[NobleNick]

zakharak,

I am one level behind you, in Dragon's Eye.

Like Darkman said, trolls are very susceptable to fire and acid, and seem to be at least a little resistant to most everything else. (Magic works great, though, e.g., "magic missle" and "Agannazar's scorcher"). To make matters worse, they regenerate lost hit points. To make matters even WORSE, when their HP get low, they will lie down and "play dead" until they have regenrated enough HP to get back into the fray. You haven't killed a troll until you see him fall down at least twice (or, heh, heh, see body parts flying). Watch for it. Even when I go into overkill and have all 6 of my characters rain fire, acid and magic down on just one of the poor, miserable wretches, he always falls down once and then comes up at least to his knees before finally expiring.

A cheat I allow myself is to use import/export methods (or Dalekeeper) to multiply the quantity of arrows I find; so I have plenty of fire and acid arrows. If I was low on acid/fire/magic, I would take a troll's HP down with conventional weapons, then target him with fire, acid and/or magic, for the coup de grace, just before he goes into possum mode.

Here is a computer performance data point for you: I have a 1.8GHz P4, 512MB RAM, Windows XP, and a 32MB Invidia card. I have the game set to: high search nodes, lots of feedback (autopause), and "normal" (default) frame rate. I have not experienced the "lag" that you speak of. (Most of my battles are autopaused about every 3 frames, anyway, to allow me to change orders; so, of course, the battle scenes do not flow like a movie. I kind of prefer the ability to do detailed battle management over smooth video.)

Ah! Wouldn't it be nice if you could micro-manage your battle; then, after you're done kicking tush, have an option to replay it?!

For backstab: Do you realize that your thief needs to successfully "hide in shadows" first? After he is hidden, the next attack he makes with a bladed weapon will automatically get the backstab bonus. I believe he must remain successfully hidden for the backstab to work (i.e., the thief must not venture into a lighted area, or he becomes visible, and backstab won't work --> so your victim must be where your thief can get to him while remaining in shadows.)

(Sorry, I can't speak more authoritatively on this, since my thief/illusionist spends virtually all her battle time throwing fireballs, casting Agannazar's Scorcher, etc. I use her thieving abilities in between battles.)

If you have HoW installed, you can optionally choose "Sneak Attack" mode; which gives the thief a really neat attack mode, but disables backstab.

I haven't used turn undead much at all, even though I have a Paladin and a Cleric; but I understand that if your character is turning undead, he can't be doing anything else (with the possible exception of walking). If you do (something else), you cancel the "turn undead" command.

Hope you found this helpful.

Edit: Added thief and cleric paragraphs.

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: NobleNick ]