Soloing a Wizard Slayer/Wizard. You know, the perfect combo!
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2001 5:21 am
How to solo a Wizard Slayer/Wizard.
Yes, it sounds goofy. And it is. But it's also interesting, and a good challenge for part of the time.
Rationale: This is almost Freudian in its silliness (but it's logical so it's not quite as ridiculous as a standard Freudian explanation). It happened like this. You grew up in Candlekeep surrounded by mages and magelings (youthful amateur practitioners). Since you were knee-high to a golem, you have found yourself the brunt of joke after joke. First a "wet myself" cantrip ruined 14 pairs of pants in one week; the caster, a little boy named Jake that sneaked a look into his papa's magic book, could NOT stop laughing. Then there was the pre-teen tortures; your "friends" at this point had their hands on such things as charm spells, and even domination spells on occasion. Being that you were watched more carefully then they, your ability to counter this magic was minimal. Week after week you would find yourself charmed and forced to do various revolting things: eat manure from a heaped-up backyard pile, propose marriage to the one-armed scullery maid, flagrantly deflower a quadruped -- but there is no need to bring THAT up. Quite understandibly you grew to hate magic, any magic, all magic. You were defenseless against it. It terrified you. That's why -- ALL MAGIC USERS HAD TO DIE! In other words, a Wizard Slayer was born.
You happily chopped and hacked your way through a few dungeons. Then, one bad day, near death and paralysed by a beast's nasty sting, a stranger showed up and cast a SPELL on you. Yes, a SPELL! But the spell took away the paralysis, allowing you to recover and chop up that nasty monster. You turned to the "evil" spell caster and... you just didn't have the heart to whack her. This made you realize that it was not MAGIC itself that was evil; it was evil users of magic that revolted you. And more than that; the terror you always felt towards magic diminished when you started talked with your savior, a narrow-waisted half-elf of fair face and devestating decollete. You became insanely interestested in using this unknown force, not for evil (of course) but for good... following the steps of your new companion, you soon found yourself enrolled in a "Magic for Dummies" class and soon you set out, Magic Missle in hand.
That's how a Wizard Slayer/Wizard is born!
Now to the real part.
Spend some time rolling him up. You have to get a good intelligence, because you can't ever use a potion of acuity (the one that adds 4 to your intelligence so you can scribe scrolls easily). Scribing WILL be a MAJOR pain. Constitution is necessary as well. Wisdom, given you background and class combination -- should be LOW. Charisma, similar. The tortures of your youth scarred you, etc. Dexterity and strength, get them as high as you can. Strength can be augmented by a strength spell; dexterity can't. Do the best you can.
Start out as a Wizard Slayer, the plan is to dual at level 9. Because proficiency points are so precious, and you don't get a lot later as a lousy mage, I did a somewhat odd thing. I decided to make full use of the WS fighter abilities, and also pick a weapon that combined melee with range attacks. Huh? One weapon can do both? Yup. I never use this weapon normally, so thought I would try it out. AXE. I put 3 stars in axe, 3 stars in dual-wield. And whenever I got another point from levelling up, I put it in axe.
My reasoning is this: patched Azure-edge will kill undead, period. It is even throweable; kills them at range. Otherwise I'll buy the very cheap stonefire axe at the CC as soon as possible, and grab that other great axe from the troll keep as my first major quest. Also there is another "returning" axe kept by a guy in the sewers, I can use that for throwing at non-undead. Eventually, far in the future, the Axe of the Unyielding will be used... Otherwise I'll just dual-wield and kill stuff. Put all my eggs in one basket. Why not? Ribald even sells an expensive returning axe; really there are more +3 axes around than any other weapon type I think, at least early in the game!
After I dual I can pick sling and quarterstaff for my mage, and later pick up longsword and war hammer (much later). That's the plan.
And the plan worked out well. My WS got 2 cure light wounds AND one vampiric touch, so he could actually heal OK. Cruised through the prison, chopped and killed and kept all the scrolls I found. Use Draw upon HM to make tough battles much easier. Use the longsword+1 to kill stuff that needs to be hit by magic (so you are not proficient, so what?). The prison is not hard if you go slowly and are careful. Disrupting spell-casting is ALWAYS fun. The Golems were tricky but went down leaving me badly injured. If only I could down some oil of speed! Oh well.
