Confused and mystified about Shandalar (spoilers!)

[Sir Heinrich Godfrie IV]

Prepare to be spoiled!
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After unknowingly being warped to this Ice Island/mage concentration camp and finishing it with ease, I found myself confronted with a decision to make.

Do I give this "good aligned" wizard back his cloak and teleportation stone?
Or do I punish him for his partial dishonesty to me and his apparent mistreatment of all those poor imprisoned mages?

Well of course I did a little quick save before talking with him and ended up reverting back to it after I my only payment was a few measley exp pts.

My next thought was, "this Shandalar dude is toast!"

But after about ten or so attempts at killing him, I thought that this guy may actually be "unbeatable".

I tried just about everything that I could think of, like, casting Dispell Magic, Silence 15', etc., and of course direct physical attacks.

Any spell that I cast against him was countered by a respective Save, and any physical damage seemed to be GREATLY diminished. For example, my tank usually deals about 18 to 25 points of damage per hit for most baddies, yet he could only muster 1-4 pts of damage on him!

And on top of that, this guy could only get struck by a CRITICAL HIT!

And on top of that he would start casting just about the most painful and powerful offensive spells against my party!

And on top of that, his spell casting was NEVER disrupted, even when being hit!

And on top of that, when he would start running out of (I'm guessing) spells or after he had received an unpleasant amount of damage, he would simply "get out of Dodge" by casting Dimensional Door!

This really PISSED me off, since I have never been faced with an enemy that my team couldn't beat (except maybe Drizzt).

So I became desperate, and tried a little cheating in order to see if this fella could indeed be beaten.

Knowing that he loves to cast some awefully mean spells, I decided to CLUA up some "Protection from Magic" scrolls (6 of them actually), so that my party could last more than 10 seconds against him.

Well... IT WORKED! Err, sort of.

All of my guys were totally immune to Shandalar's magic, however we couldn't deal enough damage and quickly enough to kill him before he Dim-Doored out of there!

So I decided to give him a couple of more tries before moving on, and had my whole party (tank, theif, & 4 mages), use anything and everything in our arsenal to see if it worked.

WHAT the !$*% ? He just got hit multiple times by....(spoiler)
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Magic Missiles ??!!?
I thought that he was totally immune to magic, especially for a simplistic first level spell like, Magic Missiles!

This indeed was not a fluke, as three of my four mages were making quick work of this seemingly "unbeatable" wizard with simple Magic Missiles and when all was said and done, no one in my pary received ANY damage!

The best part of all was the fact that this one guy gave me not only the most experience points of any enemy (thus far), but also dropped a 24,000 gold piece item! A Robe of Neutral Arch Magi!

Now my question is, why is he (Shandalar) effected by simple Magic Missiles, and are there other spells or ways to beat him?

And is this just a bug in the game? Note, I do not have any patches installed.

Who else out there has beaten him, and how?

Anyways, quite the frustrating, yet rewarding fight!

[Flaming Fist Enforcer]

Never thought of it. I'd really like to try it and see if it's a bug (although I doubt it), but unfortunately my TotSC CD is cracked.

Did every missile of the spell hurt him? He might just have high MR. And I remember that in SoA magic missile is very effective against dragons. Out of five missiles 2 or 3 hurt them almost every time. Maybe that's the same thing with Shandalar.

[Sir Heinrich Godfrie IV]

Posted by: Flaming Fist Enforcer Did every missile of the spell hurt him? He might just have high MR. And I remember that in SoA magic missile is very effective against dragons. Out of five missiles 2 or 3 hurt them almost every time. Maybe that's the same thing with Shandalar.

I went back and scrolled up on the "game log" (or whatever it's called) and it looked to me that every missile hit him, or atleast the VAST majority of them.

This brings up another amazing thing, I added up all of the damage done to him by my party, and it came to a total of 97 HP. Yes, that's ninety-seven hit points!

And my party pummled him so quickly, and so decisively, that he didn't even leave a scratch on any of my party members.

Now this brings up another question, does anyone know what Shandalar has for magic resistence?

Is it the highest for any monster/enemy in the game?

Or does he simply have super duper good Saving Throws for certain spells, such as, Silence 15 Feet, which I tried on him about ten or more times?

Oh and does Magic Missiles have some sort of power in which magic resistence has no or little effect against?

Because if this is the case, then maybe YOU CAN solo and Mage through the game. I don't know.

