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I'm having trouble fighting house jae'llatt. Major trouble.

My best effort was sacrificing Haer-Dalis and Valygar (in succession). And having Aerie, pc avenger, and Imoen AoE bomb. I only have 5 pcs.

Useless. The magic resistance and HP are too high. I got off 3 webs 2 lightning bolts and a creeping doom with the avenger. 2 greater malisons (not to stack but because of MR) 3 fireballs and death fog with Aerie. 4 fireballs and a stinnking cloud with imoen.

Haer Dalis was the initial sacrifice and died in a matter of seconds even with: MI, stoneskin, blur, defensive spin, minor globe, contingency stoneskin. The death fog didn't kill him since Aerie cast that after he was dead.

Valygar with the cloak of mirroring and ilbratha MI lasted a little longer. Since he was the 2nd to approach.

I suppose I could have summoned fire, earth, and air elementals and lasted another two rounds but the soldiers were at best at the "injured" status and there were a dozen of them with lots of painful attacks.

Can I still enter house Jae'latt after clearing everyone else in the underdark and getting the xp (if I'm capable)? I mean including the event that makes Ust Natha go hostile (whether that be razing it to the ground or actually playing out the intrigue).

myrophine

I believe you can. The way I did it with my (near) solo F/M/T was using whirlwind along with yasreana using whirlwind :speech: . But since you have a fairly large party don't count on that for now. Some tactics; summon fire elementals and w/e else summon fodder you can muster, haste them, then have your fighters in there for support. Since drow have really high MR dont worry about many spells, just summons and brute force are the best. Try to summon at least 2 elementals hasted. If you can, get anotherone out before the first two are to badly injured.

Inform us how it goes or if you plan on waiting until Ust'Natha is cleared.

That makes sense to me...

I think I was just too lazy to rest and change spells around. I guess I will take on the mind flayers and see what xp I can get (plus use up spells then relearn summons)

Valygar could fire away with ripper while the summoning fun is going on. At house Jae'llatt

I bet I can do it. I'll of course let ya know about the outcome (specifically if waiting for hostile Ust Natha hurts).

Hmmm.... Summons and haste. Reminds me of my icewind dale strategies.

myrophine

From the sounds of it, you're using a horribly low level and lowly equiped party, you should have much more powerful items at this point already. Additionally you're using spells which are more harmful to your own party than they are to the enemy, forget about trying to kill them with those silly spells you're using Death Fog, Web, Stinking Cloud shouldn't even be memorised in the first place.

Use summoning skills like Fire elementals, Summon Woodland Nymph immediately rather than buffing with your Avenger.

Greater Malison with Haer'dalis, then protection from fear and any other protection spells that affect the whole party with him.

Valygar is about the only person who needs to be in the battle, surrounded with your max 5 summons it shouldn't be hard at all, especially without having your own spells hurt your own party.

Imoen should use Summon Undead if she can, Chain Lightning and Melf's Minute Meteors.

Aerie can just use Melf's Minute Meteors and just keep healing everyone. Use of bless, Protection from Evil 10", Holy Armour and Mantra will help hugely.


Use as many summons and physical attacks as you can, they're nearly pointless with near magic immunities of drow anyway.

Did you install the Improved Battles Mod with Improved House Jae'llat, or are you playing an unmodded game?

One simple strategy is not to fight the entire household at once. Limit your party movements to where you can't be seen by the "second wave" and "third wave" of enemies before you have finished with the "first wave".

Spells that cause magical damage are not very effective against the Drow because of their high magic resistance unless you use Lower Resistance or the Priest spell Magic Resistance against them. Those spells are indispensable.

My favorite lower level spells against groups of enemies are Glitterdust, Greater Malison, and Emotion. Web isn't very helpful unless you're using ranged weapons, and casting Fireball on your own party members (unless you give them total immunity to fire) is pretty self-defeating. You're better off using a Wand of Fire to cast fireballs, anyway, instead of using up precious spells slots. I suppose you might try using a Wand of Cloudkill against the "second wave" and "third wave" before they can see you, but if they come after you instead of standing put, it won't do you much good.