I was level 8point9 or so after getting out of the prison. I did the circus tent and hit level 9 immediately. After getting out I dualed over. Pick quarterstaff and sling. Read the scrolls. You will fail more than your percentage indicates. I don't know why, I think this is a bug. Anyway do it more, more, more. Scribe scribe scribe. Get up to level 6 or so. Buy more good scrolls, repeat. When you run out of money, kill Pebblecrusher & co. with a well-placed web and skull traps and magic missles and sling stones and everything else you can throw at them. Get more money, pebble's full plate (keep this), buy more scrolls. Scribe more. This is the boring, difficult part of the dualing. I had to do the beastmaster and slaver quests without my WS class active. Not difficult, just slow and somewhat tedious. A lot of skull trapping, webbing, magic missling, etc. Do the easier graveyard quests too, paladin and littleman. Soon, in about 80 min. of playing, you will be level 10 and regain your WS abilities. YES! Now time to get NASTY.
The most important spells for the WS/W combination are, I think: stoneskin, mirror image, blur, improved invisibility, ghost armor, spell immunity-divination, improved haste (later at level 12). I didn't cast multiple blurs because this is a bug; but I did cast improved invisibility which gives -4 to ac. when shimmering. That plus -3 with blur is good enough. Your level 9/10 WS/W is immediately a monster. Do the following. Dual-wield stonefire and a +1 axe. Go to the sewers and kill the easily-webbed party standing there. Rescue HairyDolls from the mage, grab the portal gem, and open the portal in the playhouse. But don't go in yet, you are not ready. Instead, go to the troll keep. At this point I was level 9/11. Talk with Nalia, etc. and go through the hidden room. Then spell up. Ghost armor, blur, Improved Invis, Stoneskin. Then put ON your full plate. The ghost armor is just in case you take off your armor for spells and something finds you. Then run in and whack the first troll; he's dead in 2 rounds. Then run into the room with 6 trolls in it; take them on 2 at a time in the doorway. They all die before your stoneskin wears off; your AC is -7 or better. Run outside and kill an Otugygh thing, then more trolls, then open the gate for experience. Go back inside. Go upstairs, beat up more trolls. Take off your armor at some point and cast stoneskin again. Then put armor back on and keep hitting. I went 60% of the way before resting, meaning that as a solo this combination is a breeze. And I was gonig fast, being sloppy about it. I bet I could have done it without resting at all. As soon as I had that Frostreaver axe I was doing 3 attacks/round, 6 pts. environmental damage, and about 18 or so per hit. That's easily enough to wipe out trolls. As I said I rested once, got primped with spells, then went downstairs. Killed the trolls, webbed and fireballed the Umber Hulks, and then took on the big guy. I still had my spells up, and did an extra Draw Upon HM. Torgal went down in 3 rounds, his buddies in 5 or so. This is a record for me! I never soloed seriously a fighter-type before, but wow this combination was excellent. Can't say enough about stoneskin and improved invis and blur and mirror image. Pile 'em on and kill fast before they wear off.
I made the flail of ages, though I cant use it, and got the keep. I levelled up to 9/12, memorized improved haste, and that, I think, will end the game. A properly buffed-up WS/W getting 6 attacks/round should and will devestate anything in the game.
Thoughts on equipment restrictions: So you can't use rings, cloaks, robes of vecna. Oh well. What this means is that you can't do a lot of spell casting in combat itself. That's why I think it's most effective to be your own warrior support; support spells can be cast in advance, no disruption possible. Also, you can put on full plate after you are done, giving your mage excellent AC. Grab the Staff of Magi at some point, but don't use it as a weapon (dispel magic every hit will remove your protections). But it's great for the invisibility it grants and the spell trap. Use this to run away from combat if it gets too hairy, though I can't imagine when this will happen.
As a test of this 9/12 beast, I went back and did the astral prison. Before jumping through I got buffed with the spells listed above, also improved haste. Then I went through. I killed everyone in the first room easily; I was invisible and their spells could not target me. I kept running, didn't check their goods. Killed everyone in the next room. Kept going, killed the mages and umber hulks. Still improved hasted. Kept going! Killed elementals AND the guardian thing. Finally haste wore off and the prison was 80% done! Amazing. This guy is a monster. Took hardly any damage. Scary.
Well, that's it so far. What I can see from getting to be 9/18 or so is a lot of "misleading," simulacrums, and tensor's transformation for dragons. Eventually this bad boy is going to get time stop and hack-n-slash his way through those with style. Hitting 6/round an enemy spell caster is at 60% miscast after one round, this goes through stoneskin. A very effective combination; use your spells for defense and augmentation, and the WS abilities for the actually disruption/killing. You can also use the simulacrum helm if you like, but I don't know... this guy is so over-powered already that's just getting ridiculous.
The only equipment I really miss is the Ring of Gaax; great for AC, saving throws. Everything else -- eh, so what? I can use the important stuff (weapons and armor).
Anyway, I'll run through Umar Hills and see if this guy is really as powerful as he seems. If he takes out the shadow dragon quickly and easy then, well, that's that I think. A simple solo. As somebody remarked, ANY class can solo effectively... well, there's still the BeastMaster who sucks but...
