What to do about Tahazzar (WC L3)

itti · Post by **itti** » Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:30 pm

Hi,

I'm just in the middle of Watcher's Keep Level 3 and I really have trouble dealing with the Tanar'ri after the first "dead magic" room (where you can get the +4 bastard sword for paladins). The problem is I'm not able to cast any preparation spells in the room before as it is hardcoded to apply "spell failure" affects to all my party members. The fiends make short work of my party especially the backstabbing ones and it doesn't help that there is a succubus in the room that randomly charms Minsc.

I have a pretty default TOB party. The main pc is a level 25 fighter (dual wielding flail of the ages +4 and some other flail). The rest ist Minsc, Anomen, Jaheira, Aerie and Imoen. I only have one "Helm of charm protection" and I fail to make out what (quick to cast) spells could hurt the fiends at all. In a direct frontal approach I usually manage to take down two of them until all hell breaks loose.

So do you have any suggestions to ease this battle? As always I regret my decision to take Jaheira with me as she seems rather useless.

QuenGalad · Post by **QuenGalad** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:13 am

It's been a long time since I did Watcher's Keep, but I honestly don't remember any trouble with this part when ToB-leveled. I usually give the demons a Holy Smite or two (this is a very neat spell because it doesn't hurt your party if there aren't evil people in it) or, if I have any, a Dragon's Breath which has a very short casting time. If you have Aerie in your party, you can have her wear the Robe of Vecna which will speed up her cleric spells too (and that's awesome, since they normally take like thousands of years to cast) and have those smites off in a jiffy. Of course, some demons will resist it or whatnot, but some will get hurt. Pelt the succubus with missile weapons, with luck she won't even get a single charm off as they have few hitpoints.
You have a good party going there, a lot of casters so even without preparation you can get some buffs on the spot - Jaheira can cast defensive harmony, bonus to AC and very short casting time, ironskin so at least she won't get backstabbed and all that. Just experiment - see what exactly kills you and plan ahead. You may not have time to cast buffs beforehand, but you can prepare them and cast mid-combat.

Philos · Post by **Philos** » Sat Mar 16, 2013 10:44 pm

Potion of speed for your PC, engage and use greater whirlwind attack if a fighter type. Should bash the tanarri pretty quickly. Hope Aerie or Imoen have spell triggers or at least au-dalhzim's horrid wilting. Horrid wilting usually affects any/all of the bad guys in that room. Just takes a while to cast. Since it does, one cool trick is to have one or both of them memorize spell trigger and a couple of horrid wiltings. Went you pop in, hit spell trigger and kick the stuffings out of them. If not dead, one or two hits will finish them. Having two horrid wiltings go off at once took out many of the opponents including the succubus in my last run through.

Chain Contigency also works pretty well. I had Nalia and Imoen in my party. Both had a chain contingency that if at 50% hit points, among the other spells it cast, a horrid wilting went off centered on them. Horrid wilting does not effect the party. The bad guys that hit them were "very" sorry. Note that regular contingency does not allow anything above a 6th level spell, so you have to have chain contingency.

itti · Post by **itti** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 6:58 am

Thanks for your advice. I finally managed to survive this fight without any losses. What really helped was "auto pause" set to "target gone" and "spell cast". I played through BG1 with this settings but somewhere in BG2 decided it would hinder game flow too much and almost forgot about "auto pause". Turns out it made a great difference in making sure that no party member get's idle.

As far as damage output goes the tip to use whirlwind attacks for fighters was gold. My pc and Minsc hacked through all melee enemies in very short time. I opened up the battle with "draw upon holy might" and "bless" from a minor sequencer through Aerie and "fireball, magic missle" from a minor sequencer through Imoen (targeted at the succubus) . Right after that Imoen started to cast her only "horrid wilting" and Anomen went on to cast "storm of vengeance". There was a slight chance that any of the two be interrupted by backstabbing enemies but my fighters managed to keep them occupied / invisible. I kept Aerie at casting up to three "holy smite"s and finally (for the lack of any other idea) "mass invisibility".
Turns out at the end I had a pretty annoying phase of battle when all enemies except the succubus were dead but this thing kept going "ethereal" and only manifested to constantly charm Minsc. I had enough "dispell"s ready and even the "Ring of Human Influence" to take care of this tactic.

So yeah it's back to the "auto pause" mode of game play for me. On the other hand I guess I have to fill Imoen's spellbook some more. And I don't know why but "holy smite" never let me down in SoA but somehow I must have thought it would be useless in ToB and never used it there...

Now on to fighting pit fiends in dead magic zones....

-edit: another question: Would "potion of speed" stack with "boots of speed"? I have outfitted all party members except Imoen with such shoe wear.

Philos · Post by **Philos** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:37 pm

I do not believe the potion stacks with the boots. I do believe the potion gives you extra attacks per round while the boots only help you move fast.

Brevan · Post by **Brevan** » Fri May 17, 2013 12:47 pm

Philos wrote:I do not believe the potion stacks with the boots.

It depends on what patches you are using. I forget which patch, but one of them changed the boots of speed from a haste-effect to a simple movement speed effect (as in BG1).

If your boots are improving your attacks per round, then the potion of speed has no effect.

If your boots are not improving your attacks per round, then the potion of speed will stack, and you'll be moving really fast. So fast in fact that it makes the game a bit buggy: always wait for moving NPCs to arrive at their destination (or disappear) before you leave an area or move to that destination. Being able to move from the Svirfneblin camp to Ust Natha entrance in a few seconds is pretty sweet though.