Trouble with Illithids

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I have trouble with few enemies. Dragons quake with fear when they hear my Cavalier is coming for them. Demons hide under their bed when I enter the room. Beholders find themselves bumping into the walls with a cleverly placed Chaos spell, then choke to death in a Death Fog. Wizards and Clerics find they can't cast their spells, because they're to busy slapping at the bugs biting them. No fighter is a match for the twin threats of Carsomyr and Daystar.

But there is one enemy I never have quite got a handle on: Mind Flayers. These guys are killing me, literally! Their mind powers aren't giving me any problems (I know about Chaotic Commands, and have some equipment that offers some mind protection). But everytime I think I'm getting over on them, my party starts dropping dead, one by one. Is there anything, ANYTHING, that can defend against that nasty ability to kill in one blow of theirs? I've done a search on old topics, and took few notes, but does anybody here have some strategies on killing groups of Mind Flayers? I'd appreciate any feedback.

["Halp me!"? It must have taken you ages to come up with such an excellent topic headline. Spend a few seconds more on it next time so that I won't need to edit it for you. ] -Tal

[This message has been edited by Taluntain (edited November 24, 2001).]

 

Easy. Sell Carsomyr and get something effective.

When you sell it finally, recruit some NPC with high INT. Any undead summoner counts (mages and clerics). Viccy is of course the best. Ah, silly me, you let them burn her.

I guess you deserved brain burning yourself then.

 

Mordenkainen's Sword

It is immune to all physical damage including Mind Flayer INT drain and also Psionics. This makes it the best Mind Flayer killer there is... except for one thing... Mind Flayers usually have some pet Umber Hulks with them and they cast confusion which the swords are not immune to. So you may end up with some confused swords, which tend to just stand there doing nothing.

Summon at least two swords and haste them, it'll usually work. If not then you must be brave and attack them yourself.

 

Chaotic commands, improved haste and lots of arrows always worked fine for me.

 

Extremist, you are too helpful for words...
Sell Carsomyr? Heh, heh...Too bad about Viconia, though. I did save her from the stake, but then I killed her in the Graveyard District and dumped her body by Edwin's and Korgan's right in front of the Council of Six Building. Justice is not blind, for I am her eyes!

Anyhoo, I just came up with an idea, I just need to see if y'all think it'll work. It seems that the Mind Flayers need to be within physical contact to kill you, so why not cast a Blade Barrier and Chaotic Commands on my cleric, load him down with all the good AC items, and escorted by a pair of Invisible Stalkers (I heard that they are immune to mind control spells, is this true?), charge into the fray with the Hammer of Thunderbolts in hand? Will this work, because the only thing that is tripping me up is that one-hit kill ability. If the Flayers can't touch me, they can't kill me right? Or is it a ranged ability?

[This message has been edited by Demonater351 (edited November 24, 2001).]

 

no. stalkers can get held and psionic blasted as well as brain drained. I'd suggest the mordekainen solution like Mirkwood said. Worked big time for me. cast it twice in sets of 5 and i cleared out the whole lair

 

Hi,

Well my stalkers never got held or drained, got mashed by hulks though if I left them unsupported.

If you want to go toe to toe with the flayers do the following:
Make sure you have a good AC, better than -6 before buffing, improve vis and improve haste your fighters and drink some potions of genius and/or mind focussing plus boost strength if you can. The idea is to take them down as quickly as possible and have a decent intelligence buffer to protect against the brain drain (aim for at least 18+ int).
This probably rules out minsc as I am not sure whether you will be able to carry enough potions to get him that smart

The flayers will go down pretty quickly.

My fighter/mage pretty much cleared house this way with support from keldorn and jaheira. The rest of the party provided spell (buffing) and missile support with the occasional stalker thrown in to distract the hulks.

If you don't want to get too close the mordekainen sword plan is a good one. I am going to try that when I get my "magic rich melee poor" party there sometime soon.

Cheers,

WittyNewt

[This message has been edited by wittynewt (edited November 24, 2001).]

 

• Summon at least 4 Skeleton Warriors (replaceable w/ stronger summons, such as M's Sword.
• Summon a demon if you wish.
• Improve them and your party in any way possible (Haste, Chant, Bless, D. Harmony, Protection From Evil, etc.)
• Have all party members use ranged weapons, if possible, if not, try to avoid direct melee combat.
• Sadly, Mind Flayers leave no loot.

[This message has been edited by creudzfeldt-jakob (edited November 24, 2001).]