Yes, it sounds goofy. And it is. But it's also interesting, and a good challenge for part of the time.
Rationale: This is almost Freudian in its silliness (but it's logical so it's not quite as ridiculous as a standard Freudian explanation). It happened like this. You grew up in Candlekeep surrounded by mages and magelings (youthful amateur practitioners). Since you were knee-high to a golem, you have found yourself the brunt of joke after joke. First a "wet myself" cantrip ruined 14 pairs of pants in one week; the caster, a little boy named Jake that sneaked a look into his papa's magic book, could NOT stop laughing. Then there was the pre-teen tortures; your "friends" at this point had their hands on such things as charm spells, and even domination spells on occasion. Being that you were watched more carefully then they, your ability to counter this magic was minimal. Week after week you would find yourself charmed and forced to do various revolting things: eat manure from a heaped-up backyard pile, propose marriage to the one-armed scullery maid, flagrantly deflower a quadruped -- but there is no need to bring THAT up. Quite understandibly you grew to hate magic, any magic, all magic. You were defenseless against it. It terrified you. That's why -- ALL MAGIC USERS HAD TO DIE! In other words, a Wizard Slayer was born.
You happily chopped and hacked your way through a few dungeons. Then, one bad day, near death and paralysed by a beast's nasty sting, a stranger showed up and cast a SPELL on you. Yes, a SPELL! But the spell took away the paralysis, allowing you to recover and chop up that nasty monster. You turned to the "evil" spell caster and... you just didn't have the heart to whack her. This made you realize that it was not MAGIC itself that was evil; it was evil users of magic that revolted you. And more than that; the terror you always felt towards magic diminished when you started talked with your savior, a narrow-waisted half-elf of fair face and devestating decollete. You became insanely interestested in using this unknown force, not for evil (of course) but for good... following the steps of your new companion, you soon found yourself enrolled in a "Magic for Dummies" class and soon you set out, Magic Missle in hand.
That's how a Wizard Slayer/Wizard is born!
Now to the real part.
Spend some time rolling him up. You have to get a good intelligence, because you can't ever use a potion of acuity (the one that adds 4 to your intelligence so you can scribe scrolls easily). Scribing WILL be a MAJOR pain. Constitution is necessary as well. Wisdom, given you background and class combination -- should be LOW. Charisma, similar. The tortures of your youth scarred you, etc. Dexterity and strength, get them as high as you can. Strength can be augmented by a strength spell; dexterity can't. Do the best you can.
Start out as a Wizard Slayer, the plan is to dual at level 9. Because proficiency points are so precious, and you don't get a lot later as a lousy mage, I did a somewhat odd thing. I decided to make full use of the WS fighter abilities, and also pick a weapon that combined melee with range attacks. Huh? One weapon can do both? Yup. I never use this weapon normally, so thought I would try it out. AXE. I put 3 stars in axe, 3 stars in dual-wield. And whenever I got another point from levelling up, I put it in axe.
My reasoning is this: patched Azure-edge will kill undead, period. It is even throweable; kills them at range. Otherwise I'll buy the very cheap stonefire axe at the CC as soon as possible, and grab that other great axe from the troll keep as my first major quest. Also there is another "returning" axe kept by a guy in the sewers, I can use that for throwing at non-undead. Eventually, far in the future, the Axe of the Unyielding will be used... Otherwise I'll just dual-wield and kill stuff. Put all my eggs in one basket. Why not? Ribald even sells an expensive returning axe; really there are more +3 axes around than any other weapon type I think, at least early in the game!
After I dual I can pick sling and quarterstaff for my mage, and later pick up longsword and war hammer (much later). That's the plan.
And the plan worked out well. My WS got 2 cure light wounds AND one vampiric touch, so he could actually heal OK. Cruised through the prison, chopped and killed and kept all the scrolls I found. Use Draw upon HM to make tough battles much easier. Use the longsword+1 to kill stuff that needs to be hit by magic (so you are not proficient, so what?). The prison is not hard if you go slowly and are careful. Disrupting spell-casting is ALWAYS fun. The Golems were tricky but went down leaving me badly injured. If only I could down some oil of speed! Oh well.
I was level 8point9 or so after getting out of the prison. I did the circus tent and hit level 9 immediately. After getting out I dualed over. Pick quarterstaff and sling. Read the scrolls. You will fail more than your percentage indicates. I don't know why, I think this is a bug. Anyway do it more, more, more. Scribe scribe scribe. Get up to level 6 or so. Buy more good scrolls, repeat. When you run out of money, kill Pebblecrusher & co. with a well-placed web and skull traps and magic missles and sling stones and everything else you can throw at them. Get more money, pebble's full plate (keep this), buy more scrolls. Scribe more. This is the boring, difficult part of the dualing. I had to do the beastmaster and slaver quests without my WS class active. Not difficult, just slow and somewhat tedious. A lot of skull trapping, webbing, magic missling, etc. Do the easier graveyard quests too, paladin and littleman. Soon, in about 80 min. of playing, you will be level 10 and regain your WS abilities. YES! Now time to get NASTY.
