Level drain penetrating stoneskin?

Csonka · Post by **Csonka** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:01 am

Hi! So i've been playing a caster heavy party recently and vampires been giving my mages a hard time since level drain is going right through stoneskin.

Is this a bug? If yes is there a fix somewhere on the net?

If it's not a bug then can someone give me some ideas how to avoid level drain? (That blasted negative plain protection lasts long enough to kill a single vamp maybe.)

Sarg · Post by **Sarg** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:34 am

I don't think it's a bug... I thought stoneskin only protect's against direct attack's

I think magic blocking (or a similar spell) stop's level drain from getting through.
A good spell to use against Vampire's is that DAWN one (maybe someone else can confirm it's proper name for me as I've not played the game in a while...Bit rusty) - you can knock out a few vamp's at a time with that one
Hope I've helped

stramoski · Post by **stramoski** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:04 am

Negative plane protection/Amulet of Power/Mace of Disruption +2.

Those are all accessable to low-level parties, and all block lvl-drain.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:19 am

Stoneskin isn't supposed to protect from level drain any more than it protects from elemental damage, level drain is closer to magic damage than it is to physical damage.

If you want to protect yourself from the melee hits from a vampire the level 6 spell "Protection from Magic Weapons" works amazingly well for a mage.

I tend to find in general when I'm fighting with vampires I always keep a lesser restoration spell handy but more often than not I use "Protection from Evil 10' radius", it's only supposed to do minimal amounts to hit rolls and so forth but it seems to almost prevent my characters from getting hit in the first place.

The best spell to use against undead is "Sunray" by far, simply because all the other undead affecting spells just don't have a decent enough spell duration or cast time.

Csonka · Post by **Csonka** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:38 am

Thanks for the advice, it's just that i went through the underdark (and the game in general) rather fast and now stand before bodhi's lair with a somewhat low level party and vampires been a pain in the ass this game.

Haer'daelis can always steal some protection from magical weapons scrolls.

The amulet of power only protects one guy and these blasted vampires run all around the corridors and pop up right behind me feasting on the support mages.

btw the party is fighter/mage, edwin, nalia, imoen, aerie, haer'daelis. once i reach timestop and improved alacrity and stuff with everyone it'll be easy!

FireLighter · Post by **FireLighter** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:05 pm

Flase dawn is the cleric spell (or druid) that kills vampires. Sunray from the daystar long sword is also good. Also the spell sunray. Neg. Plane Protection works wonders. Amulet of power, mace of disruption+2, and neg plane protection on ur front liners and keep the mages fairly far back (not off screen) enough so that the vamps dont target ur mages that arent protected. Also maybe mirror image will stop them from level drainging you if they hit the image instead of you.

flounder · Post by **flounder** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:09 pm

Yeah, Sunray is very effective against vampires. The last time I played when I fought Bohdi in her lair and she calls all those minions to help her out, I wiped out the entire group with a single sunray spell (in fact doing over 1,000 points of damage to a couple) and it took a single hit to kill her.

FireLighter · Post by **FireLighter** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:14 pm

[QUOTE=flounder]Yeah, Sunray is very effective against vampires. The last time I played when I fought Bohdi in her lair and she calls all those minions to help her out, I wiped out the entire group with a single sunray spell (in fact doing over 1,000 points of damage to a couple) and it took a single hit to kill her.[/QUOTE]
The over 1,000 points of dmg is because of them not making their saves. It is just a random number above 1,000 to make sure they die and that you do not kill undead that cannot be killed yet by not being able to go under 1 hp (bodhi in chapter 3). There for it is a random high number and not an instant death.

flounder · Post by **flounder** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:23 pm

But it sure looks impressive in the window.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:27 pm

If you have a caster heavy party, you can also have summoned pets get in close to the vamps while you pick them off with ranged weapons and spells from a distance.

Also, if you have a cleric, don't forget about the Turn Undead ability; it can be highly effective.

FireLighter · Post by **FireLighter** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:32 pm

With a high enough level cleric = high level turn undead you can blow them to chunks with just that ability.

greg28j · Post by **greg28j** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:48 pm

Dragon Wench is right. I'd have aerie cast invis. or sanctuary (both low lvl spells) and walk throughout the place turning undead.Turning does not cancel invis.If it does not kill them outright it will make them flee, allowing your other crew to bring 'em down