GB Walkthrough: CH6 SH Entrance (spoilers)

Lazigothi · Post by **Lazigothi** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:24 am

[url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddaleii/walkthrough/severedhandentrance.php"]ENtrance to Severed Hand[/url]

I'm just curious if anyone else found the battle at the entrance to the Severed Hand as easy as the walkthrough mentions. I played on maximum difficulty (but not on HOF), whereas my wife played on the easiest difficulty. I played a party of 5 who were all ECL 16 or 17 (Drow Cleric of Bane, Drow Fighter, 1/2 Orc Barbarian, Halfling Rogue/Monk, Tiefling Fighter/Wizard), and she played a party of 6 at an ECL of 15 or 16 all based on suggestions on the thread to powergame (they all have a little bit of classes and skills in everything). We both felt this battle was insanely difficult. She beat it a day before me as the very last re-loaded attempt before going to sleep, but her difficulty was set to easy. She tried again though on the third day, and eventually beat it at around the same time I did with her difficulty raised to the level just below maximum difficulty.

I found this battle as challenging (if not more) than the battles against the Guardian of the Chult Gate, the Iron Monks in the 8 Monastery Trials, and the White Dragons at the entrance to the Underdark.

The third evening I tried it, I succeeded. Here's how:
As a background, I had hundreds of thousands of gp and bought the best that I could afford from Kalduhar and Oswald. I made sure I timed the day just right so that the entrance encounter would take place at night to fully optimize my Drow. I distributed potions of invisibility and sanctuary to the Cleric, Fighter, and Barbarian. My Monk selected Bullets of Force and aimed for the Chimeras.
First Round: After taking the potions, I moved the invisible/ sanctuaried people away enough from the enemy to allow time for them to avoid the initial onslaught of attack, rediverting them to attack the Monk and/or the Wizard. The Monk began tossing Force Bullets at one Chimera and the Wizard cast Maileson, centered on the Guard Commander.
Round Two: Second Chimera seemed to spot the invisible/sanctuaried party members anyway, but the distance was enough to avoid the brunt of the breath weapon. I had the two tanks drink potions of Heroism and then split up: one to attack the Chimera, the other to attack the closest guard. The Cleric cast Power Word: Death and killed that guard instantly. The First Chimera was affected by the Force bullet and had O. Resilient Sphere on it, so I had him immediately targeting the other Chimera. Wizard next cast "slow."
Round Three: Almost all party members were about to die by this point, so Cleric cast "Mass Heal." Everyone else was entrenched, and nothing else changed. My wizard cast "Chromatic Orb" on Guard Commander and successfully paralyzed him.
Round Four: "Mass Heal" went off, then I selected "Recitation." Second Chimera now had O. Resilient Sphere at this point. I had Monk switch to +2 bullets and target a crossbow guard. I believe the first Chimera's Resilient Sphere disappeared, but was successfully paralyzed again by a "Chromatic Orb" from the Wizard (either that or this happened next round).
Round Five: My wizard targeted Crossbow Guard and paralyzed him with a C. Orb. Cleric Cast "Prayer" but the A. Boneguard became a royal pain at this point in targeting the Cleric. The Xbow Guards were targeting Fighter, and was low in hit points. Monk became low in hit points after second Chimera became free again.
Round Six: I moved my Monk away to cast more Force Bullets at second Chimera. Both X-bow guards were now paralyzed by C. Orbs.
Round Seven: Barbarian and Fighter managed to eventually kill first Chimera and Guard Commander. Only ones left were X-bow guards, 1 Chimera, and the A. Boneguard.
Round Eight: The Barbarian now began free to chase the A. Boneguard, who was chasing my Cleric. My Cleric had managed to cast "Heal" at one point, but was brought to near death again quickly from the A. Boneguard, and she was running in circles away from it (Turning did nothing, and the Wizard who had paraylized everyone else, likewise failed to destroy it with arrows of disruption, and the monk failed with his bullets of disruption).
Round Nine: One of the X-bow guards was free again and targeted my fighter again, but now he was free to attack the X-bow Guard.
Round Ten: Eventually, the A. Boneguard went down, and the remaining Chimera was free again.
Round Eleven: The Barbarian was now able to attack the Chimera. Cleric cast Heal again on herself. Monk switched again to +2 bullets and attacked Chimera, and Wizard was shooting arrows at Chimera.
Round Twelve: Chimera went down, and one X-bow was killed as the other X-bow guard was free and taking Fighter to dangerous HP levels.
Round Thirteen: All enemies vanquished. Only the wizard and Cleric (after a second Heal spell) had more than 75% of the HP. Everyone else was at or below 25%, with my Fighter in the red.

