defeat Aec'Letec without monster summoning or wands--ToSC battle spoilers

[Lemernis]

I just did this (playing with Dark Side installed) with my four paladins, mage, and cleric-thief. I'm not going to knock myself out trying, but I do want to see if I can complete a game without using the wand of monster summoning at all, and using Animate Dead (as much as I love this spell), Monster Summoning I, II, and III, and wands as sparingly as possible.

Of course everyone was hasted and pumped up on cleric spells. I also used Resist Fear, 4 potions or heroism, 5 potions of mirrored eyes, and 2 potions of freedom. In addition I used Invisibility Radius 10' in order get everyone in position once downstairs. I placed everyone on the perimeter and first I tried tossing 5 oils of firey burning and a fireball spell at the sorceress and cultists to see if I could kill them all in one fell swoop--but all of those explosions only did about 8 points of damage per cultist, lol. That plan having flopped, I put one man on each cultist until I took all of them out. Aec didn't really do much harm at all to my party as all that was going on. His magic was rendered ineffective by the potions and spells. After the cultists went down Aec fell pretty quickly mano a mano.

Oh, also--I made sure to keep my mage far away from Aec's Silence spell, as he is the only one in the party affected by it. The cleric-theif wasn't spellcasting anyway--he is awesome in melee buffed on his cleric spells, wearing drow adamantite mesh armor + 3 and wielding Selune's Blade.

[SixOfSpades]

I also whacked the dude with minimal magic--all I used was a pre-fight Chant and Haste, and no potions at all! (Although I was working with the 'Dream Team' of Imoen, Coran, Kivan, Canderous, Minsc, and me as Tank Fighter, so we had an advantage there.)

The first time I accidentally killed the priestess before she'd even raised the bugger. Oops. Reload. Then my Dwarven Tank instantly engaged Aec' hand-to-hand, while the rest of my party pumped the Cultists full of arrows & bullets (the fight would be a lot more interesting if the Cultists did something besides just stand there). I didn't care about Aec'Letec's Silence or Dispel Magic, and if he did his Death Gaze at all, I must have Saved vs. Spell. Once the Cultists were down, I pulled my (severely wounded) Dwarf back, Canderous stepped up, and my archers (and Axe thrower) plugged away. Whack.

(I tend to be a very muscle-oriented player--I hardly ever Raise Dead or Web, or indeed any purely offensive magic except a Wand of Fire, and I never even Summon Monsters! Am I psycho or what? For contrast, I'm planning a game with 1 of each of the pure spellcasting types: Mage, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and also a Mage/Thief, 'cause you GOTTA disarm Traps.)

[Lemernis]

Lol, Six, did I hear you say that you are actually going to have a bard in your party? Heh, know how much you like bards. Actually, having almost never used them myself, the recent thread on bards got me thinking about including one in a party.

I keep trying to put BG aside but there are two party compositions that I would still like to try. Never played evil, that's one. And I've wanted to do the all-spellcaster thing as well. But I would go with having virtually no melee ability, I think... Perhaps

conjurer
invoker
illusionist
necromancer
cleric
mage-thief

The mage-thief would be an elf, i.e., mutliclass, who puts all his or her ability points into find traps and pick locks. The mage-thief would be casting spells and not backstabbing much, if at all, and pickpocketing only with the help of a potion.

Will your mage-thief be human, i.e., thief dualed to mage? or an elf i.e., multiclass?

[SixOfSpades]

Yep, the 6 is considering a Bard. Not only that, but a Bard and a Druid (my two least favorite pure classes) in the same party! Laughable, huh? But don't fret, it's not gonna happen anytime soon. I've got my Evil game to finish, my Team Kickass to build, and my Random game (put each NPC's name on a slip of paper & draw out 5 of them) to complete. [I got really lucky on pulling the names: Canderous, Safana, Minsc, Montaron, and Ajantis. I decided to drop Canderous and be a Cleric/Illusionist.]

But when I DO make that pure-class magic-user party, I'll do it first in Multiplayer, then in Single--and you can bet your ASS I'll be playing the role of the Bard in Single Player, 'cause no way am I ever going NEAR Garrick or Eldoth. (Unless I draw their names in a Random game.....oh, ouch....)

Oh yeah, the Mage/Thief would be an Elf. Higher DEX, and the Mage skills have to be maintained constantly, or he doesn't fit in my magic-user party. And the party you described: Don't you think that 4 1/2 Mages and 1 Cleric is a little lopsided? With the kind of Armor Class you're going to be having, you'll need a lot more than just 1 healer (lol). At least have a Cleric/Mage or something.....

[Lemernis]

Yeah, no doubt they'll be gulping down plenty of healing potions during battle. But at least with their lower HP mages don't require as much healing after a battle... My thought was to have the cleric load up mostly with healing spells. Then he could cast Sanctuary and heal the others during battle. With Dark Side a mage can use a healing spell called Ettin's Healing, so that will help too.

I guess I could change the mage-thief to cleric-thief...

The biggest problems that I foresee are: 1) how to fight opponents who have magic resistance, and 2) they will be a bunch of weaklings who won't be able to carry much of a weight load. With respect to the former, I'm not sure yet what I will do--maybe have them all polymorph into animals, lol! Regarding the latter, I guess I could have them cast Strength to schlep stuff back to a store. And the cleric will have the gauntlets of ogre strength available.

As far as balance goes, this party is heavily tilted toward mage spells but that is the intention. One defensive spellcaster/healer is enough (I'm gambling!), and between druid vs. cleric I prefer a cleric. Don't want a paladin or bard for this thing because the the plan is: No melee fighting. No bows. Slings or darts only as a last resort. I will be forced to win battles almost entirely by spellcasting. Also, I'm going to continue to try to keep wands and the monster summoning spells to a bare minimum as I'm currently doing with my paladin party.

This party could end up being overpowered, actually, at least with Dark Side. There is a fantastic DS spell called Daerragh's Aura Cleansing which 'removes spell residue from previous spells' and thereby allows the mage to cast spells in lightning succession when hasted (and especially when wearing the special mage gloves in DS). Enemies are generally overwhelmed by a barrage of spells from a mage who using that spell, and don't stand much of a chance.