Magic Missile, Flame Arrow, Melf's Minute Meteors, and Skull Trap are usually the only damage-dealing Wizard spells I use until my characters can cast Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. The rest are buffing spells, summoning spells, or spells that lower the defenses of the enemies. Imoen should have Project Image and Animate Dead in her spellbook by now. I can't remember where you can acquire Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, but it might be available from a merchant in the Underdark. Imoen and Aerie should both have Lower Resistance and Greater Malison. Haer'Dalis should be using Mirror Image, Melf's Minute Meteors (combined with Offensive Spin), Stoneskin, and potions of Haste at the very least. And don't forget that Valygar can cast spells. Try Armor of Faith and Barkskin. I'm not familiar with Avengers, so I guess you're on your own there (just kidding).

If you don't think that any spells cast by Imoen, Aerie, and your Avenger are helping you in this battle, then don't bother casting any during the battle. Cast your monster summoning spells at the beginning of the fight and then switch to ranged weapons such as the Tuigan Bow with +2 arrows, Acid Arrows, or Arrows of Fire; the throwing dagger called Firetooth (available from a Drow merchant); and a good sling such as the Sling of Avoreen +4 with +2 bullets or Sunstone bullets. You could even use the Cloak of the Stars (unless I'm thinking of something else) to create some +5 darts. Gang up on one enemy at a time and they shouldn't last long.

If one or more of your melee warriors is close to death, you can fully heal him with the Rod of Resurrection (that's some cheese I just heard about recently).

Good luck!

Abi Dalzhims is available by one of the drow merchants. As well as some nice weapons (firetooth as mentioned above and others). If you want, switch to some drow armor that has good defense and -1 casting time and put that on aerie or imoen. Not sure but you should have acquired or sold that by now. Remember to use potions of thievery before trying to steal anything from the merchants with imoen.

Thanks for the responses. It was VERY interesting to hear everyones "spell opinions" both specific and non-specific to the Jae'llatt situation.

I can't justify my earlier tactics (webs and AoE) but then again I learned tactics from playing icewind dale and "kill zones" are quite good in that game against hordes (since your ability to pierce MR goes up with ability scores and levels). Kind of an icewind dale hangover in thinking I guess.

@ Deadalready
I could be higher level i suppose, but on the other hand I saved a good deal of the game for after the underdark. The first time I played I was dissapointed at how easy the underdark was with high powered items like Carsomyr and the staff of magi (hadn't discovered Deirex and the Jae'llatt). Also, I almost think you have to save some xp for afterwords if you want Imoen to be powerful. Additionally I invested a lot of xp in Yoshimo because I wanted to try him out as a dualed thief/fighter...

@ Vondondu
I notice you say skull trap is a good spell. I like it too and have 1 memorized for Haer Dalis since he can do cruel and unusual damage with it. Why only 1? I have awful trouble hitting with it without having "friendly fire" damage (well maybe with cloak of mirroring I can do it). Any advice? I know "practice makes perfect" but my rod of ressurect is on E .

I probably didn't do it optimally BUT I kicked their ass. Summons were a lifesaver but mostly a distraction as they died before hasted (i'm not high enough level to get skeletal warriors and the elementals even died). Actually constant summons with Aerie and Imoen did wonders. Haer Dalis summoned at the beginning untill Valygar died and Aerie got held.

Then Haer Dalis turned the tide of the battle. He cast improved haste then PFMW then attacked. Eventually he offensive spinned (spun?) for 8 attacks per round. Meanwhile they beat on his PFMW and I summoned up "friends" to support him including a woodland nymph. as HD's protection wore off he continually cast stoneskin and MI to tank and slash away. I kept summoning and the woodland nymph managed to hold 2 people.

The next room was easy because we weren't so packed in place. Valygar with boots of speed and Aerie's remaining skeletons did the trick. Along with melfs from HD and Imoen.

(Druid notes below)

Avenger appears to be a class that is fun to begin with (shapes, spells) but the advantages get outdated as you level (or more accurately you DON'T level because of the peculiar druid leveling table).

I think the cheesy way to go is the ranger/cleric (why should a cleric get nature spells? How about giving my druid turn undead and and the combat table of a fighter and open locks/traps...would that make sense?) and another route is the fighter/druid (like Jaheira). Or berserker druid... I've played with kensai druid and unless you like to remember to cast barkskin constantly it is annoying.

myrophine