[Lemmy]

(SPOILERS: Shandalar's Stats)

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Now this brings up another question, does anyone know what Shandalar has for magic resistence?

If I'm reading Infinity Explorer correctly, Shandalar's stats:
HPs 96, AC -20, XP value 26000, THAC0 11, 1 ApR
Resists Fire/Cold/Acid/Lit and Magical Fire/Cold 100%
80% resistance to piercing/crushing/slashing/missile
0% "Magic" resistance
Saving Throws: 1 (All)

Is it the highest for any monster/enemy in the game?
Or does he simply have super duper good Saving Throws for certain spells, such as, Silence 15 Feet, which I tried on him about ten or more times?

I believe he's not setup as a monster/enemy per se. Rather, he's someone they didn't intend for you to kill. If you think of such entities as "enemies," then he's probably one of the most difficult "creatures" to take down. Strictly speaking, though, I don't believe he was created as an "opponent."

Because if this is the case, then maybe YOU CAN solo and Mage through the game.

Are you saying you were, until just now, doubting the viability of soloing a mage through the game? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

-Lem

[Lord Dracon]

A could be spoiler


Isn't Sarevok Immune to every spell so he would be the most immune to magic in the game.

Just a thought

and is it possible to kill him while he is in candlekeep with the name koveras.

[Flaming Fist Enforcer]

All his (Sarevok's) resistances are 100, which means he can't get hurt with spells. And there is no way to kill him as Koveras or in the Ducal palace.

[Sir Heinrich Godfrie IV]

Posted by: Lemmy I believe he's not setup as a monster/enemy per se. Rather, he's someone they didn't intend for you to kill. If you think of such entities as "enemies," then he's probably one of the most difficult "creatures" to take down. Strictly speaking, though, I don't believe he was created as an "opponent."

You are mostly correct my friend.

They (the developers), certainly did not intend to devise a battle versus Shandalar as a neccesity/requirement for your advancement through a quest, nevertheless, they DID script him to be "killable".

Now granted, the developers also attached some highly negative consequences and very difficult circumstances for any subsequent attack/defeat of Shandalar by your party.

This included, a heavy reputation penalty, and of course, the deterant of Mr. Shandalar's powerful offensive and defensive capabilities.

Equally however, they DID script him to drop one of the best items in the game, and allowed for 26,ooo experience points to be allocated to his conquerers.

This I find to be evidence that the developers created Shandalar as atleast an "opponent/enemy possibility". Especially if you are role-playing an Evil-aligned party.

Are you saying you were, until just now, doubting the viability of soloing a mage through the game?

Umm... yes and no.

I based my assumption of, "not being able to beat the game by soloing a single-classed mage", upon the fact that certain baddies are 100% immune to magic, and that some enemies (such as Sarevok) would ultimately require "nearly impossible" melee combat.

Now when I stop and think about the possible solutions that could be applied to these aforementioned obstacles, the undertaking of such a task still seems to be ridiculously difficult and time-consuming.

But, I definitly wouldn't rule out the possibility that it would be fun and rewarding.

Oh, and by the way Lemmy, thanks for Shandalar's stats! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Lord Dracon]

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Posted By: Sir Henrich Godfrie

Quote:

do I punish him for his partial dishonesty to me and his apparent mistreatment of all those poor imprisoned mages?

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Actually Shandalar didn't send all those mages to the island they sometimes get pulled there when they teleport.

But I have to agree 500xp isn't much for all that trouble, Though if you slept there you could build up a few winter wolf pelts to sell for 500gp each.

[Sir Heinrich Godfrie IV]

Posted by: Lord Dracon Actually Shandalar didn't send all those mages to the island they sometimes get pulled there when they teleport. But I have to agree 500xp isn't much for all that trouble, Though if you slept there you could build up a few winter wolf pelts to sell for 500gp each.

Yeh, I think I remember one of those scrolls making mention of that fact.

But I thought that that was only one of a few ways to be sent there, the other by Shandalar, or maybe it was AO?
Ah whatever!?

And you're right, sleeping in the cave would be an excellent way to earn some coin, but when you are trying to figure out what to do with the 125,000 gps that you already have, a thought like this tends not to be thunk.
Again, thanks for the tip though Lord Dracon!

[Lord Dracon]

Yea I know what you mean. I had heaps of gold on the first game I finished but this game I decided to buy all those good items early on eg. cloak of good archmagi, quarterstaff+3, Cloak of displacement

That drained my gold a bit for the time being anyhow.