Hello everyone,

I'm sure there've been loads of strategies on how to succeed in this quest, and I'm just offering 1 way here where you can get the Staff of Magi as early as Chapter 3 in the game (why Chapter 3? it will be explained later). No traps, summoned creatures, cloudkills or fireballs. Not much buffing up of spells before the fight either, as I suspected all these would simply be dispelled by my enemies.

My main objective in the quest was to get the staff, and not so much as to kill every hostile creature with my own hands. My party averaged at level 12, and consisted of: Minsc, Keldorn, Jaheira, Anomen, Jan and PC (kensai-mage). So, here goes...

Jan opened the door and climbed to the top of the stairs, out of harm's way. Minsc, Keldorn and Anomen stood in front of the door to cover Jan. Jaheira, wearing Vhailor's Helm and Ring of Ram, stood on the left of the entrance to the alcove. Jaheira summoned a simulacrum and my PC wearing boots of speed ventured into the alcove.

After the lich's speech, my PC dashed back to see the lich reappear. Jaheira + simulacrum used their rings of ram to hit it, while Jan cast breach. The lich cast mislead and Keldorn countered with True Sight. In the meantime, the beholder had spotted Jaheira but all its spells bounced off her and her simulacrum. The fighter had also approached, but Jaheira + simulacrum could fend off his attacks for quite a while.

The lich was back to its single injured state and Anomen cast his single Holy Smite (only 1 left from previous combats and adventures) which hurt lich, fighter + beholder. Keldorn, Minsc and my PC whacked the lich till it died.

As soon as the beholder had died, my PC went up to attack the fighter till he collapsed as well. Jaheira backed into the room with the others. Now comes the explanation for why Chapter 3 : the amulet of power obtained in Chapter 3 grants immunity to level drain and this allowed my PC to withstand the vampire, who had spotted and started attacking her. With the Kai ability, the vampire was hacked to pieces within 5 seconds of real time.

Finally, Keldorn took over the boots of speed and went deeper into the room to see the mage casting time stop, meteor swarm, protection from evil and gate. He dispelled her protection once he could, and retreated (yes, not too noble but hey, it was raining lava! even a valiant paladin would not want to die prematurely in such a pathetic fashion). The fiend was so furious with the mage for injuring itself with meteor swarm that it attacked her. Without protection from evil, she died really fast.

After the meteor swarm had stopped, Keldorn returned to slay the fiend, but somehow no exp was awarded for his effort. Anyway, the battle was over and the staff of magi was all mine. The best part was, no healing potions had to be used.

Anyway, this is just 1 method for consideration http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

Oops, just to add...Jaheira had Shield of Balduran.

Otherwise, she would be fried and petrified left, right and centre.