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So, how does one make the hardest battle in Icewind Dale seem like the easiest? What is the key?

Well, the answer is luck, and an absolutely massive dose of it!

Ingredients:

1 x Ranger, specialising in Great Swords
A party of 4 or less members so he will have 3 attacks by this stage
1 x Another strong tank to distract Yxunomei
1 x The Snow Maiden's Reaver (Great Sword)
Amazing luck

While searching the treasure boxes in the Temple of the Forgotten God, one of the locations which provides genuinely random drops in the game and often a source of great excitement or great let-down, I found The Snow Maiden's Reaver, Arguably the best weapon in the game.

Here is it's description:

[ATTACH]4460.vB[/ATTACH]

The sword has zero slashing value and is made of pure cold. Although it only offers a 2% chance to freeze it's victim (one in 50) that's still quite good odds in the hands of a Ranger hitting at least 2 and a half times per round, 3 times at level 7. You will likely get at least one explosive death during every big pile-up the game offers.

The sword looks like this:

[ATTACH]4461.vB[/ATTACH]

And even looks awesome when you walk about with it like this:

[ATTACH]4462.vB[/ATTACH]

However, it's totally useless against some creatures, particularly ghosts, so it has zero use in the Spine of the World, but was incredibly awesome in Dragon's Eye and will come back to use against Neo-Orogs, Dark Elves and many of the creatures in lower Dorn's Deep. It's only a +2 weapon but I'll probably try it on Belhifet anyway beings as he is from the fire domain.

This sword is even more powerful than anything a spellcaster can produce as there is no saving throw, no limit to it's use and no way to buff against it other than a creature's natural resistance to cold. It's like walking round with a permanent mini Cone of Cold spell on the go.

So anyway, I thought to myself wouldn't it be awesome if I can get lucky and obliterate Yxunomei with it, and low and behold not only did this happen, but it happened within 3 seconds of first contact!

I readied my troops behind the door in the next corridor and sent my Paladin to go get Yxunomei, my summoned Skeletons took the brunt of Yxunomei's first wave of spells then I just waited for her to come through the doorway.

Here's Yxunomei shattered into a large number of small white pieces while in the middle of casting a spell:

[ATTACH]4463.vB[/ATTACH]

(The dead character you see on the screen is a thief I cheatedly summoned before opening Yxunmoei's door to remove the traps, unfortunately 50 points in Traps, the most possible for a newly created character, is not enough to do this job - the traps were made visible by my Cleric's Trap Detection spell, but that spell doesn't remove them)

So for those that get fed up trying to take down this beast of an end-boss and are ready to quit, if you can make one cheat in the game just find a way to import this weapon and keep trying until you get lucky! I got uber-lucky as I found the weapon in-game and got the result on the first attempt, but I see no reason why you should feel bad in cheating this weapon into your game, it makes everything awesome good fun!

Intrigued by this weapon I did a search to find out what other people have been saying about it. The results were interesting but somewhat ill-informed for people wanting to experiment with it, so I thought I'd bring my findings to bare here so I can help by separating the good information from the bad.

I've got a 'freezing' bastard sword that freezes the opponent on 2% of hits but I have yet to figure out if that means hold them in place or shatter them into fragments (and lose the loot).

It shatters them.

& yes, the loot is lost except for quest items, so one can still explode a boss and continue the game.

The "freezing" weapon (Snow Maiden's Reaver?) is the same effect as petrification. It's an instant-kill effect. I believe you cannot get any items from anything that is affected by it. Because the chance is so low, I usually sell it to help me buy something that is more generically useful.

The drops from bosses are nice, but not deal breakers in Icewind Dale. The main bulk of finds will be from boxes and stashes. The weapon is mainly useful for Dragon's Eye only and the majority of creatures on these levels have no drops at all anyway - Trolls, insects, Spiders, Cadaverous Undead, most Yuan-ti. Lizard Men drop minor gold and Yuan-ti Elite drop some nice Arrows, but that's about it.

Yeah, that makes sense to sell the cold maiden sword. Only my bard wields great swords at the moment and he mostly sings or stays away from anyone tough enough that a 2% instakill is a factor.

There's a huge difference between a low thac0 character with one attack per round and a high thac0 fighter with 2/3 attacks per round using the weapon. I would not consider this an automatic sell item by any means, quite the opposite!

I have used parties where no characters have specialised in Great Swords, in which case, yes, sell, but in all other circumstances, no waaaay.

Although I'd love to be the guy that kills something supremely annoying (and has no loot) with an instakill

That guy would be me! Lol

It's a great way to kill Trolls without the use of Fire or Acid. And I'd class Yxunomie as supremely annoying :mischief: and well worth the 'loss' of a couple of special items.

I agree that the freezing effect is cool when it works, but that the sword is overall fairly worthless because it has such a low, low chance of working.

Even when it doesn't 'work' it's still inflicting damage as good as any other weapon. Some creatures just have better Cold Resistance than others, but in Dragon's Eye that's not really an issue.

Yes, I found the Snow Maiden's Reaver in the second level of the Temple of the Forgotten God. The only drawback I have found with this weapon are its relative uselessness against cold-based foes; it is only +2, so don't try it against Yxunomei

Yxunomie, in the original release, could only be hit by +3 weapons, but this was changed to +2 very quickly and it's unlikely you'll have a version which has the +3 restriction (though may be possible with a few people).

& I think I've proven quite well that it works just fine on Yxunomie, lol.

i just wanted it because it had a 'cool' special effect.

And that is easily the best thing about this weapon, big cigar to this guy!

Best special effects of any weapon in the game!

Huuuuuh??

She ALWAYS drops in 3 seconds... or doesn't drop at all.

It's not a dragon fight or anything, just a big scary-looking boss with a few immunities - very hit or miss. Either you came equipped correctly and you win in seconds, or you planned wrong and she chunks the lot of you.

Also, imho, GETTING to her is A LOT harder than her actual fight.

Ooo, how exciting, someone's seen my post!

Do you like the Snow Maiden's Reaver?

Man, the drops I got in this game were totally lame. I remember being utterly bored with the temple of the forgotten god on every playthrough.

Granted, cold damage is more unreliable than usual in the IWD games, but still, just being a +2 weapon that does elemental damage is extremely nice at such an early point in the game.

Anything that insta-kills trolls is good in my book. God, I hate trolls.