My Cleric was constanly targeted after "Prayer" and "Recitation." I chose it was wiser to buff allies and penalyze enemies in mass this way instead of choosing an alternate strategy of using the "Gate" spell. If this latest tactic didn't work, then I would have tried "Gate" instead to see if that was better. I'd be risking having my party members being less effective and being drained of hit points more quickly during the lengthy process of casting Gate, having the damn Gelugon eventually appear, and then randomly attack the nearest, but not necessarily the appropriate NPC. I'd have to go back to Oswald to buy everyone potions of P. from Evil and find time to have everyone drink it first, or find time to have the Cleric cast it while everyone is huddled within a 10' circle, which would have helped deplete my party's HP significantly.

My wife used a similar tactic to mine in creating enough stall time through having her cleric cast "Blasphemy."

Is everyone else finding this encounter as much a cake-walk as the walkthrough indicates (on tough battles, it will say so and recommend strategy), or has everyone else likewise found it challenging?

It might have been easier if my Fighter/Wizard was not a Tiefling suffering from an XP penalty (Level 4 Fighter, and Level 10 Wizard), or if I had 6 characters instead of just 5. Maybe then, this battle would be a cakewalk.

If anyone else found the battle "easy," what tactics made it work so effortlessly?

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:58 pm

At normal difficulty my party just won on the first attempt without any casualties or having to use potions or other items with charges, so I don't even remember much from the battle.
It was probably solved with standard tactics, summons, mass haste,bard song, ranged attacks, maybe some other spells like chain or call ligtning tossed in.

I guess you had problems because your party was weak. Only 5 characters, only 1 1/2 of them spellcasters which rule the game. You didn't even have access to very important arcane spells like "mass haste", which alone can make a big difference.
I guess your wife also had a crappy party, "a little bit of classes and skills in everything" yields only crippled spellcasters without access to the very important high level spells.

I'd never drink potions of sanctuary or invisibility during battle, this just disables your characters for 1 round. 4 ranged attacks, an extra summon, other spells or other things you can do during one round help far more.

Philos · Post by **Philos** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:03 pm

My first party had 6 members but only 1 and 2/3rd spell casters. My main caster was my Cleric of Lathander level 15 or 16 the second was an elven fighter/mage that was 6/10 respectively. Well, I also had both a single class ranger (15th) and a paladin (also 15th) who could toss low level spells. The ranger's entangle came in handy. The other two party members were a Sverfneblin fighter (13th) and a Tiefling Rogue/Barbarian.

Since it was my first go through I was playing on Normal. The fight wasn't too bad, I also had no casualties (as in deaths). I did not use any summons but did use one or two potions. I had my ranger toss entangle in the rear of the enemy back enough to miss my party. Most of the crew fired missle weapons focusing on one at a time while my paladin and Sverneblin kept the Chimeras, et al, shall we say "entertained". The Paladin and gnome both had AC of 30 plus and with mirror image cast on himself (a great natural Sverf. ability), the gnome came through the fight either without a scratch or perhaps just one hit. I think my cleric used flame strike a couple of times, but memory is fuzzy on that. The Paladin needed a heal from the cleric at one point in the fight.

Lazigothi · Post by **Lazigothi** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 9:08 am

That's what I figured. My Wizard can only cast 5th Level spells. If there were more Drow voices, I probably would have chosen a third Drow to be the Fighter/Wizard instead of Tiefling. I didn't think the XP penalty would prove that significant sticking to a party of 5 (I originally tried a party of 4, but Targos was very challenging at max difficulty). Mass Haste would have been very sweet.

I'm hoping that when I beat the game, that when I play HOF, that the choices I made "will" work out. Starting the HOF game, my highest level Drow FIghter, will advance as Wizard after hitting 20th as Fighter, and I plan on adding more Fighter levels to my Tiefling Wizard only after I start HOF.

My wife is using the GB Forum guide to powergaming to create Frankenstein characters that follow the fine tradition of min-maxing. As mentioned, no doubt this follows the same failing with my party to have made the first Severed Hand battle easier.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:37 am

.