 

Yes that's all good, but do the Flayer's have to come in physical contact with you to drain intelligence? If so, can't you prevent that by casting a Blade Barrier spell?

 

Yes, the flayer must hit you and then drain your brain, so improving AC and int is a good idea if you want to melee them.

Blade barrier? Never tried.

 

Here's a good one: Shadowkeeper! Wheee!

 

Shadowkeeper? SHADOWKEEPER?! Xaelifer, I oughtta whoop your tail just for GP (general principal) for suggesting that. The whole point of beating a game is to do it without cheating.

 

You can also try blocking the door with an invisible character and using range weapons

 

My best shot have alway been chaotic commands as you mentioned but do not bother with all the other cheesy stuff. Just haste your fighters and let them at them. An illithid does not have many HP. But you will need atleast three good tanks. Use deathspell to get rid of the hulks.

 

Summons...... alot of them.....

and high AC do not work for me....
they seem to use magical attacks....
no THAC0......

Or try to back stab with thieves... stalkers...... at one time a few down...
and umber hulks are of no problem...

 

There's an Illithid dungeon fairly early in the game, well prior to the Underdark. The location escapes me, but that's where I learned to fight Mind Flayers and Ulitharids.
I found the Ulitharids to be tougher, by the way.

Anyhoo, having a fairly short attention span I am slow to both read AND comprehend spell descriptions,so I was ignorant of such spells as Chaotic Commands. I am also not much of a melee guy by nature. All this combined with the design of the dungeon(big circular rooms connected by narrow arcing corridors)led me to use what I thought was a very interesting strategy for dealing with Illithids.

Going room by corridor by room, I sent an invisible scout forward to open doors while the rest of my party hung back(way back).
With the door open, I launched in a couple of
cloudkills to dispose of the Umberhulks and rile up the Illithids, then closed the door.

At this point I discovered that Illithids are not so bright. By having my party fall back behind the previous door and sending a hasted invisible scout forward to open the door, sneak in and backstab, then run out and close the door, it was an easy if tedious matter to wear every single Illithid down to at least injured status as well as outright kill one or two of them. At this point it was an easy matter to move my party forward, slow the bastards down with a few summoned monsters(I had no high level summons at this point)and take them out with ranged weapons.

To me, this sneaky attack and retreat technique fit the dungeon design and enemy type perfectly and had nothing to do with rpg'ing but was pure real time strategy.

I think of both Illithid dungeons as self-contained RTS mini-games and a refreshing break from routine gameplay--a straight-forward war campaign with no special protections and no hack-and-slash--just take your time, enjoy the dungeon and outwit the ugly squids.

 

Hi,

Yes the illithid have to hit you to drain int. I believe their stats are as follows: four attacks per round, (four tentacles ), do about 2-4 points of int per hit and have a THACO of 12. The higher level ones have a better THACO, probably about 8, although I am not sure. (from PNP DND info - Bioware might have implemented them slightly differently, but this feels right from what I have observed)

The four attacks per round is why it feels that sometimes they kill you with one hit (in one round). To a cruddy AC character they would hit four times in one round and could strip away 16 int points, You hit 0 and you are dead.

If you have an AC of -8 or better they will only hit you on a roll of 1, 1 in 20. If you have a high int then you can survive a few hits before your brain is withdrawn and devoured .

A good AC plus good damage dealing (dual wield and improve hasted - 8 attacks per round) will waste them before you are drained.

Rest up to recover any lost int points and then deal with the next set (I think you get teh int points back in 2 turns or so).

If any party member gets stunned, the illithid will make a beeline for them. I think they get a big THACO bonus for hitting a stunned character so they won't last long.

Make sure you have plenty of mindshield stuff/spells available. Keep most of the party back in support so that they won't get hit by the initial mind blast.

Using summoned stuff is a great idea, but actually fighting these beasties toe to toe and winning is very satisfying and well worth doing once .

As a minor aside, I found the Koa Toa bolts very useful against illithid. Keldorn stunned several which made things a little easier.

Cheers,

WittyNewt

[This message has been edited by wittynewt (edited November 24, 2001).]

 

Thanks witty, exactly what I needed to know . It seems that if I charge in with a Anomen under a Blade Barrier spell, and pumped up with various spells, and escorted by a few summons, I should be alright. Where can I get some Kuo-Toa Bolts though?

(Hey, somebody changed my topic name! Oh well, better than "Halp me!" )

 

Of course, Kuo-Toa Bolts from Kuo-Toa city iirc in the underdark.

 

I was just wondering, would you be able to be immune to int drain with spell immunity,
if so what school?