mind flayer lair HELP!! ****spoilers*****

[Xen]

Correction. Adjathta is Short Sword

[Thuram]

I can't confirm the strategy of skeleton warriers against mindflayers. I tried to use it after reading this strategy but it was a total disaster.

I sent one big skeleton warrier against one single mindflayer and he (the skeleton warrier!) dropped dead in seconds. I guess he was drained his intelligence. Yes, he was immune to psionic blast but not to intelligence drain. So in my case, no good idea. The only thing "special" I had installed was baldurdash.

I tried not to use cheese. So that was my strategy: drop your AC as low as possible. Drink INT increasing potions if you have. Cast chaotic commands or otherwise use a weapon that gives you similar immunities. Cast mirror image as this will block INT drain (while stone skin won't). Try to take them one by one by luring them out and run if your intelligence drops down dangerously. Use a staff you will find in this dungeon (I think you should find it before entering this room) to "recruit" some allies from the enemies ranks. Only the senior mindflayers are MR I think, the others should be vulnerable to magic. The umberhulk you can kill easily with a death spell. You should be ok to use Minsc - if he dual wields and you haste him he should be able to slice them into pieces before they hit him, but watch his stats and retreat when necessary.

[SixOfSpades]

Adjatha the Drinker is in fact a Long Sword. Also noteworthy is Lilarcor, which handily buffs you against the Umber Hulks as well. And then there are Helms of Charm Protection, Potions of Clarity, Inquisitors are immune to Charm, and you can always just buff your Saving Throws.

"Block the passageway with invisible creatures" has never been my cup of tea. Any enemy would have to unbelievably stupid to think, "Gee, there's something blocking my path, but I can't see anything, so I'll just stand here and keep pushing into it until I get shot full of arrows." Now, I can see Golems and Skeletons being that stupid. Mind Flayers, however, just ain't gonna stand for that sort of thing. In fact, Mind Flayers shouldn't be fooled by invisibility at all: They can sense the psychic emanations of any intelligent creature, and read your thoughts. The only way to surprise an Illithid is by accident, because if you know that you're trying to sneak up on them, so do they. I believe the Improved Mind Flayers component of Weimer's Tactics MOD grants all Illithids the ability to see invisible units, to which I say, Huzzah!

The "Cloudkill and shut the door" tactic isn't anywhere NEAR as cheesy, in my opinion, simply because the place is full of doors. Picture a room with the typical setup of Mind Flayers & Umber Hulks. The room has 3 exits. If you can get somebody to stand outside each of the 3 doors, the Cloudkill trick should be perfectly legal: Open the door, fire off a Cloudkill, slam the door, and have Minsc, Keldorn and Valygar use their sword blades to wedge the door shut. I don't care HOW flippin' smart those damn Illithid are, all the brains in the world won't help them budge Minsc, the Human Roadblock. They're just trapped in that little room to die. (Of course, this strategy only works before BaldurDash, since BaldurDash corrects the bug that Cloudkill Wands ignore Magic Resistance.)

I, too, report that Skeletons of all shapes & sizes fall quickly to Illithid INT drain, and Mordenkainen's Swords don't last long either. That's why, when seeking creatures to go toe-to-toe with Illithids, I never look further than my own party members--who are perfectly happy to plaster the brain-sucking freaks all over the floor.

[Mahlennacht]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: ..."Block the passageway with invisible creatures" has never been my cup of tea. Any enemy would have to unbelievably stupid to think, "Gee, there's something blocking my path, but I can't see anything, so I'll just stand here and keep pushing into it until I get shot full of arrows." Now, I can see Golems and Skeletons being that stupid. Mind Flayers, however, just ain't gonna stand for that sort of thing. In fact, Mind Flayers shouldn't be fooled by invisibility at all: They can sense the psychic emanations of any intelligent creature, and read your thoughts. The only way to surprise an Illithid is by accident, because if you know that you're trying to sneak up on them, so do they. I believe the Improved Mind Flayers component of Weimer's Tactics MOD grants all Illithids the ability to see invisible units, to which I say, Huzzah! The "Cloudkill and shut the door" tactic isn't anywhere NEAR as cheesy, in my opinion, simply because the place is full of doors. Picture a room with the typical setup of Mind Flayers & Umber Hulks. The room has 3 exits. If you can get somebody to stand outside each of the 3 doors, the Cloudkill trick should be perfectly legal: Open the door, fire off a Cloudkill, slam the door, and have Minsc, Keldorn and Valygar use their sword blades to wedge the door shut. I don't care HOW flippin' smart those damn Illithid are, all the brains in the world won't help them budge Minsc, the Human Roadblock. They're just trapped in that little room to die. (Of course, this strategy only works before BaldurDash, since BaldurDash corrects the bug that Cloudkill Wands ignore Magic Resistance.)

