Stuck in asylum-mod game help!

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I have trouble with my mega-mod BG2 run with SCS II and other mods. I am stucked in one particular battle in asylum and can not get past it, so I need help and tactical ideas!

OK, being a veteran player, I really like the SCS II, it really makes enemies intelligent and is a nice change after the incredibly heavy IA battles.

Now I am here to lick my wounds after being beaten so many times in one particular encounter...and I need new ideas and strategems from experienced players.

I am playing with a wild mage who has finished TuTu. Kinda stucked in Asylum, so I need help. Oh, here is a little info about my party:Most of my party are lvl 14, with Anomen being lvl 16 in a cleric and Jaheira slightly lower as she is multi-tasked. Imoen is lower lvl as she is just rescued.

I also have a Blademaster PC created at the start of the TuTu game. For those who do not know, Blademaster is a watered down version of kensai (fewer bonuses per lvl) but he can wear studded leather and have swords dance (similiar to offensive spin) my Blademaster PC has (true) grand mastery in long swords, single weapon style ++, he now has 4 attacks when hasted, and 5 attacks in swords dance, with excellent critical hit chance. Good scores as well, 19 in STR, DEX, CON and CHA. (huge thanks to tomes) He is a blitzer fighter, when he starts attacking with his swords dance, enemies start popping, reduced to bloody chunks of meat.

I have Jaheira, she can cast two 6th lvl spells and I only tweaked her weapon proficiencies a litle bit, made her just like I used in BG1. Club++, sling++, spear+, scimitar++. Decent tank, healer, summoner.

Kivan, he is a great archer with (true) grand mastery in longbows. Some dialogue option I chose about Tazok reduced his CON to 12, though. (which does not mater in HP department as he had 14 to begin with)

Anomen, lvl 16 cleric, main healer and summoner and party buffer. Can tank pretty well too, after Holy Power+Draw Upon Holy Might+Haste and wielding Flail of the Ages+3.

Imoen, I just rescued her and she is lvl 11, can not cast 6th lvl spells which sucks.

Now, I have played up to now in hard difficulty as well, with all components of SCS II installed, except a few ones. I have many other mods as well, tactics, improved battles, ascension (only compatible parts) and Improved Asylum. Improved Asylum mod really makes things difficult for me as now SCS II takes my items in asylum (very cool idea!) and it greatly enhances the difficulty of asylum.

I very recently was able to kill a horde of Noble Umber Hulks. They were real beasts! With so many attacks/round which do 30-40 dmg easily, has MR and good saves and ofcourse, ever dreaded confusion attack. With some luck I was able to delay them with summons (Mordy swords summoned by my wild mage worked like a charm!) , confuse them and hold them with spells (greater malison and a hail of chaos spells by my mage and Imoen), allowing my fighters to kill them fast. Imoen kept creating +3 magical weaponry with her Enchanted Weapon spell, which came very useful. (bless her, my wild mage did not have that spell!)

We do not have any potions and only mundane armour and the magical plate mail from the magic mirror in asylum. (jaheira dons it, maybe I should give it to Anomen? Not that it would make a big difference though.)

Had to flee a Bodhi encounter from Unfinished Business, she spawns with a group of elder/ancient vampires when I rest, and they are extremely scary when nobody has any decent equipment. I really do not think I can deal with them faster than they can drain our lvls to oblivion. Not to mention dominations and cloud of bats and improved Bodhi's incredible combat prowess and chilling shield-aura! Scary, scary I say!

I could just ignore the Umber Hulk pens, but I wanted the XP and I like challenges.
So I gritted my teeth, tried different tactics and I was victorious!

But now I can not pass the corridor infront of the library room. I need to go pass there to reach Dace. But, there are a horde of nasty undead in there. Namely, a few greater mummies, skeleton warriors, and a very very difficult lich, thanks to superiour SCS II scripting.

Greater mummies and skeleton warriors are not mere cannon fodder. They are extremely deadly, as, thanks to tactics's improved undead, they cast all sorts of nasty spells:emotion, confusion, finger of death (whoa!), even wail of the banshee (argh!) Needless to say, they are just the icing on the cake, what with the deadly lich casting his own spells in the back.

I have never battled a lich before in my current game. Boy...somebody used some heavy scripting here! The lich uses extensive uses of wish spells, which dispels my party and activates a double length time stop+improved alacrity quickly after!

He also summons a frickin' Dark Planetar. Then I notice there are two liches actually, I guess one is a simulacrum...he casts remove magic over and over and tosses deadly spells on us too. At this point, only a few my characters are alive and going. Some are killed outright with a finger of death flying around, others succumb to despair and fall down no thanks to emotion spell, and even some get chunked by Eeeevil Planetar... If I ry to retreat, double liches dimension door to my PC, time stop and....

