chromatic dragon - insane difficulty

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 8:44 am

I don't mean to rehash an old topic. Yes, I have searched the forums but didn't come across anything specifically related to what I am asking.

Question: My party consists of
me (barb/thief)
korgan
jaheira
viconia
edwin
imoen

As the post states, I'm on level 2 of watcher's keep with only the chromatic demon to face. Never before in any game in this series have I had more problems defeating an enemy. Everyone is right around 2.9 million XP and I am on the insane difficulty setting. I am not able to take this guy down. As soon as I get him to near death, he must use some type of heal spell because all of a sudden he is back to barely injured. I tried to defeat him this morning and he went through:

4 Mord. swords
8 skeleton warriors
4 fire elementals
2 simulacrums
1 project image
4 misleads
viconia
jaheira
edwin
me
400 missiles (arrows, darts, bolts, bullets)

Every attack seems to only do one point of damage. Additionally, if you switch attacks to the element which will damage the demon (ex. fire demon - use arrows of ice), it seems to do an additional two points. Even still, I could not take him down.

I had faced him once before but it was with a monk and maybe on normal difficulty. Used traps and quivering palm to mince him in one round.

Traps don't seem to affect on insane difficulty, I don't have a monk, and I tried the trick to lure him into the ice room where the poison cloud is and that had no effect either.

Just stumped and would appreciate some input. Thanks for reading a rehashed topic; although old threads didn't reveal any new info.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 11:14 am

Isn't he hard to hit with weapons? Mayby you should try more magic attacks.

You can lower the difficulty.

Keep him running after one party member while the rest shoot at him with unlimited bullets.

Use limited stuff (like staffs ect.)

Also I think spells like doom and what's it's name(with the old man on a walking stick), work good.

And that is as far as I can help you...good luck

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 11:49 am

I'd rather not lower the difficulty. I bumped it up at spellhold because things just became too easy.

I was using the 'run one guy around and have everyone else pelt him' tactic but as soon as he gets low on hp's he just heals himself; aka bttfdb.

doom didn't seem to do much (I hit him with eight so it should be -16 to rolls, no, or does ToB patch remove the stackability of doom). the other spell you are referring to is ray of enfeeblement, I think. Never used it.

Rob-hin

What magic attacks and limited stuff are you talking about???

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 12:14 pm

My advice would be to decide which element your party is best versed for taking down. I find that the spell selection makes Ice the most practical, but Ice has the smallest footprint making it harder to hide form (for the other elements, simply put one of your party round the back ot the cage, Demo tries to reach the character but can't).

Some Fireballs and Flame Strikes can do a lot of damage. Summon some Fire Elementals as well, and top off with Fire Arrows.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 12:45 pm

Quitch,

Will fire based spells do more than one or two points of damage when old chromey is in the ice golem form. I hadn't noticed.

MordorMan · Post by **MordorMan** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 1:25 pm

Ned, what is the explanation when he heals himself? Can you figure out if he uses spells? If so, maybe you can use the level drain spell on him, so that he loses spells.

Or maybe he heals himself after having gone through all his stages or something like that? That means you should finish him off quickly.

Maybe you could try casting multiple lower restistances followed by a finger of death or something. Or you could try waiting for him to be in his ice form and then cast time stop and throw all your heavy fire damage spells at him, as quickly as possible (spell triggers, improved alacrity etc.) Maybe you can even increase the fire damage you can do in a short time by cloning your wizard...

Anyway, I hope for you the game was tested on insane difficulty also. It would be a shame to have to turn the difficulty level down when you're stuck.

Good luck,

MM

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 3:01 pm

Mordor man,

thanks for your suggestions. I had already tried a few before starting this thread.

As far as ol' chromey healing himself, I can't even find anything in the text mentioning it although logic suggests that after he completes one 'cycle' of all of his forms, he is healed. great thinking. As a matter of fact, he glows at certain points, will have to check more carefully.

lower resistances worked well but spells still didn't seem to affect him. again, something I need to test a little further (although multiple dooms didn't seem to slow him down.

time stop always fails. already tried to get off a time stop when he was in ice form.

next step is to try three flame arrows in a sequencer and melt his a$$ in ice form.

Any other folks on this thread take him down on insane difficulty. This is exactly what this is - INSANE!!!

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 3:03 pm

With my method Ned you wouldn't have to close in with your party, thus the difficulty isn't really going to hurt you. In my experience Fireballs and Flamestrikes do quite a bit of damage to his ice form. Plus Jaheira can do the Fire Elementals, just summon as many as you have slots at that level.

Yes, it heals every time it changes form.

Arch_Angel · Post by **Arch_Angel** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 6:31 pm

I have never tried this myself, but if all those other things have failed why don't you try to shapechange into a mindflayer and drain his intellegence. Obviously have someone else keep him busy while you hit him from behind. I hope that works

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 7:15 pm

At least, he has fallen!!!!!

All stars
Chromatic orb
ring of the ram

here's how it went

summoned 4 skeleton warriors, 1 mordenkainens sword (only have one - didn't want to rest)

jaheira and viccy casting doom (nine total)
edwin project image (ring of the ram, 4 lower resistance, 3 greater malison, 2 chromatic orbs)
edwin after image dispelled (ring of the ram, 2 chromatic orbs)
me barb/thief - celestial fury, flail of ages
korgan +2 throwing axe that returns to hand
imoen - mislead both with tuigan bow and ice arrows

Oh yeah, Jaheira -- NATURE'S BEAUTY (that should be the first all star)

anyway that's it. he only transformed from original form to air elemental form when he bit the dust.

got him to chase the m's sword immmediately so that took care of his attack. Nature's beauty blinded him. each blast of ring of the ram hit for 15 each. four total chromatic orbs each for 10-20 points a piece. Once edwin got the lower resistance/greater malison combo going Conan, that's me, just kept hammering him and he'd fail saves against CF (stun) and FoA (slow). It was really a piece but that's nature's beauty really got me started in the right spot. Thanks again to all who read and posted their ideas. It all helped alot. I'm glad I toasted his a$$ at the insane level and didn't have to lower the difficulty. It's just going to get tougher from here.

