Defeating Illithids

Thomas77 · Post by **Thomas77** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:41 am

Ok, I take some pride in my ability to troubleshoot a battle situation. I like intense epic battles that may require saving and reloading several times.
In BG1 I was able to overcome the Wardens in Durlag's Tower after several reloads. The same with the Demon Aec-Letec in Ulgoth's Beard and Sarevok hardly proved any match for my party.
In BGII I defeated both the Shadow Dragon and Firkraag after only a few reloads. I've fought through a horde of vampires, killed the Adamantite Golem and find the Greater Werewolf fairly easy to kill, however...
When it comes to the Illithid layer in the Sewers below the Temple District, I cannot seem to get past them. I can take on 2 maybe 3 Illithids at one time, but 6 is way too many! I've looked for spells and armor that may help with defending against Psionic attacks but haven't found any.

I also haven't found any good way of taking them out in-mass being that they are almost completely resistant to magic.
Any help or hints here would be greatly appreciated.

ps: my intention wasn't to brag, only to show that I'm not a complete fool when it comes to troubleshooting battle situations.

Astafas · Post by **Astafas** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:50 am

It's very easy actually. Buff your fighters (as you say, magic is fairly useless unless you manage to lower their magic resistance, and I'm not sure a single mind flayer is worth the spell slots it would take) with all spells you've got. Iron Skin, Stone skin, Improved Invisibility, (Improved) Haste and so forth. And most important, don't forget Chaotic Commands! Then smash them dead.

Sytze · Post by **Sytze** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:51 am

We won't judge you...much, anyway.

Try summing Skeleton Warriors or Mordekain's Swords. These guys are almost immune to Illithid abilities (you need a high level cleric and mage, though). Haste da summons, send da summons for some good oil' smacking. You could also send your own characters in, but make sure they have the cleric spell 'Chaotic Commands' activated. This protects your fighters against charm, hold, and all those other nasty mind-affecting spells. If your intelligence is drained, use some Potions of Genius', so you can last a while longer.

@Astafas: congrats with your birthday last week, by the way. SYM dedicated a thread to it, I just noticed.

Thomas77 · Post by **Thomas77** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:36 am

Chaotic Commands? hmmm....I'll have to try that one....
- Lower Resistance did cross my mind, but you're right, that is really only useful against one maybe two enemies like a Dragon or a couple Mind Flayers.
- Also while waiting for a respone I found the Strategy guide here on GB. Looks like pretty good advice!

Thanks guy's!

Krusader · Post by **Krusader** » Wed May 25, 2005 12:50 pm

Those pesky illithids! I spent several reloads last nite and I was getting frustrated.

One of the things that ticked me off the most is that Lilarcor is s'posed to give its wielder immunity against confusion, yet Misc was always getting confused by either the mind flayers or the umber hulks!!! Bug? Hades if I know but I was about to hit the monitor with the mouse.

What I ended up doing was summoning creatures to distract them, which worked only partially, as the mind flayers can turn those same creatures against me. What seemed to work was giving immunity to magic to a fighter, endowing him with haste, and send him on to try and lure just one or at the most two illithids at a time. Even then I still got my paladin to have his intelligence reduced to 3, so I had to wait a few moments after defeating one enemy to go again and lure the next one. And of course, saving after every individual victory.

Another thing that worked was having Aerie summoning a wyvern. The doorways are too narrow for the creature to pass through, so he blocked the doorway while Aerie put the wand of cloudkill to good use. The thing here is that you have to remove Aerie from the illithids's field of view after two or three blasts or they will give chase after slaying the wyvern, something they do quite fast. If they are not killed by the three cloudkill blasts it is now relatively safe to send in the magic-protected tank to finish them off.

Thomas77 · Post by **Thomas77** » Wed May 25, 2005 2:48 pm

I found this link in the Strategy Guide on this site and it is very helpful.
I'm going to paste it here for anyone who might come across this thread looking for the same info that I originally was.

http://gamebanshee.com/baldursgateii/st ... layers.php

Nimiety · Post by **Nimiety** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:53 pm

My strategy is rather gouda-esque, but it works and is 100% safe.