At that point I feel safe as I have my PC protected by so many spell protections, you see, Spell Immunity:abjuration, spell shield, spell turning, spell deflection etc...the lich just spellstrikes and than cheerfuly kills my wild mage in the blink of an eye.

Ha ha, fun for the whole party! I need some great advice, you see. I need to cross that corridor to stake Dace and I can not. Do you wish to hear funniest part? There are TWO liches in the closed library room. I think they do not notice me, and I have no intention of entering that room, even though I know there is a powerful finger of death scroll there! I just can not think a strategy in which I can deal with two liches...simultaneously!

Any ideas and reccomendations are welcome. My party has:two quarterstaves+2 (from the crazy mages near umber hulks), one spear+3 (from a chest), and Imoen creates a +3longsword for my blademaster and +3 mace for Anomen. Jaheira grabs the +3 spear, and Kivan has +2 arrows and arrows of piercing (which do not count as +4 weapons) So melf's minute meteors, quarterstaves and Kivan's arrows can not hurt greater mummies. (they need +3) even my fighters with +3 weapons have a hard time dealing with them fast as they have good resistances to damage and are very durable. I know fire hurts them greatly but I can not cast any fire spell without endangering my party. (flame arrows and flame strikes can do the trick, but my lvl 3 slots are full and flame strike is just too slow to use in such a heated battle!)

I think of a full ofensive maneuver, with my PC casting pierce magics on the lich. (it has an area effect now so can be cast on inv. opponents. Cool idea, opens up so many different tactical possibilities and options!) However, only one pierce magic/round will not cut it as the lich has tons of spell protections. Imoen can not cast that spell. I need 3-4 pierce magics then a true sight and then a breach to lower the lich's defenses...this means at least, 5 rounds, and the lich and his undead brethren are free to play with us in that mean time. Then I know he can just raise defenses again over and over.

Maybe Anomen can turn the lesser undead to give us some breathing space; but he gets killed/disabled very easily from the flying spells, he has a terrible save vs spells. Forget protective spells, hey get dispelled so fast, it feels it is no use to cast them in the first place.

Hm, last resort:my wild mage has new wild magic spells thanks to wild magic mod.I can try casting a new lvl 7 spell:random spell IV. It instantly casts a random number of randomly chosen lvl 8-9 spells. Can be useful, or can be a waste. A time stop or spell strike or imprisonment can come very handy here, but a power word kill or energy drain or any other wussy lvl 9 spell will just be a waste. Lvl 8th spells can even be more useless. The spell is just soo random to be of any use in a strategy. (but it is an immensely fun and chaotic spell!)

I do not have lvl 9 spells in my spell book, save spelltrap and freedom so Nahal's Reckless Dweomer can not help greatly. (even if it works)

So, help? I feel like I am at the end of my rope..And I am ashamed of saying that! At the very least I proved that Improved Asylum+Tactics's improved undead and SCS II are fully compatible...think this as a report of some kind...together they make the most difficult encounters possible... heh!

 

I'm not qualified to offer any advice here, since I don't play difficulty-enhancing mods, but I'll try anyway

I don't suppose it is possible to lure some of the Lich's minions away from him? It sounds like with the innate spell abilities of the Greater Mummies and Skeleton Warriors, there is just too much magic flying around to have any chance of taking them on all at once.

Do they see invisible? I'm guessing they do, but if not, how about making Anomen invisible, and sending him in to either turn undead or perhaps cast False Dawn? If he's invisible to start, perhaps he can get something done along those lines.

You used Mordy's Swords against the Umber Hulks - why not against these undead?

I also take it the Lich has essentially an infinate number of spells? In other words there is no chance of depleting his spellbook somewhat?

A few ideas, but probably none of them are worth anything

 

My suggestion is that you have arrived at this fight too early, and with no items whatsoever, it's no wonder you are chunked. The best strategy(the way I see it) would be to have 7-th level druidic spells and thus be able to cast Creeping Doom(I suppose the Liches are not running SI: Conjuration), thus eliminating the fear of spellcasting save from contingencies/spell triggers, and afterwards be able to cast Greater Malinson, followed by a Sunray spell by Anomen, and maybe another Sunray afterwards.

Since you don't have lvl 7 druidic spells, then maybe the proper use of unbreakable summons might win this battle(then again, it may not). Death spells are to be expected, of course, but you can keep your party at a safe distance, guide your summons via Jaheira/Anomen's Farsight spells, and send your summons one by one forward. At some point, the Liches' Death Spells, Disintegrate, Wail of the Banshee and similar spells will end, thus leaving the whole lot of undead vulnerable to Mordy Sword attacks. And by keeping your party near the exit, you can run away if the liches use DD to follow you. Use Projected Images and Nahal Reckless Dweomars for more Mordy Sword summoning and send the swords in groups of 1 or 2 maximum.