YAKMAN YAKMAN YAKMAN

Custanius · Post by **Custanius** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 10:27 pm

This is probably a spoiler, do if you dont like it, dont read it.
This demon can be really easy if you know how to kill it...do you remember how you defeated the four elements on this level? yes, electricity to posion, posion to ice, ice to fire, and fire to electricity. So, when the demon begin to change shape, use proper magic spells on kill, say, if he turns to a fire demon, use ice wand or ice storm, if he turns to a greenish gaint, use lighting on him by this way, his not so hard...
Second way, this is a cheap way, move 5 of you char to a isolate room, have one char with boot of speed to lure him into the posion room, then close both door(dont forget to get out of the room yourself)and turn of the fan in the upper room as well.hehehe,he isnt hard, really......

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 10:42 pm

Custanius

Neither of those methods worked on the insane difficulty setting. Lured him into the ice room where the poison cloud was to no effect. Ice arrows when he was in 'fire' demon form did one point of damage. Electric arrows from the gesen bow and the lightning bolts from the crossbow each did one point of damage.

All I can think of is this has to do with the insane difficulty setting or my game is bugged. Everything was only doing one point of damage. that is why I started this thread. I was confused because the means at which he had been defeated in the past weren't working.

Welcome to the boards.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Sep 17, 2001 10:45 pm

@ Cust,

Just curious if you entirely read my initial post in this thread. I pretty much answered all your spoilers there.

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 9:15 am

Great info on what works there, ned - I never had much luck with the fire kills ice blah blah techniques myself and would just resort to the old greater whirlwind shuffle. of course, I haven't played on "insane" because I'm not crazy! So anyway i'll remember nature's beauty doom malison orb orb ring of ram.

Congrats on doing it w/o resting, by the way. What is your total game time???

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 3:19 pm

Stacking Dooms? Tsk tsk, got to Baldurdash and eliminate such cheese

I think they rather messed up on the whole elements thing. You simply don't get enough of a damage bonus for picking the right one.

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 3:45 pm

Originally posted by Quitch:
<STRONG>Stacking Dooms? Tsk tsk, got to Baldurdash and eliminate such cheese </STRONG>

But then, Doom as implemented in the game does not do everything it's supposed to, right? It just lowers saving throws, not other rolls? So stacking it evens things out a little.

Originally posted by Quitch:
<STRONG>I think they rather messed up on the whole elements thing. You simply don't get enough of a damage bonus for picking the right one.</STRONG>

I agree - I usually don't have good weapons in one or more of the elements, or my fighters don't have proficiencies in those weapons, but then when I go to old reliable crom faer, flail of ages, etc, they work better and Chroma demon goes down.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 6:02 pm

Quitch,

I almost never stack doom because it is cheeze. I was just really reaching for any advantage.

Jaker,

Another good item is the dragon halberd. I forgot to mention that item. All the elemental damage gets through and that's five points.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 6:11 pm

@THEJAKER,

My total game is almost 86 days. I experienced several bugs with certain characters and tried resting several times with different NPC's to get rid of bugs. Most of the time the bug was just affiliated with that particular NPC in a particular area. Weird huh? The other reason my days are so long are I used every NPC and did his her quest in the game. I still have to finish watcher's keep and the final battle with Jon and then move onto Saradush. I really wanted to see all of the NPC interaction so I mixed and matched a lot. There were some real interesting reactions and I always tried to the game as close as possible to a dysfunctional soap opera. Real weird parties by alignment and class grouping. Sometimes heavy on tanks, sometimes heavy on magic. The best grouping was viccy, keldorn, cernd, korgan, and mazzy. It was a constant bickering match and viccy or korgan was making fun of someone. Anyway, the group posted at the top of this thread was the gang I decided to keep once things got heavy (spellhold and beyond). I really think I have few stones left to turn in the game although I want to take one more group of NPC's to the underdark. (Mazzy, valygar, cernd, jan, haer'dalis, and Nalia although one of them can't go)

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 7:33 pm

Try sunstone bullets. by the time I read this post I wasn't hitting the forum much, new game, anyway I once used sunstone bullets against the temple slaver compound baalor of the eye, and even though it was invulnerable to most sspells and attacks, it took 14 damage per hit, without any problems. Ive also heard they do really well against undead.

but big hint...on level 1 is some sunstone bullets, and while you can use them against the master wraith....chromo demon...

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 8:44 pm

That sounds like a really cool game, ned. I've wanted to do some of the different NPC quests in one game, but not wanted to deal with the timing - for instance I like Nalia's quests, but you have to keep her around for so long to do the kidnapping that I get impatient. Same with Jaheira - all the harper quests only play out if you keep her around for the whole game, so I usually just do the first part, the fight with the harpers and Ployer. It will be interesting to see what EXP totals you can get through TOB.

Some people have mentioned the Dragon's Breath, I never have had a halberdier in a party (in BGII; I always had Kivan using halberds in BGI), so I never used it, but it seems really good like the FOA but with more elements. In my current game I'm going to pick up Sarevok at the beginning of TOB and have him use halberds, so I'll get to use it then.