GameBanshee Forums

I am playing through from the beginning in HoF mode. I started with 1st level characters. They are already 9th level and I am on the second level of dragon's eye. I have yet to fight a major boss and was wondering how hard they are in HoF mode?

Not sure, but I imagine they're pretty tough. You'll find out soon enough.

I think you can quess the answer from the very beginning of HoF when you fought the bugs down to the cellar of the tavern. . HoF is amazing.

Here's an advice from somebody who already went past dragon's eye with the same settings:

Never underestimate the power of buying up an entire potion shop
It's going to be harder than hard... Yxonomei is probably the hardest fight in the entire game. Good luck !!

Chris Boney

You speak the truth. I am on the last level of Dragon's Eye now and I am having a pretty difficult time of it. No more healing or amunition and no places to rest. I cannot remeber from my first time through the game on normal mode if there was a place to rest on the last level. I may have to retreat to town to find a place to buy some more healing if I do not find a decent place to rest. Did you make it through the last level without resting? What level were your characters when you faced the x-boss? I am averaging about 9 with the following party:

Dwarf Fighter (crossbow/axe)
Halfling Fighter (short sword/sling)
Elven Fighter (longsword/longbow)
Dwarf Fighter/Cleric (hammer/sling)
Halfling Fighter/Thief (short sword/short bow)
Elven Fighter/Magic User (long sword/longbow)

Kind of an old fashioned party, I know, but I come from the pen and paper days of "White Plume Mountain" and "The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" and was looking for a challenge. I certainly found one.

GoodGulf - there are several places where you can rest in Dragon's Eye:

• Just outside - I don't recall ever being awakened by monsters here
• 2nd level - spoiler: Speak to the priest of Ilmater - she'll offer you healing and watch over you while you rest
• 4th level - spoiler: The party of adventurers will watch over you while you rest

Hm, now that you ask me which level my party had.. I must confess I don't remember, since it's been ages that I last played IWD. But they were very probably all around 9, yes that must have been the level, because I remember that I used the "resting exploit" in the level with the cold wrights to level my fighters up for the grandmastery in their weapon with 5 proficiency stars.

I rested most of the time in level 3 because after a couple of times I got bored with having to open all doors on level 4 again if you choose to rest there. I searched every part of level 5 carefully for treasures, and after each side-part I went up to have a rest.
Btw, the funniest thing in HOF mode what always stunned me, gaping mouth open, were the spells cast by the NPC mages. They always came in iiiiiiiiincredibly high levels. For example static-field with an open end on the damage scale will increase in damage with every level, no limit. Such spells often came at "90 damage taken, save successful" ) Which means, if I hadn't saved for half I would have taken 180 damage *giggles*
Call lightning also always causes a big "hello!" whenever it hits

Chris Boney

Want to hear something incredibly what happend to me in HOF?
Well there was this uber-boss who did so much damage, I have to draw a picture of the fight :

*B* - - - - - - - - *D*- *C*

B=Boss, D=Dwarven Warrior, C=Cleric
Note, the dwarven Warrior had some -15 AC, had every support spell cast on him (bless, prayer, ..rage of the faithful etc)
and max hitpoints around 150. The dwarven warrior and cleric were both a bit below level 30 (!!).

First the cleric starts a spell, raise dead, on the dwarf.
At the same time the dwarf starts rushing towards the Boss.
My thought was, when the dwarf dies, then the "raise dead" would come perfectly timed, since the cleric had already started casting the spell beforehand.
Guess what happened
The boss literally "ate" the dwarf and already had already finished chomping the cleric to little pieces of meat, before the "raise dead" spell would have kicked in

Chris Boney

SPOILER AHEAD












Well, I did it - Killed the topless boss. It was actually pretty easy. I summoned a bunch of monsters, hasted them and placed them just outside of the topless ones chamber. Then I set my party behind them and pepared what little I had found in the way of amunition on level 5. I cast invisibility on my fighter/thief and had him open the door. He got within arrow range shot the topless one and then told her he came to pry the heartstone from her "cold dead hasnds". He then ran out the door and joined the party. The topless one and her monster friends charged and engaged the summoned allies. The hasted summoned allies were surprisingly effective and managed to take out a good portion of the monsters other than the topless one. My party finished off most of the others with their missle weapons and continued to summon additional monsters. Eventually all of the monsters, except the topless one, were gone and my party drew their hand-to-hand weapons, drank speed and strength potions and charged into battle. The topless one fell quickly but not without taking a few of my party down to 25% hit points. All of my characters are now just shy of 10th level.

As for resting, in my game the only place to rest is with the NPC's on the next level up. Every other place it says "You cannot rest here".