Isair and Madae woes

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A bit of background first...

I played through the game a first time with a party of six. I had little problems making it through, and the last battle especially was kinda disappointing. Isair and Madae went down pretty fast.

Then I decided to solo the game. I picked a priest because it's a class I didn't get to really experience when playing previous games (IWD1, BG2).

Things went smoothly, and I reached the final battle as a fighter 4 / priest of Talos 22. As I expected, previous experience of the game coupled with the higher char level made soloing seem actually easier than partying.

Then I hit a wall.

Isair and Madae.

Their minions went down fast enough without scratching me, but...

First attempt, I used the anti-magic scrolls on them. I was left with meleeing them, but with all my buffs on, I feared little. Well, I was damn wrong.
First is the nasty bug with Isair's attack. That -1 strength translates as setting your strength to its normal score minus one. That is, if you have 18 str and have buffed it to 24, after Isair hits you instead of having a str score of 23, you'll be all the way down to 17. Yuck.
Then there are the matters of their insane AC, to-hit scores, and damage.
But the real killer there is their 30 resistance to all kind of physical damage, crushing, slashing and puncturing.

So back to square one, forget meleeing, try magic.

Fire was useless, they resist it.
Cold I couldn't deal.
Acid was very limited.
Only lightning hurt them.
As a priest of Talos, I had some lightning spells at my disposal, but not that many. Not enough for the job anyway.

I had a check at their stats with Dalekeeper, and noticed something wrong. They're NOT supposed to have 30 resistance to all kinds of physical damage. Only Isair, and only to crushing.

Also, when I got to the second part of the fight, they were both fully healed, although I had tainted the pool. I thought that wasn't supposed to be the case?

I ended up cheating by helping myself with 20 scrolls of chain lightning, but that leaves a very sour aftertaste to that game.

So...

• Were their stats bugged? Are they really supposed to have that high resistance to physical damage?
• How do people beat them with solo meleers? I can't see how a monk could possibly win such a fight, but I've seen many people claiming to have soloed the game with a monk...
• What's the point of tainting the pool?
• Any idea on how I could have beaten them without resorting to those cheated scrolls?

By the way, that was on normal mode, not HoF.

 

I soloed with a sorcerer and i didnt have that problem, i quickly took out that stupid summoner and focused everything i had on Isair(the guy?) and when they went to the pool, (i tainted it) Madae was still uninjured but Isair was barely injured. i was an effective level of 29 and i just kept hitting him with Mordy's sword and he went down...? does this help? it probably doesnt, so im sorry but ive never soloed with a cleric. mabye i should try it.

 

Well, unless I'm mistaken, Mordenkainen Sword delivers physical damage, hits a lot, but doesn't deal more than 30 damage / hit.
So if you were able to kill Isair with it, that would mean he didn't have 30 physical resistance in your game...

Oh, and I forgot that to add to my woes, the Twins were immune to criticals...

 

I know they have good saving throws, but have you tried Harm? Dispel Magic on them to lower resistances/protections? Animate Dead, Gate, etc.?

If I'm not mistaken, Cleric of Talos is an evil alignment? No Holy Word then, huh?

 

Perhaps they were adjusted to your level. The game takes party's average level for XP counting purposes, but I don't know if it's limited to only to that - perhaps it also influences the actual difficulty. The thing is that it's always a team of level 26 - the same rating you would have with six lev 26 chars. Still, I bet it's all bugs - since it would be ridiculous to make them *that* untouchable.

 

Blackthorne, you're right.
I was using both a +4 longsword and a +4 halberd.
I did think at the time that a +5 weapon might be required, so I tried a +5 morning star... on Isair.
The one of the twins who has 30 resistance to crushing damage.

*sigh*

I thought earlier today of trying again with a +5 slashing weapon, but I saw the answer here about Mordenkainen Sword, and when checking the manual for its damage, I also saw that its enchantment level was stated as +3, not +5. That strongly hinted at a bug...

But I did try eventually... and Isair went down real fast.

GRRRR....

So the Twins' physical resistance is a generic 30 / +4, with some specific resistances... like Isair's 30 resistance to crushing damage.

Anyway, with the +5 Greatsword that the Xvirm's Knights use, the fight was easy.

I feel much better about my victory now.

Strangely enough, this time the Twins weren't healed when they got to the pool, while on both my earlier attempts that reached that phase of the battle, the Twins healed.
And for the record, Mordenkainen Sword's enchantment level is +5 (as is should be), and not +3.