i was in the sewer's lookin for that Haer person. and i came across a band of fighters... i thought no biggy and beat them easily... i found the secret entrance and i went into that strange room. when i went to the room adjacent to it i came across an umber hulk, 3 fighters, and MIND FLAYERS! my characters dropped like flies.... this was nothing like the battle before... i managed to win with half my party gone..... when i went into the next room..... i was confronted by several MORE mind flayers... that was the battle where my entire party got wiped out.... can someone gimee some tips in handling mind flayers?'


by the way im playin NORMAL difficulty ..... normal....... i repeat normal... how?....

What level are you? If you're doin' the Haer'Dalis quest, you may want to lay off there a bit. Have you rescued Imoen? If you have, after you return is the time to go get those guys. There's no reason to go there before then: you're gonna get eaten up. Optimally, though, if you're really looking to take them out, use chaotic commands, and then try to get them with area effect spells, after some lower resistances. I'd say hold off though.

Mind Flayers are fun eh?

Mind flayers can be defeated my blocking against their main attack: intelligence drain. To counteract this use potions of insight or any other such potion that will raise intelligence on the character you suspect will recieve the most hits.

Umber Hulks are annoying but easily defeated. They will fall swiftly to a strong fighter who can make the saves against a confusion attack.

Other choices will include swords that bestow mind shield like Lilacor or the Equalizier

Cast Protection from Magical Weapons if you have it

mind flayers also have high MR. funny, it does not work vs. wand of cloudkill. i always finish them like this : some invisibilty potions/staff of magi on your mage and wand of cloudkill. open the door of the room where they are in and invisible yourself. send a charge of cloudkill to the center of the room and quickly close the door. read them suffer for 10 rounds, maybe go make yourself some coffee [img]smile.gif[/img] . repeat this once for every room and even ulitharids should be dead.

Mind Flaya's have big problems with Mordenkain's Swords if you can summon a couple of those to help you. Good luck.

To deal the annoying Mind Flayers I usually set some traps like using Yoshimo's Special Snare and summon some crap for them to kill, undeads like zombies or skeletons are quite good. Then wack them with range weapons and if you have a fighter sneak up among the summons and hit them with a good melee weapons (+2 or above if possible i.e Flail of Ages+3 and slows them down at the same time).

Definitely avoid them coming to you in a swamp. Lure them out one by one is the best option.

[ 07-10-2003, 07:13 AM: Message edited by: Heartseeker ]

*sigh* Most of these suggestions won't help you current situation, Jinny. (C'mon folks, 7th level spells? Artifact weapons? Those require beating Chapter 5, and I'm guessing this problem is in Chapter 3.)

The mind flayers fire off an undispellable stun, and if a character gets stunned, the flayers will crowd around the stunned person and suck their brains out. If their INT score hits 0, they die. Beating the mind flayers requires protection from the stun and the intelligence drain.

If you have a cleric that can cast Chaotic Commands (5th level spell), do so. Or hit up Roger the Fence for all 3 of his potions of clarity. They do the same thing, but their duration is a lot shorter. Those will protect against the stun. Also pick up Roger's potions of Genius to counter the mind flayer intelligence drain.

Take all the characters with Chaotic Commands/Clarity potions and keep them near the doors. When you open the doors, the umber hulks should come charging at those characters. Take the rest of your party, equip them with missile weapons, take aim at the mind flayers behind the umber hulks, and fire. This might take a while, but it's a bit easier for a young party.

Bloodtitan's suggestion won't work if you've installed the Baldurdash patch. (I suggest you download and install the official patch from Interplay.com and the Baldurdash fixpack from Baldurdash.org)

You can also wait until Chapter 6 to solve this quest.

That would be a potion of genius, not insight. And still: if the 2 flayers are able to hit you, you will at most last another two rounds.

Here are some more anti-flayer strats: Ugrade Item mod provides a weapon specifically designed for slaying them.

Pre-ToB, you can get greenstone amulets in chapter 2 (thats why mordenkainen is so effective ... ).

...but you can't get the item from the upgrade mod unless you've finished Chapter 5...

I'm gonna raise a stink, I'm gonna hide it from sight, I'm gonna fill it with SPOILERS, so if you wanna get SPOILED, or if you wanna hear Pirengle ranting like Dennis Miller, highlight:

***<font color=#3D2F1B>I didn't find my first Mordy Swordy scroll until the duergar merchants in the Underdark. The only class that COULD get Mordy Swordy before then would be the sorcerer. But since I don't know if there's a PC sorc/Kelsey/Tashia involved, that's useless. The two pieces of item upgrade gear that offer psionics protection, the helm and the Imp. Lilarcor, require illithid brine and a control circlet, respectively, and the only places to find those in the game are in the illithid lair in Chapter 5. The greenstone amulet is from the corpse of the Unseeing Eye, unless you haven't installed Baldurdash, and then you can pick one up from a dead Mordy Swordy, but I didn't find my first scroll yada yada yada ad nauseum.

Judging by jinny's post, I'm guessing that she's still in Chapter 3, recently finished Windspear Hills (because she has the sewer key), and has a 10-14 level party good enough to bash up the evil sewer party. Now granted, knowing party makeup and gear would have made our lives a bit easier. Not that we're getting paid to hand out advice or rant off or anything. Giving someone advice involving parts of the game that haven't been reached yet, in my mind, seem pointless, with huge spoiler potential to boot.

I'll say it again, and this time I'll make it crystal clear: I DON'T RUN THINGS AROUND HERE. I can rant, I can rave, I can post almost any kind of crap that comes out of my poor tired fingers and my demented brain, but I DON'T RUN THINGS AROUND HERE. I'm not trying to enforce rules or make new ones. I DON'T RUN THINGS AROUND HERE. I worship (or at least jokingly say that I worship) the well-spoken wordsmiths around here, and give the best advice and opinions I can give, but...you guessed it...

I don't run things around here.

I wish people would get a Beholder lick of sense now and then. But in these situations, all I can do is gnash my teeth, play a hand of Cribbage, and hope that someday, sometime, somewhere, someone will get a clue.

But that's just my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong. ;) </font>***

[ 07-10-2003, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Pirengle ]