bingo ... instant, decent WL.


And I agree with Bozos of Bones, the Fell Wood doesn't take all that long, so long as you have a decent Wilderness Lore character.

Its all the going back and forwards that i find frustating, not finding my way in the wood itself