As I understand you correctly your wife took my powergaming party?

Not sure what she did wrong, as I even remember that fight!

At least the Sorc and the Main Cleric should be able to cast L7 or even L8 spells at that point.

And on normal mode (hardest difficulty) there wasn't any difficult fight after the Guardian with that party.

The most challenging fight of the game are the four Golems in the monastry. (Besides the ultra hard battles from the "Undead Targos Mod")

If you post the party of your wife at that point and give me a few more details what enemies you/she challenge in that fight, I will try to help.

.

Lazigothi · Post by **Lazigothi** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:06 pm

silverdragon72 wrote:.

As I understand you correctly your wife took my powergaming party?

Not sure what she did wrong, as I even remember that fight!

At least the Sorc and the Main Cleric should be able to cast L7 or even L8 spells at that point.

And on normal mode (hardest difficulty) there wasn't any difficult fight after the Guardian with that party.

The most challenging fight of the game are the four Golems in the monastry. (Besides the ultra hard battles from the "Undead Targos Mod")

If you post the party of your wife at that point and give me a few more details what enemies you/she challenge in that fight, I will try to help.

.

Thank you Silverdragon.

I know that she's pretty much going skill by skill, feat by feat, following the advice as much to the letter. I'll get her stats and relay them tomorrow. I know that another problem her games always have is that her characters never seem to cast spells, drink potions, or attack who she has them click to attack. I've seen her have this happen, and I'm at a loss to help her beyond thinking it's some kind of bug. There's no chance of arcane spell failure, and I've seen when her characters' aren't damaged to disrupt spellcasting, but her casters simply fail to cast spells sometimes. She's also jealous that I got the Every God's ring and she didn't in the battle just inside the Severed Hand. After reasoning that it might have been due to that I played on max difficulty, she still didn't get it after winning on max difficulty. I think it might be a random/luck thing and suggested she try a few times, but she's doubtful.

If I remember, I'll have that info by tomorrow morning.

Lazigothi · Post by **Lazigothi** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 8:55 am

These are the characters' stats my wife's running:

Human: Bard 5, Druid 11

Drow: Barb 1, Fighter 2, Rogue 2, Wizard 10

Aasimar: Painbearer of Ilmater 13, Paladin of Ilmater 2

Assimar: Paladin of Mystra 2, Sorceress 13

Drow: Dreadmaster of Bane 9, Fighter 2, Rogue 3

Tiefling: Rogue 1, Wizard 14

agc28 · Post by **agc28** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 5:48 pm

I tried a Bard 5/Druid x and i completely hated it. i found the bard 5 levels completely useless. I used a dual-wield-mace ranger 1/druid x and it has been awesome.

I thought all of the battles were easy in normal (normal difficulty). I killed the guardian on the second turn with disintegrate (I had my sorcerer and druid finger the guardian at the same time). the battle you talked about was one of the easiest battles I fought.

I even thought the final battle was too easy. I buffed up all my characters pre-battle and during the first turn of the battle I casted Dispel magic on Isair by mistake, because I didn't realize dispel magic was an area-effecting spell. This wiped out all of the buff I had on my own characters and I proceeded with no buff whatsoever. And I casted antimagic with my wizard and I didn't realize the spell affects the caster himself (I wanted to cast it on Isair), and that made my wizard useless for the rest of the battle. Still, I won without using any potions or even the heal spell.

Icewind dale was kinda too easy and not very combat-oriented. I was disappointed. The hardest battle I fought was with the four iron golems in the underdark.

EDIT: every god ring can be bought from nathaniel. (You ask him to heal you to get the trade screen). I found another every god ring in severed hand inside a cabin. (was I too lucky? was that a random 'drop'?). So i have one ring on my druid and one on my Cleric. they are both powerful characters

Aerich · Post by **Aerich** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:12 pm

You can also talk your way past this battle.

Lazigothi · Post by **Lazigothi** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:28 pm

Aerich wrote:You can also talk your way past this battle.

This sounds really cool. The walkthrough says you can't succeed, so I didn't even bother to re-configure party arrangement to get the automated conversation initiate with my diplomat. The walkthrough just mentions that the best option is the info you can learn, and so I just fight after I at least succeed with the gleaned info.