SPOILER --- Pagoda Armory/Oak Saplings, and a request for help

[Cerberus]

Maybe this will be of some help to someone out there...

I was getting the crud knocked out of my 9th level party by the Oak Saplings in the Pagoda Armory until I figured this out. I snuck up on the corner of the room that the Saplings are in and as soon as combat was initiated I ran for the courtyard. The Saplings followed and once outside could no longer cast spells at me! Better yet, they stayed at extended/thrown range and tried to cast spells while my party used ranged weapons to pick them to pieces! I got a pair of Spirit Staffs for my efforts and came away relatively uncsathed.

Now my request: How do I deal with the trains of Sprites and Wasps I'm getting mobbed by in the Ratkin tree? I'm running into groups like this:

6 Tree Sprites
8 Blinding Wasps
9 Swarming Wasps
5 Tree Sprites

My party is now about 50/50 9th-10th level and I am getting blasted to pieces! On smaller groups of 3-4 Sprites I simply charged them and melee'd them to death, ignoring spellcasting since they almost always cast Eye-for-an-Eye first thing. But these mobs are just to big for that. The only thing I can think of is to go ahead with cone effect mass damage spells and hope to not get too hurt by the backblast.

Are there any better strategies out there?

TIA!

[Gimli]

Blinding flash is a good one against the tree sprites if you have it, good in general if you are seriously outnumbered.

Also don't do a run or walk in the first round, it will kill your initiative.

[Niob]

there are some places in the Rattkin Tree where you can go around a corner and step into a house and fight the spirits one after another..that works, perhaps you must try several times because mages always die. You shouldn't have problems with the flying stuff, because the bridge is very thin and they cannot attack you when the spirits are between you and them.
Good luck and try to attack not all 4 groups at once if possible.
Bye Niob

[Rhea]

Do you have a Bard? Siren's Wail (insanity) works great on the wasps and sprites (and I think the saplings as well). The only critters it doesn't work on IIRC are the plants - ironweeds, etc. In fact, Siren's is a handy dandy tool throughout the game.

[ 03-11-2002: Message edited by: Rhea ]

[GenXCub]

Here's another suggestion... don't want to rush them? Camp. If you rest, yeah you'll be attacked, but they're always RIGHT THERE in front of you... well all around you, but they're in Melee Range so you can target the sprites first and take them out.

[swavek]

Wow! that's an excessive amount of monsters for each encounter. the worst i've had was 3-4 sprites (of various variety:tree, leaf, etc...) and occasionally accompanied by some rats. anyway, some things that help against the sprites is the element shield which will reduce the damage of the acid splash spell that most of these sprites tend to cast. finally, since the game isn't time sensitive you could try sleeping several times in hopes that some of the monsters have left the area. actually, my final say would be to find a decent building and just lure them up there then use a tactic mentioned above so that you only face one at a time. once they are all dead, rest up and look for some more to kill. take your time and kill 'em all! muahahha short of getting one of your guys kill the worst thing that could happen is that you gain lotsa xp. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Cerberus]

I swithced from 'Normal' mode to 'Expert' a while back in order to spawn more monsters for xps, but I switched back before entering the Ratkin tree. Is it possible that these mobs were spawned before I switched back to 'Normal' mode?