The most important spells for the WS/W combination are, I think: stoneskin, mirror image, blur, improved invisibility, ghost armor, spell immunity-divination, improved haste (later at level 12). I didn't cast multiple blurs because this is a bug; but I did cast improved invisibility which gives -4 to ac. when shimmering. That plus -3 with blur is good enough. Your level 9/10 WS/W is immediately a monster. Do the following. Dual-wield stonefire and a +1 axe. Go to the sewers and kill the easily-webbed party standing there. Rescue HairyDolls from the mage, grab the portal gem, and open the portal in the playhouse. But don't go in yet, you are not ready. Instead, go to the troll keep. At this point I was level 9/11. Talk with Nalia, etc. and go through the hidden room. Then spell up. Ghost armor, blur, Improved Invis, Stoneskin. Then put ON your full plate. The ghost armor is just in case you take off your armor for spells and something finds you. Then run in and whack the first troll; he's dead in 2 rounds. Then run into the room with 6 trolls in it; take them on 2 at a time in the doorway. They all die before your stoneskin wears off; your AC is -7 or better. Run outside and kill an Otugygh thing, then more trolls, then open the gate for experience. Go back inside. Go upstairs, beat up more trolls. Take off your armor at some point and cast stoneskin again. Then put armor back on and keep hitting. I went 60% of the way before resting, meaning that as a solo this combination is a breeze. And I was gonig fast, being sloppy about it. I bet I could have done it without resting at all. As soon as I had that Frostreaver axe I was doing 3 attacks/round, 6 pts. environmental damage, and about 18 or so per hit. That's easily enough to wipe out trolls. As I said I rested once, got primped with spells, then went downstairs. Killed the trolls, webbed and fireballed the Umber Hulks, and then took on the big guy. I still had my spells up, and did an extra Draw Upon HM. Torgal went down in 3 rounds, his buddies in 5 or so. This is a record for me! I never soloed seriously a fighter-type before, but wow this combination was excellent. Can't say enough about stoneskin and improved invis and blur and mirror image. Pile 'em on and kill fast before they wear off.
I made the flail of ages, though I cant use it, and got the keep. I levelled up to 9/12, memorized improved haste, and that, I think, will end the game. A properly buffed-up WS/W getting 6 attacks/round should and will devestate anything in the game.
Thoughts on equipment restrictions: So you can't use rings, cloaks, robes of vecna. Oh well. What this means is that you can't do a lot of spell casting in combat itself. That's why I think it's most effective to be your own warrior support; support spells can be cast in advance, no disruption possible. Also, you can put on full plate after you are done, giving your mage excellent AC. Grab the Staff of Magi at some point, but don't use it as a weapon (dispel magic every hit will remove your protections). But it's great for the invisibility it grants and the spell trap. Use this to run away from combat if it gets too hairy, though I can't imagine when this will happen.
As a test of this 9/12 beast, I went back and did the astral prison. Before jumping through I got buffed with the spells listed above, also improved haste. Then I went through. I killed everyone in the first room easily; I was invisible and their spells could not target me. I kept running, didn't check their goods. Killed everyone in the next room. Kept going, killed the mages and umber hulks. Still improved hasted. Kept going! Killed elementals AND the guardian thing. Finally haste wore off and the prison was 80% done! Amazing. This guy is a monster. Took hardly any damage. Scary.
Well, that's it so far. What I can see from getting to be 9/18 or so is a lot of "misleading," simulacrums, and tensor's transformation for dragons. Eventually this bad boy is going to get time stop and hack-n-slash his way through those with style. Hitting 6/round an enemy spell caster is at 60% miscast after one round, this goes through stoneskin. A very effective combination; use your spells for defense and augmentation, and the WS abilities for the actually disruption/killing. You can also use the simulacrum helm if you like, but I don't know... this guy is so over-powered already that's just getting ridiculous.
The only equipment I really miss is the Ring of Gaax; great for AC, saving throws. Everything else -- eh, so what? I can use the important stuff (weapons and armor).
Anyway, I'll run through Umar Hills and see if this guy is really as powerful as he seems. If he takes out the shadow dragon quickly and easy then, well, that's that I think. A simple solo. As somebody remarked, ANY class can solo effectively... well, there's still the BeastMaster who sucks but...