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] makes sense - I always did think invisible blockers were cheating a bit, but it at least got the newbie through the rough stuff without breaking the keyboard and monitor and yeah I had trouble getting Cloudkill to work against their MR, so I guess it's not so cheeseish after all... OK, since I've had six games to practice, I'll try to waste illithid with some AD&D class this time round [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] maybe I will try some Tactics components for once...

[Faceman]

Another slightly cheesy tactic I always used and should be still possible with Baldurdash is the following:

Us one party member as bait. Therefore make him immune to Psionic Blast and other nasty stuff by any means possible. Now approach the Illithids until you can see one (and he can see you). When he attacks, flee and lead him right to your party who should unload every ranged weapon they have at first sight of the flayer. As Illithids have high magic resistance but can't take much a beating he should drop dead before he gets close enough to any party member to do any harm.
Another not so unrealistic tactic (but kinda childish) is to equip your best fighter with some charm immunity item and a ranged weapon. Then cast Haste (or even better Improved Haste) on him (Boots of Speed would also be fine) and make a lone Ranger attack on all the Flayers. Close the door thus locking yourself in with the nasties and keep running around in circles so they get no chance to attack you. On occasion if you feel you have enough space attack the Illithid farthest from you (shooting from close range is penaltied) once and continue running away. It sure takes some time but if you do it right you should be able to one by one drop all Flayers without even a scratch.

[Thuram]

In my first game I used the invisible-guy-blockin-the-entrance too. But I know consider it cheese and only allow it to myself on stupid creatures (skeleton warriors and undead - except vampires and liches, golems, umberhulks, etc.).

Definetely not on Mindflayers. I hope that they can see thru invisibility with the tactics mod.

If you want to summon creatures against them, either summon up to five (maximum) powerful creatures, haste them and have them all attack the same mindflayer with you party using ranged weapons. They should be overwhelmed with this.

Or summon weak creatures with the wand of summoning and keep on summoning them as cannon fodder while you take them down with ranged attacks.

A slight modification to Faceman's tactic: use a party member as a bait and have him run in CIRCLES. Instead of doing the lone ranger attack, have your party members attack the enemies with ranged weapons. Hopefully the enemies are stupid enough to chase your first party member in circles (but again if this works, it is almost cheese agains Mindflayers).

I like Mahlennacht's cloudkill tactic. In my opinion this is realistic. In fact I never cloudkill unless there is a good reason for the enemies to stay in the cloud, like e.g. being busy fighting some skeleton warriors you summoned. Or trying to attack you while you know yourself safe in a resialent sphere or with the right spell immunities.

[Merlin from Amber]

I weqpon that protects against lvl drain do exist (ToB), but I've never seen weapon that protects against int drain.
1. In order to int drain you they need to penetrate your ac
2. Protectin from magical or protection from normal weapons or the mantles should protect against their hits - I'm not sure witch of them
3. Cloak of cheese returns the psionic blasts back to them. Protection from energy also protects you.
4.Their MR might be lowered. also there is a difference between fire resistance and magic fire resistance foreaxample.
5. 6. 7. 8. ...
(spoiler)
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
Ctrl-D one of them to see them 'inside'

[Thuram]

I missed something. What to you mean by CTL-D?

[DJG]

Isn't there that "Psion's Blade" Two Handed Sword that makes you immune to psionics?

[Xen]

Originally posted by DJG: Isn't there that "Psion's Blade" Two Handed Sword that makes you immune to psionics?

This weapon is in ToB