The most brave(and probably vain) effort is to rush with Anomen forward and hope he'll succeed in casting Sunray in the middle of the enemy horde, taking the lich out. Of course, if the lich manages to save vs spell, then the things look grim. By the way, Mirror Image helps vs this spell, and probably the Lich is running SI: D so I suppose this tactic will fail most of the time.

Have you added Death Fog spells to the fight? I don't know if liches run SI: Evocation, but I guess it's worth trying as a spellcasting disruption.

Maybe Mislead + SI: Divination on your Wild Mage will fool the Liches so that they cannot target him with any spells?

I almost forgot...I suppose you have the Hold Undead spell, right? And Spell Sequencer? This spell works wonders on undead, although it won't work on liches, But if you load Greater Malinson + 2 Hold Undead spells in a sequencer, then there is a good chance of disabling the enemy mummies and skeletons for 12 rounds.

And the so-neglected 7-th lvl spell Control Undead, if you actually had any luck to achieve it via Random Treasure drop, is great. Since it works vs Liches, that is!

Keep me posted if you tried any of those and they didn't work(and don't forget to write why didn't they work)

 

Well..thanks for the ideas, these are hints and tips I could not think of.

Summons are unreliable, they got killed so fast and the lich insta-dimension doors to my protagonist if he can not see anybody around...and then occasionaly activate a chain contingency with an ABDHW in it...which kills my party on hard difficulty.

Anomen can not survive the barrage of spells being thrown for more than a few seconds...spell casting with him is nigh impossible. Hmm maybe Shield of Archons could work against the finger of deaths flying around, but then emotion spells get him and chaotic commands get dispelled on sight.

I never thought about using Hold Undead spells. Greater Mummies have very good save vs spells, and skeleton warriors are (almost) immune to magic.

Control undead on the lich? Well I can not target him with spells since he is invisible. Oh, wait, is this an area effect spell? A shame I never ever used this trick. Then again, IIRC, liches has a save vs spells of 5 or better.

Liches do have finite amount of spells, as far as I know, but surviving that long is the problem. They are very efficient killers.

I finally was able to get past the fight, with luck and clever tricks, that is. Sent a barrage of hasted, protected fire elementals, aerial servants (they do massive damage to anything they can touch!) skeleton warriors down to the corridor. Then I closed the door. The summons get creamed fast as usual, but since the door was closed undeads could not follow us in. My party retreated to the big room with imp. asylum party, as there is more room to manuevur there. The lich quickly dimension doored to us.

This was the chance! I let my whole party attack him, and by sheer luck he did not have protection from magical weapons active! My blademaster used swords dance, hased, he had 5 attacks/round. Kivan too had 5 attacks/round. Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen and my wild mage all hasted and buffed up to the max, we all attacked the damned spellcaster in a fury. The hail of blows and arrows and sling stones quickly removed his mirror images and stoneskins, and we managed to kill it so fast (thanks to a few critical hits from my blademaster, I guess) he could not cast a single spell! Just like that! Fast and painful, that was the way we dealt with the lich!

Ofcourse, just as the lich dropped dead, the Dark Planetar teleported right near us! I screamed in terror as I know fiendish planetar has a nasty tendency to chunk anyone nearby, and I did not want a reload, so I instantly dashed for the exit nearby, and returned to first lvl. (here, chicky, chicky!)

Auto save really relaxed me, though ofcourse we fell right infron of the Bodhi and his crew. (I have fled them before) Luckily only Grimward archers were around so we dashed away, to a safe place, rested and saved and used the other exit.

After he lich, the remaining undead were easy to defeat as they were seperated from each other. They died their second and final death.

After staking Dace and all, my hasted blademaster also entered the library room. Wow, two liches! The two both casted a wish and luckily chose to remove our protections. In the meantime, my blademaster looted everything valuable in the room and dashed back to the party waitin infront of the exit. Blademaster has +2 movement rate as kit ability and when hasted he is fast indeed. :d so we looted the library and fled the liches...a good day indeed!

After this hardcore encounter, rest of the asylum was a breeze, although Irenicus managed to kill my Jaheira with a final, suprise ABDHW contingency (bastard!) and Yoshi and his crew of murderers were actually dangerous. Yoshi even backstabbed Anomen for 62 dmg and badly wounded him! Regardless, two simultaneously working True Sights left litle for the backstabbing murderers to do, and we slaughtered them all fast.

Which I loathed after, was the difficulty of killing Saemon on the ship. He gets so many buffs and githyankis too, I always kill the lying scum there, but this time it took a few reloads. And the scene was exremely buggy. Sometimes, Saemon did not notice he was on the ship and gave his 'cast of the main land,' speech again. Sometimes, the githyanki captain did not spawn and we just stood there....etc. Githyankis were dangerous too, but a starting finger of death on Saemon BEFORE he was able to buff snuffed him right good. (satisfaction!)

Now in underdark, I am scared! Wish me luck!