[Aerich]

Castle Maluradek - Interior

Level One - Against spectral guards, use the terrain to your advantage. They have the nasty habit of showing up from all directions and cutting up your weaklings (and not-so-weaklings). They have around 550 HP on HoF, so you need every advantage you can get (I know this because I used the Static Charge + invisibility cheese on the room with four spectral guards on the second floor). Set up the party behind a chokepoint; the corridor entrance is ideal, just watch out for the two guards that spawn inside the corridor when you attack the SGs by the big door. Then send your tank to attack and draw. Use the standard summons and spelltrap. A very high level turn undead skill affects spectral guards, although you are not likely to destroy them outright. I like to draw them, hurt them (with the invaluable Three White Doves), and start turning when I get into trouble. Then block them into a corner with your priest and missile them to death with the party. When going down the far left corridor after the cook, just send your tank with speed boots, so you can whiz back to the party. If you take your party down the corridor you will have to fight on two fronts in a confined space, which can get tricky even if you have summons prepared.

Rakshasas - I tried to dialogue with the tank and speed boots, leaving the party down below to set up the spell trap. It doesn't work - my pally got wiped out because she couldn't get around all the invisible stalkers summoned between "Hobart" and the stairs. My party was up to the task of taking them out even with the loss, but I wouldn't recommend sending a character to die just to hear the unhelpful dialogue - the only thing useful to know is that there is a key on level two. I would force-attack the rakshasa with one character using a missile weapon then hustle back down the staircase and set up a giant spelltrap - it might be worth casting a round or two of spells before the force attack, because invisible stalkers can get on you in a hurry. That is what my five remaining characters did, with good results. As rakshasae and invisible stalkers have magic resistance, it is important to lay multiples of spells, especially disrupting spells, on the area. Use Death Fog, Cloudkill, Insect Swarm, Spike Stones and Spike Growth and the inhibitor-disrupters Web and Entangle. Summons take the pain, as always. I recommend fire elementals because the rakshasa like to cast fire spells. Make sure you cast your spells at the edge of your vision range, which should be a little ways up the staircase - the last thing you want is for the rakshasae to be able to cast spells on your party without getting deep into your layered AoE disruption spells.

Level Two - Water Elemental Kin fall to concentrated missile fire. If you have summons in front to take their attacks, all the better, although they don't hit a well-armoured tank very often. Against beholders, keep the party back while attacking in melee with one spell-resistant character. A fully buffed paladin should be fine, but save often, as a lucky disintegrate could ruin your day (edit: I did say that a fighter/mage with Anti-Magic Shell would be effective, but it's not; Anti-Magic shell doesn't stop any beholder attacks that I can see, so I suppose a beholder's attacks aren't considered "spells" - now THAT should have been implemented). When going down the far-right corridor, remember that a beholder spawns behind you. Go full out against the one in front of you after having summoned some fodder behind you - animals are great, because they are immune to some of spells beholders cast (e.g. anything with "Person" in the spell title). Move your beholder-meleer to take on the second one when the first is down, and it's a cinch. The few spectral guards on this level are widely scattered and pose no problems, with the exception of the four waiting in Maluradek's anteroom - I used the Static Charge and Invisibility exploit here because I was running low on spells, particularly healing spells, and wanted to destroy the guards outright (not send them running) so I could focus entirely on Maluradek. I was also curious about how tough spectral guards actually are on HoF - they have 500+ HP, sometimes closer to 600.

Maluradek - he's just your standard high-resistance caster with a debilitating repertoire. Send your most magic-resistant tank forward with some high HP summons (e.g. stalkers, elementals, or creeping doom), while the party takes him on from afar. Try to keep the party well away, just on the edge of your range of vision, because he likes to cast Symbols. Make sure that you've taken out all the spectral guards along the way, because you do NOT want any to show up while you are occupied with Maluradek. He casts mostly debilitating spells, not damagers, so you should be fine unless his summons or any stray guards get through to your party. Beware of his dispels, too.

As an aside, ever notice how many casters in TotL cast Dispel as compared to the spellcasters in IWD? Be very careful about using a F/M as a primary melee option.

[ 03-12-2006, 07:47 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]