Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post - SoA and ToB difficulty, strategy, items (major spoilers probably ;))

philip · 12-31-2004, 10:51 AM

I'm in the final battle of ToB now. The first fight with Melissan was hard, but my difficulty setting has been on lowest through all ToB and in the final battle for SoA. I played the rest of SoA on core rules. These were 2 different games, I started ToB immediately cause I didn't feel like replaying all SoA.

I started on core rules as well but in the Marching Mountains I didn't like that anymore. I had to reload nearly every battle there if I didn't want a dead character in my party. So last week I started over with easiest setting. Most of the game was easy but at times the bosses gave me some trouble so I was rethinking my strategy, items, basically everything that could make it easier.

One thing I noticed was that if I reloaded a battle and took out the most damaging enemies at once the fights got easier.

But in some battles there's barely a difference, some of the boss encounters for example. Take Draconis, I won it at my third try (in the others one of the party members got killed) after a fight of like 15-30 minutes. The difference was a protection from fear thing (2nd or 3rd level priest spell). So knowing what comes so you can prepare or having the right spells available anyway is needed. From my battle with Sendai I learned you have to be careful with your spells. I won it on the first try but the end was annoying cause I didn't have any true seeing spells anymore (used 7 of them during the battle) and Sendai was invisible with spell and weapon protection on.

To keep party members alive longer equipment is a large factor I think. Now I have 6 members with the AC ranging from 9 (Edwin) to -6 (Sarevok) but I think this is pretty low. IIRC I had lower ACs at the end of SoA. So playing SoA before would be great for the equipment I have, right?

Not getting hit is not getting hurt. I use my low AC fighters and summons to keep the hard-hitting monsters away from my mages. Mostly I use spells that dispel protections and the occasional damage spell. Hit and run tactic gets a mess easily with 6 party members in a small area.

It can't be that hard LOL, some of you are soloing this so there must be something I'm not thinking of when I have trouble with some things.

One last thing about the fight with Melissan is that I read she's extremely hard to hit and that it gets harder every time she fights you. Is that because of a low AC or is that accomplished through spells. I didn't see any spell effects so I assumed she didn't use any but is that true. With +5 and +6 weapons I barely got any hits in at times but at other moments it just looked like she had AC 10 and everything hit her.

12-31-2004, 10:51 AM	#1
philip Galvatron Join Date: June 24, 2002 Location: aa Posts: 2,101	I'm in the final battle of ToB now. The first fight with Melissan was hard, but my difficulty setting has been on lowest through all ToB and in the final battle for SoA. I played the rest of SoA on core rules. These were 2 different games, I started ToB immediately cause I didn't feel like replaying all SoA. I started on core rules as well but in the Marching Mountains I didn't like that anymore. I had to reload nearly every battle there if I didn't want a dead character in my party. So last week I started over with easiest setting. Most of the game was easy but at times the bosses gave me some trouble so I was rethinking my strategy, items, basically everything that could make it easier. One thing I noticed was that if I reloaded a battle and took out the most damaging enemies at once the fights got easier. But in some battles there's barely a difference, some of the boss encounters for example. Take Draconis, I won it at my third try (in the others one of the party members got killed) after a fight of like 15-30 minutes. The difference was a protection from fear thing (2nd or 3rd level priest spell). So knowing what comes so you can prepare or having the right spells available anyway is needed. From my battle with Sendai I learned you have to be careful with your spells. I won it on the first try but the end was annoying cause I didn't have any true seeing spells anymore (used 7 of them during the battle) and Sendai was invisible with spell and weapon protection on. To keep party members alive longer equipment is a large factor I think. Now I have 6 members with the AC ranging from 9 (Edwin) to -6 (Sarevok) but I think this is pretty low. IIRC I had lower ACs at the end of SoA. So playing SoA before would be great for the equipment I have, right? Not getting hit is not getting hurt. I use my low AC fighters and summons to keep the hard-hitting monsters away from my mages. Mostly I use spells that dispel protections and the occasional damage spell. Hit and run tactic gets a mess easily with 6 party members in a small area. It can't be that hard LOL, some of you are soloing this so there must be something I'm not thinking of when I have trouble with some things. One last thing about the fight with Melissan is that I read she's extremely hard to hit and that it gets harder every time she fights you. Is that because of a low AC or is that accomplished through spells. I didn't see any spell effects so I assumed she didn't use any but is that true. With +5 and +6 weapons I barely got any hits in at times but at other moments it just looked like she had AC 10 and everything hit her.