Annoying battles (geek whingery with definite spoilage)

[CerebroDragon]

My party has just recently dispensed all of the White Wyrmage inside and out in the second Cold Marsh well enough, in a firey tactical display, yet in the next battle we get torn to pieces by Hook Horrors. Oh the humility of it all!
Woe to my Necromancer...

I'm very disappointed with my Ranger and thief at the moment - you'd have thought that by level 11 and 12 respectively that they'd be able to smell the dire nastiness of those Clackerly hook horrors a mile away.
Especially if my Ranger has them as his racial enemy!

I bet Drizzt would have warned us if he were in the party as we were heading downwards into those dismal looking claustrophobic caves!
Mind you, he learnt those skills very early in his life as "Exile" attests to.
I'll start Sojourn soon...mmm yes, where was I? Ranting, that's right!

To add salt to this injurious moment of being soundly trounced by hook horrors whilst attempting to flee from this seemingly unforseeable ambush,
my Necromancer, so close to death, in a state he embraced - heard a strange booming revelatory voice which said:

"I must gather my party to run away"...

And so into the arms of death he lept. Without my permission. [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img]

Generally speaking the game seems to have lost a bit of focus after the fantastic prologue and fascinating first two chapters. I'm enjoying the surroundings and ambience and music immensely but are finding the linearity, lack of deep roleplaying situations, static envionments and odd annoying battles like the one described to get in the way of utter immersive fun.

Whew! Bed time. 5.19 am.

Next!

[ 06-06-2004, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]

[Bozos of Bones]

Hook Horrors are hard only because of their damn flanking maneuver. My necro and sorc always got the worst of it(darts and crossbow, rear end of party ).
But the most annoying battles(battlesquares excluded) for me were the Assassins in the jungle temple, the ones that do 20-50 damage and hide again. Especially thier leader, the bit** that never fails to critical a backstab, resulting in my sorceress with 90hp getting cut into pieces. And the fact they tend to get stuck, so you have to go through the temple five times to find one if you want extra XP for clearing it out.
I'm feeling nostalgia, playing Far Cry in compination with Baldur's Gate 2 has strangely enough made me wanting to play IWD2 again, to beat it the lucky 13th time.

[Andraste]

I found the only way to deal with the Hook Horrors was to use reload foreshadowing and cast web before they spawned. They dont ever seem to make their saving throws, which turns them into rather cheesy target pratice.

[Sagramore]

sunfire and other such area effect spells work very well on Hookys...and healing potions and spells work very well on wounds and injuries

[SpongeLikeCow]

Cast Horror, Chaos, Confusion, and Slow into big groups. They wont have a prayer. My enchanter is the MVP of my party.

[TheGlow]

Im right before this so I dunno what to expect, but yes the story has seemed to dwindle, nothing to compel me to want to load it up and advance some more. Thus far my sorc and wiz just sit around rakin up more kills with their bolts and bullets.

And keep reading them books. Im up to legacy of drow and happy to have finally nabbed all but one of the drizzt books in e-book.

[d3fton3s]

Hooks r weak vs. mind spells.. Always liked to turn them one on another.. The masses are a bit annoying, but after the 1st time u'll know how to set your party.. I suggest to freeze the game asap after they show up and drive your entire party toword a far end (if it has some hooks - nuke'em with weak magic and your melee fighter/s) and defend your casters by pushing them to the wall and covering them with fighters and high dodging chars..

I talk too much c'ya

[CerebroDragon]

Interesting variety of strategies here.

I eventually decimated their ranks but it wasn't without two or three reloads. They certainly come at you in legion. I used the slightly cheesy 'web and cloudkill' combination to good effect and altered my party order makeup to protect my Necromancer and give him room to flee. Horror worked well too after we'd killed a couple from a group.

I'd generally split the party into two groups of three and rotate with heavy amounts of spacebar, casting heavy obliteration spells where there was room.

I discovered a pretty simple cheese strategy to survive as well without resting. I used heavily injured characters to lure unknowing hook horrors towards the doorway where the snow trolls are. Entering this door seems to throw them in such a state of confusion that they just stand at the closest pathway point to where my comrade (often my rogue) has fled but are unable to get to her. They are easy pickings for my fighters after that.

I didn't discover this idea until the last battle in the area however.
On to the Duerger quest soon!