Can you think of cheese to melee parties (including 1 cleric 1 thief but no mage)?

[el_kalkylus]

I tried a melee party. So far it has almost completed ToB. Not exactly a melee party, but almost. I have

Ranger(9)/cleric - hammer, flail, mace, sling
Skald - instruments and magic
Fallen archer - longbow
Fallen archer - crossbow
Kensai(15)/thief - longswords, katanas
Valen in SoA and ToB NPC in ToB.

Valen messed up reputation, and the archers lost their ranger status. So they could not cast any spells anymore, or hide in shadows or use their special ability called shots. Grrrr. I noticed however that if they used a cleric script, they cast bless, but I don't like automatic scripts in hard fights, because the characters make stupid moves.

Anyway, this was an interesting party. I wonder if things would have been easier if I replaced the archers with berserkers that can specialize in all weapons and wear heavy armors, since my archers became fallen anyway.

My ranger/cleric can use ironskin, and with crom faeyr or buffing her thaco is really good, so she was by far the best addition to the group. Buffing, then running into monsters while the others stay in back with their bows.

The skald could cast haste alot in the beginning and sing songs. Pretty much. Never did anything else really, but the bonuses are great.

The things to worry about is resistances and immunity to hold and confusion. So as usual you need to buff before any big fight. This was tedious. Especially in SoA. In ToB, let them all cast whirlwind and fire away. Bam bam...death. Abazigal died pretty fast for example along with all other dragons.

[ister]

From the cheese guide, some creative cheese that require no mage

-potion swap trick to use scrolls with clerics or druids. Contingencies, triggers, time stop or whatever your heart desires. Nature's Beauty is very nasty when chain contingency-ed.
-energy blade cheese (use with a melee weapon to get ranged attacks)
-ferret familiar to use rift device outside beholder dungeaon. Only for rogue UAI.
-Staff of Magi cheese. Again UAI.
-fire seeds and greater deathblow to wipe out hordes of enemies
-Mislead backstab cheese (still UAI)
-protection from magic scroll cast on lich

[Assassin]

-> protection from magic scroll cast on lich

How is that cheese? Unless you use PI or a Simmy to get an extra one, it's a perfectly legit tactic, IMO.

[ister]

No you don't use the protection from magic scroll on yourself when you go to face the lich, you use it the lich himself so that he can't cast any spells. The first is definitely not cheesee, and could perhaps be considered legitimate even if you use an image. The second is very cheesy indeed.

[Assassin]

Why is the second cheesy? You only get two of them anyways...

[ister]

I guess it depends what you consider cheesey. If you go in with the protection from magic on the lich still has the possibility of beating you, with summons, or whatever. Once you disable his spell casting he's as helpless as a baby. I think it's cheesy because the protection from magic scroll clearly wasn't intended to be used that way.