Make 1 person invisible, and put them by the door. Take a second person with a ranged weapon, and open the door then back up a bit. Move the invisible person into the middle of the doorway, and you'll stop the mindflayers et al from coming close enough to touch you, thus drain you. Ranged weapons with one or two people, cloudkills, etc, until they are toast.

Voila. BTW, I got lucky and found this to work one day... that was after dying over and over again, too.

N...

Malykor · Post by **Malykor** » Wed May 25, 2005 9:57 pm

[QUOTE=Nimiety]My strategy is rather gouda-esque, but it works and is 100% safe.

Make 1 person invisible, and put them by the door. Take a second person with a ranged weapon, and open the door then back up a bit. Move the invisible person into the middle of the doorway, and you'll stop the mindflayers et al from coming close enough to touch you, thus drain you. Ranged weapons with one or two people, cloudkills, etc, until they are toast.

Voila. BTW, I got lucky and found this to work one day... that was after dying over and over again, too.

N...[/QUOTE]

Very odd strategy, if I say so myself.

Mindflayers don't cast True Sight?

Devilock · Post by **Devilock** » Thu May 26, 2005 4:05 am

I don't think they cast any spells, apart from their psionics.

My hint:
If you have a high level thief, backstabbing them one by one also works wonders

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu May 26, 2005 5:37 am

[QUOTE=Devilock]My hint: If you have a high level thief, backstabbing them one by one also works wonders[/QUOTE]

Provided all but the first don't turn your thief's brain into jello. FWIW, I think summons are the way to go.

Cuchulain82 · Post by **Cuchulain82** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:30 am

My strategy, as anyone who has read my posts about the execellence of the F->Th, is to use the SOM and backstab. I think that Illithids are annoying more than anything else, and consequently don't feel bad about using a cheesy tactic.

The purist in me agrees with Fable- summons are the only thing I would use if I were there myself, and it was my brain that could be drained.

Astafas · Post by **Astafas** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:45 am

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]The purist in me agrees with Fable- summons are the only thing I would use if I were there myself, and it was my brain that could be drained.[/QUOTE]

If I were there myself, I'd use summons for all my fights!

boo's daddy · Post by **boo's daddy** » Thu May 26, 2005 11:27 am

I recently cleared out that area and used the following combo:

2xSummoned skeletons (not high enough level for Skel Warriors, but it doesn't matter, they are there to distract the badness)
3xChaotic Commands (on all 3 fighters: Korgan, Keldorn and Jahiera). I have found that hard way that the "mind shield" type protections you get from certain items aren't foolproof, but CC is! It also has a good duration so should see you through the whole encounter.
Improved invisibility on one of my fighters.
Potion of Genius for each fighter (these 3 are pretty thick): keep an eye on the dialogue as you want to know if either of them takes a hit.
Target them one-by-one so you minimise the time it takes to kill each. This reduces the chances of them landing a hit.
Other 3 party members firing missile weapons from a safe distance.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu May 26, 2005 7:20 pm

Spam removed. Guys, let's stay focused. You have new questions, you ask 'em in new threads--or better still, if they're very old, old questions that have been answered repeatedly before, try search. Thanks.

Thomas77 · Post by **Thomas77** » Fri May 27, 2005 7:59 am

(Possible Spoilers)

What I ultimately ended up doing was using the Wand of Cloudkill that I had.
I had once tried using Nalia's Cloud Kill spell but that didn't work because Illithids are magic resistant (I'm now assuming that the Wand of Cloudkill is not actually a magic wand).
The wand killed the Umber Hulks and severely wounded the Flayers. I then sent in my 3 brawlers who had Chaotic Commands cast on them to mop up the remnants.
The only problem I had was with the third room. I had my thief hide in the shadows to open the door. But when you open the door a Flayer is standing right there and decides he wants to walk out. I was unable to shut the door (because both my thief and the Flayer were stuck in the doorway) nor could my thief get back into the shadows quick enough before the other Flayers saw him and shredded him up. My mage was able to send in a couple of clouds of Cloud Kill however and shut the first door. I let the Flayers stew around in the Cloud until it expired and once again sent my brawlers in to clean up the mess.
Then I just resurrected my thief.
That was good enough for me. I got past that part and was able to move on with the rest of the game.

