Does anybody have good strategies for taking advantage of the druidic spell Mold Touch? It's a powerful infectious disease spell that works well on monsters, but also on your characters.

Is there any way to guard your party from disease BEFORE you use it? I know that Mummy's Tea will cure it once you get infected, but it's a pain to interrupt your actions all the time to down cures. Also, Mold Touch is powerful enough to kill off weak or injured characters in one round.

Go solo? And not on HoF unless you're insane, and if so, feel free!

I remember that spell, but I don't think I ever used it. Never was crazy about druidic spells. Especially since one or two I really did like got changed in 3E. :(

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Yah solo, or keep the rest of your party back out of the way. Somehow use invisibility, and other protections on your druid and have him walk up and cast it. Or you could have your party stay back and have undead summons distract the enemy while the druid runs up and cast it. Undead should be immune to disease.</font>

[ 06-21-2004, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

I'm liking the undead summons idea. Do you think it's possible to Mold Touch the summons and have them act as carriers? You could do that with animal summons, but it would be vastly out of character for a druid to purposely infect animals.

The range of infection is only 10 feet iirc, so I'd love to run around with everything chasing me so that it ALL gets the mold. I think invisibility potions are the way to go, at least until I get the Sanctuary ring.

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Maybe not, if it serves the balance!! Are the orcs and goblins overpopulated? how many animals will be sacrificed needlessly if you do not take action? Is sacrificing a single animal the best way to serve the balance. Most Druids do not usually forbid some hunting, over hunting yes, and hunting in animal sanctuaries definitely. Depends on how you wish your druid to view the situation.

If we really wanted to role-play we would be charming yetis and sending them on there way. Except the game does not give us experience for befriending animals.

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[ 06-21-2004, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[img]smile.gif[/img] Yes, I suppose we could come up with a weasel rationalization instead of playing a tree-hugger. Roleplay *is* a very minor aspect of IWD, so it really doesn't matter what we do in the game.

I would question the analogy with hunting. Hunting must serve a purpose, e.g. to control animal populations or to provide humans with sustenance. But no one wants to eat moldy food.

Tell you what; I'll test it out once I get animal summons, and if it works well... the ends justify the means.

Yep...

I've used the ol' method of infecting my boring beetles--hasting them--and running them into a crowd of baddies with a shadowed character. My thief sure enjoyed the show...walking away smiling.

The group of enemies will come to your party nicely wounded {those that gang up on you, anyway}.

[Of course--a 6-pack of hasted boring beetles can just about take out a group of weak to medium enemies all by their lonesome in HoF mode.]

I was hoping I could make one of MY characters do something similar with the cursed Gauntlets of Infernal Damnation. Making them immune to fire [100% with items only] and passing on the Shroud of Flame to all around--damn; it didn't work. The flame only spews a few times and then is done; blah.

Insects - yes, my druid is much less worried about the plight of insects. I'll be using that one...

Too bad the ploy with the Gauntlets didn't work. That would have been SO cool; the Troll/Ice Salamander Nemesis...

One other option is to charm the last creature of a fight, infect it, and use it to initiate the next fight. Too bad you can't use Dire Charm on trolls (can you?) - that would be awesome in Dragon's Eye.

You can cast the Mage spell Domination, but this spell doesn't seem to work all that well.

I've dominated the huge Rhino beetles, but they end up back as the enemy after fighting for me for a short bit. The spell description says 12 hours, but...? Is it maybe as soon as they take damage--snaps them out of their trans state?

If it is the damage thing, then the spell won't work for the Insect Plague trick (bummer). That spell nails anything and everything if the creature fails its save.

I guess Domination is to be used to have a powerful creature go sit on its claws until you're ready to take it on when you've reduced the fight down to just it.

On my first run through the game, I managed to Dominate Joril (with a priest, iirc). I walked him back into the Cloudkill(s) and Spike Stones that I had active, then cast Magic Missile on him. He didn't seem to mind... until he fell down dead. That could be a great combo with Mold Touch, I'll try it soon.