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I'm aware that it's not really supposed to be winnable, but Stworca's Let's Play inspired me to give it a shot.

My party consists of a level 19 Inquisitor, a 15/15 fighter/cleric, a 14/14 fighter/druid, a 15/14 fighter/mage, a 19 archer, and a 19 sorcerer. SCSII, Ease of Use, and Ascension installed, no components from Tactics or the Improved Asylum (which is proving to be a disadvantage since I do not have the associated cheese items e.g. Sanchuudoku, nor do I have any bonus content items since I installed the SCSII component that moves them). To make up for the (relative) lack of cheesy items, but mostly because I am a complete wussy, I am allowing myself the use of HLAs and the above-mentioned absurdly high levels.

I'm doing just fine up to the first really large wave with a fighter/mage+mage combo along with 15ish other drow. In a word: the archer dies. Inquisie has the hp to take a few hits, F/D and F/M have stoneskins, F/C has inhuman constitution and more buffs than you can shake a stick at, and sorcy just laughs at attempts to damage him at all. The archer, OTOH, has Armor of Faith. That's it. If 13 drow decide to focus him, he is DEAD. Deeeeaaaad. Dead. Resurrection this early in the fight is painful as his buffs are not even expired and he is easily focused down again as he runs off and attempts to heal.

Problem #2 is just killing these guys fast enough without blowing too many items and spells. Even with chancing a couple of incendiary clouds and sunfires, there's always a few drow left by the time the next wave spawns; usually one of the mages and the priestess that loves globe of blades. It's an uphill battle from there.

My main questions are:

1. How might I keep this squishy archer alive, and

2. At what point is it generally wise to start using limited and extremely powerful things e.g. improved haste from the Ring of Gaxx or scrolls, PFMW, Dragon's Breath, and most of all sunfires?

3. Other general advice.

Thanks for your time.

EDIT: One more thing - what is a good defense against Globe of Blades/Blade Barrier (forgot which one)? It hasn't been a huge problem so far, but it seems like on a couple of my attempts, some of my lower hp characters (archer...) were insta-chunked thanks to this spell. I'm rather wary of meleeing the priestesses now unless I'm sure they'll go down in less than 3 seconds.

Blomdor wrote: My main questions are:

1. How might I keep this squishy archer alive

By having the melee and summons block the attackers from him.
Alternatively : Give him tons of invisibility potions.
There really isn't anything you can do.

2. At what point is it generally wise to start using limited and extremely powerful things e.g. improved haste from the Ring of Gaxx or scrolls, PFMW, Dragon's Breath, and most of all sunfires?

Ideally you want to have Impr. Haste active on your core physical damage dealer at ALL times. With 4 to 5 spells / scrolls that should be achievable.
Dragon's Breath, sunfires and so on, when there are too many enemies on screen to handle, and they are bunched together.
PFMW : Whenever you need to.

One more thing - what is a good defense against Globe of Blades/Blade Barrier (forgot which one)? It hasn't been a huge problem so far, but it seems like on a couple of my attempts, some of my lower hp characters (archer...) were insta-chunked thanks to this spell. I'm rather wary of meleeing the priestesses now unless I'm sure they'll go down in less than 3 seconds.

The only way to do that is to either spike the priestess in 1 spell tick, or dispel the effect ASAP.

Keep trying, good sir. It's more than worth it!

Wow, OK. I happen to have exactly 5 scrolls saved up, plus the Ring of Gaxx and a pair of bracers that cast it. I was being extremely stingy with IH i.e. not casting it at all, trying to wait until the last few waves. Will try keeping the F/C and/or Inquisie buffed with it as soon as this problem wave appears next time.

The weird thing about the blade barrier that these priestesses cast is that 90% of the time it doesn't do anything. Almost every time, the one at the entrance platform just goes down without incident. Then, every once in a while, it chunks half the party. My party has VERY good ranged dps overall so will use bows to take them down mostly (unless they cast physical mirror...maybe warrants a dispel at that point).

I have found that the archer's deaths are reduced if I can keep him in the middle of all other party members. It's funny watching the sorcerer eat hits for him. Not a perfect strategy but it keeps him from being sir dies-a-lot.

Thanks for replying.

EDIT: I made it past THAT wave. THAT. WAVE. I have been trying for two days. What's more, the party is in absolutely perfect condition, all buffs still going strong, and the big guns have actually not been fired yet, though I expect that will change very soon.

The only thing that bothers me is that the priestesses blew out the clouds and keep slowing my cpu to a crawl with endless blade barrier message spam. Hopefully there are enough dispels to keep blade barriers off the screen altogether...as for their casting zone of sweet air, I still have plenty of clouds in reserve but am unsure how to keep enough pressure on the priestesses to keep them from doing the same in the future. The casting time is very short.

Scared to unpause the game...

Happy Easter and many thanks for your help here!

Actually I was able to finish it just with my sorc lvl20.
Tactics+SCSII+Bg2 tweaks+Insane+using only vanilla equip+no hla
What I did was standing in the ritual room with my char, casting project image and move to the central room, here starts the siege.
Protect yourself from fire (really easy since at this point you will have the elemental fire ring, a fire shield will do the rest), summon ONE mordekainen sword (do not waste them! They will save your ass vs demons later and will keep the aggro at the centre of the room), keep always 1/2 active fire clouds in the middle of the room and bring enemies there using the sword.
I was able to kill the first 2 waves in this way, w/o losing spells (except for one lvl7).
Repeat the process with another pj, this time you will have to dispell the fireshields of some mages, cast sunfires and all the swords (then haste them to make them more effective) and clouds you have.
At this point the battle in the main room will be very annoying due to the drows spamming teleport fields.
Once your pj is over it's time for your char to appear in the show.
Unlike your pj, you con use contingencies and chain cont.
Best way to explode some drows with contingency: use the auto-pause after casting a spell, cast sunfire (the game will pause), put a fireball in your contingency on enemy sight. You will be immune to fire (both for your supposed protection and sunfire, which provides 100% fire resist for 3sec) and your fireball will ignore magic resist., since it was cast on yourself just like sunfire does.
But what's even more funny is to put "1fire cloud+1mord. sword+1spell you need", each fire cloud tick will ignore magic resistance. Easy enough to burn all the drows in 2/3 rounds.
The only problems you will find are: the Archmage (annoying for the sword, due to his AHB. But will simply have to recast them, since you are suppose to be using the ones summoned by the pj) and the demons. The first is nothing more than a high lvl mage, dispell his protection and he will join the grill. As regards the demons cast spell immunity: abjuration (so the glabrezu won't dispell your pfmw while your tanking balors) and use all your sword to get rid of them. If you still have some lower resistance cast them and then use AHW and MM (skull trap would kill your swords too).

Btw my equip was: staff of the magi (usefull to hit+dispell enemies fireshields w/o wasting spells), wizard ring, fire elem ring, sling that allows to apply strenght bonus, robe of vecna, cloak of balduran, AC 3 gloves, stone that gives +10% hp and +1thaco.
If you want to make it even more easy, buy a simulacrum scroll at the seller in the main ust'nata square.
If you have any question just ask
Btw congrats to you Stworca, you opened the way to many strategies both for this siege and the improve asylum party.