Nimiety · Post by **Nimiety** » Fri May 27, 2005 10:44 am

Good to hear it... I find the mindflayers easier than the illithids because of that magic resistance... that's why I try to stay as far from them as possible with range weapons...

Good luck in the rest of the underworld!

N...

Krusader · Post by **Krusader** » Fri May 27, 2005 12:46 pm

Just as a side note: the spells from wands are more effective than the mage's as they are different things. When you use a mage spell the target saves vs. spell, while when you use a wand he has to save vs. wands. Magical resistance has little effect against wands, hence the dragons go down fast with them. Guess it's the same for the illithids.

Philos · Post by **Philos** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:25 pm

Just finished Illithid City

I just finished Illithid CIty in the Underdark and was looking for different ways that others have used. I also just checked out the strategy guide regarding Illithids for the same. Got some new ideas to try on my next venture through. I thought I would share my spin since it was a little different than most of what I saw. One person's tactic was very similar to mine but did not include using chaotic commands so I thought I would go ahead & post mine. I had no casualties or even injuries using this tactic. You can also use this tactic against vampires when you encounter them underground (not outside). Since Vampires and Illithids are really just 2 trick ponies, a long range mind influencing ability and a melee attack that drains something, it is fairly easy to develop a good plan to defeat them.

You can successfully (and safely) face Illithids (Mind Flayers), Ullithids, (and vampires underground) fairly early on if you have Jahiera in the party as she reaches 11th level real fast. If you have Anomen, you can do this a little later once Anomen reaches 11th. The 5th level clerical spell Chaotic Commands and the second level mage spell Invisibility are the key elements. Cast invisibility on two (or three if there is a wide door) of your party that aren't too good with missle type weapons. Block the door way with them. Someone said use 1 but some doors are wider than others so I would say use 2 at least. Depending on how many 5th level cleric spell slots you have take enough Chaotic Command spells to cast on your missle users (bows, crossbows, slings, etc.). Any that you can't cover with chaotic commands move back to the rear. For all their intelligence mind flayers and kin cannot see invisible creatures (nor can vampires). Have one missle user get just within view of the creatures and fire. Lure them back to party (boots of speed are helpful here but not necessary). Your "bait" can slip between the blockers and drop back a couple of steps. They cannot follow you. Now you can just gun them down easily as they have a poor/mediocre AC. They will helplessly flail around trying to get past the blockers and not be able to do anymore than launch inffective blasts, dominates, charms at your missle crew who are immune due to Chaotic Commands . Even though you could use hide in shadow with a thief, I would stick with Invisibility. No matter how high the hiding percentage is, it always seems to fail and of course at the worst possible time.

Thrifalas · Post by **Thrifalas** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 10:27 pm

I may be cheesy now and then, but blocking doors with invis characters is something I never ever would concider. That's just... wrong.

And I don't see why so many have such big problems with them as some summoned skeletons resist both their spells and leaves them all open for some quick butt-kicking.

Or, there's always the slayerthingie... destruction on a silver plate.

boo's daddy · Post by **boo's daddy** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:42 am

In a similar vein, last time through Illithid City I came across by chance the tactic of stunning the umber hullks, using them as a barricade, then flaying the flayers from a distance at leisure. Hold Monster came in handy to make it longer lasting.

My boots-of-speed kensai/thiefy was on the "wrong" side, luring them towards the barriers then slugging an invisibility potion.