I am clearing the Cloakwood Sector 4 map and while I killed the shadow druids in the southwest corner I am having a devil of a time trying to kill the two adult wyveryns and two baby wyverns in the cave and am not sure why. My party consists of:
Me (F/M/T)
Minsc
Khalid
Jaheira
Imoen (dualed to a mage)
Branwen
Any strategy suggestions? I do not have a fireball spell for Imoen yet and am unsure if that is what I am lacking. I am coming into the cave buffed with barkskin, bless, etc. I have antidote potions, but it seems like I still take a ton of damage before I can use the potions and then I get poisoned again very quickly. Have tried web and entangle spells, but the wyverns quickly are upon me and they don't seem to be helping much at all.
You don't need the fireball spell for this encounter (which is completely optional).
The way to handle it it, in my opinion, would be to use Khalid as a decoy, having him run around, catching the wyvren's attention, while Branwen is casting animate dead.
The PC and Imoen should be stealthed and ready to backstab, and after they do, you should have them retreat and hide again.
Jahiera can either fight or summon animals to help.
Another alternative is to have Jahiera be the decoy and have the rest of the party pummel the wyvren with ranged weapons.
Don't be afraid to run outside the cave in mid combat to recover and catch your breath.
You should probably take out the baby wyvrens first though.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
I am assuming that you are playing the vanilla game. If you are playing Tutu different tactics are required. If you keep your party as near as possible to the exit, the wyverns cannot reach you and you can use ranged weapons. As has already been said, take out the baby wyverns whilst their path to the gap in the rocks is blocked by the big guys. Then switch to the big guys. If you are still finding it difficult, you can always return later. There are scrolls that protect from poison at High Hedge. You only need to protect the guy at the front so long as those at the back stay clear of danger.
There are some more baby wyverns to the north of the cave. If you approach those and retreat over the bridge, they cannot cross and you can take them out with ranged weapons.
In Tutu, the tactics required are different as they can get past the rocks to attack you. This is best done after you have acquired the boots of speed at the top of the cloakwood mines. You can then take them out with one character quite easily. Lure them outside and take them out with ranged weapons, using the boots of speed to keep yourself out of danger.
Animate dead is a nice spell since skeletons are immune to poison.
Keep in mind that you don't have to clear this cave unless you need a wyvern head to do the quest required to stop Coran from leaving.
In this case it might be worth killing only one at the front, collecting the head and running away and leaving this cave for later.
If I recall correctly a solo archer with Arrows of Biting was what I used to take them out. Poison kills most things that are not undead. Run in, shoot once or twice, run out. Repeat till dead.
Thanks for all the great ideas. I ended up completing the wyvern cave after I finished the cloakwood mines. It seemed a lot easier (although I did lose one of my party members and had to go back to temple and raise dead). I used an Insect Swarm on one of the big ones and focused on killing the baby wyverns first. I was highly buffed and had memorized a lot of slow poison spells with both Jaheira and Yeslick (whom I dropped Branwen for in the mines).
Also, as mentioned I cast two Animate Dead spells to help and it seemed to work relatively well.
Off topic: When at a temple with a dead character there are two options
1. Raise Dead
2. Restoration
Restoration according to the description should raise the character and heal them of all wounds, but it doesn't seem to work right. It works exactly like a Raise Dead spell (i.e. leaving all the character's wounds intact) which is kind of odd. Not sure if it is bugged?
Restoration removes level drain, and if I recall correctly, it's useless in Baldur's Gate I. It must be a component added by Tutu.
The spell you're thinking of is called Resurrection.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
Crenshinibon wrote:Restoration removes level drain, and if I recall correctly, it's useless in Baldur's Gate I. It must be a component added by Tutu.
The spell you're thinking of is called Resurrection.
Yes, you are correct. And I am fairly certain I was using Resurrection (not restoration), but I will have to check tomorrow and report back. In any case the spell description in the temple said it would Raise Dead and restore all hit points. I will confirm which it was and see if I am in error or perhaps it's a bug.
If Imoen or the main character have Mirror Image, and if you can buff their AC to at least -5 or 6, you can have either of these characters tank while you use range with the other characters. Also, you can throw AoE scrolls/spells/potions into the fray because MI protects fairly well against AoE (just be sure to have back-up MI's).
If you have a scroll of slow or other debilitating debuffs, that'd make things work better.
