lol, nice party! I'm a bit surprised at the swashbuckler's attack bonus, but I suppose it comes from the fighter levels. And good call on using the rogue as decoy...I don't really have a rogue so I tend to use my monk for it, and while she is very good at evading and/or resisting, she can't take much damage. So when they web her (while fighting the driders ) she's dead meat. I'll get her a ring of freedom like you did.

I've come to the point where I'm think about maybe multiclassing some chars. My bard, for example, has all available bard songs...so I might multi her into a sorcerer or something like that. It would neatly complement her charisma stat and her current role (secondary spellcaster).

I'll probably keep the monk a monk, the wizard too. The other classes (fighter, paladin, cleric) might take a level or two in another class but nothing major. I know that a ranger's ambidexterity improves your ability to wield two-handed weapons, but only while wearing light or medium armor right? In that case it's useless for my main tank.

Ok i made it into Kuldahar last evening, man i was so pissed i wanted to smash something. Those friggin mind golems, they are pretty much immune to everything and apparently they can hit anyone and anything.

So after about 20 tries of killing one and finally succeeding thanks to arrows of impact, i managed to kill one, woohoo for me, i never touched another one

I hope you brought along the halberdhammer, becuase it rocks against undead. They have to make a fortitude save or be destroyed. My fury has improved cleave so it went bang = dead, bang = dead, bang = dead. they all failed their saves.

On another note, i cant multiclass fury into paladin, the choice is greyed out. I guess it comes from lack of wisdom.

Edit: Care to share how to kill the Guardian of Crossroads, its friggin immune to everything i throw at it.

Finished the game!!

I must admit that I won the final battle by a thread only, but hey, I did it. I won't spoil too much (even though you already played the game once) but suffice to say that i never really got into any trouble during the entire Severed Hand; but I must admit that i avoided the battle with Xvim's avatar by siding with him instead of Ilmater But hey, what did you expect...give me a choice between good and evil and off I go.

I would have won the fight anyway I guess, but I do remember that it's HARD. Like, really really hard. But, siding with Xvim made him promise that Isair and Madae wouldn't be able to summon demons during my fight with them. That was a nice help.

As for the fight itself...I did it in one try, but a tough try. Starts off with isair and madae in front of me, and a few of their accomplices on the sides (mage, cleric, rogue, fighter etc, all 'named' chars). I mass haste the party, cast holy aura and circle against evil and off I go. I send the fighter, monk and paladin to gangbang the nearest named minion, then the next, then the next, etc...with good equipment, holy aura and mass haste they practically rip through the first waves. Most of the named dudes were dead in a minute or two-three, but Isair and Madea were summoning stuff like CRAZY. No demons, thankgod, but greater feyrs, frost giants, shade forms, rhemoraz (they are bastards) and so forth. More than enough to keep me busy. Actually, they were virtually swamping me at a certain moment, so I decided to focus all my firepower on Madea who -I believed- was the major spellcaster summoning stuff. Things were looking dire however, as I had her down to only 'hurt' with the fighters starting to take damage; and more summons were appearing...

But then my wizard was running from the battle (chased by a summon) and I saw that the REAL culprit summoning was a (named) wizard slightly behind a wall who does nothing but summon, summon, summon...so we changed focus, owned the fella, and went back to Madae. A few seconds later she and Isair teleport out to replenish at the nearby spring well however...leaving me and my party to deal with a horde of tough summons. They're easy one by one, but hard when blocking and kicking you en masse. But we manage to kill them all without any losses. The party is majorly injured however, so instead of using my healing spells/scrolls I summon the djinn with the avarine decanter (can be bought off the drow merchant in the traveling camp early in the game) and buy healing for my entire party. Because you can't sleep or save there...

So, I'm at full health again but lost a good few of my spells already. I go to the other room with isair and madea, and face them a second time. they're both at full health again and are accompanied by two slayer knights of Xvim. Those are tough but nothing to worry about really...then I move on to the cambion twins. I'm doing the usual strategy of focus fire on one target (of course) and i'm doing good damage but Isair is a high-level cleric with several "heal" spells so it's a war of attrition. She keeps healing herself and her brother as soon as they hit 'hurt' status. Up until then I'm firmly in control, but then the balance changes...

Isair casts 'Black Blade of disaster' and DISINTIGRATES my paladin. you have to keep in mind that both isair and madea are very resistant to all forms of physical damage, and that the extra magical damage from the Holy Avenger is hurting them the most of anything my party throws at them. So, paladin is wasted (for good) and the holy avenger is lying useless on the floor... It got worse: my monk gets stunned and almost insta-killed by Isair...and madae casts mass dominate on my wizard and bard standing a few feet away from the battle, leaving only my main tank (Rinox ) and my cleric standing.

The idea then was to just have the tank keep the twins busy for as long as he could until the dominate wore off on the wizard and bard. This worked, but only just: about the time the tank gets killed the bard and wizard join the battle again. The wizard starts firing some minor spells like Magic Missile on the 'hurt' twins (their heals had ran out by then) but to little avail...I start to panic at this point. I check my inventory and find a scroll of resurrection! While my cleric is rezzing my tank, I use my bard and wizard to distract the twins...the bard gets stunned and killed, the wizard follows a few seconds later. At this point ONLY my cleric is left standing, with no offensive spells left and two major badass enemies near. But the rezzing succeeds and my war can quickly put on all his armor again (unlike in BG2 where you can't change armor during battle situations) and the rest of his equipment.

With only these two characters left I make a last ditch attempt: I dig up the Axe of Souls from my bag of holding! The axe is cursed, and while holding it the wielder goes berserk (no control) and his HP status is unknown...but the axe has some MAJOR bonuses too and was probably the only weapon left that can really put the hurt on the twins. So I get Rinox the axe and make him attack Isair, the warrior/mage of the twins. The priest provides some minor healing, and manages to use a scroll of 'raise dead" on my wizard. The wizard still has a 'haste' in his spells so I use it on Rinox, while firing some minor spells like acid arrow on isair.

I'm crossing my fingers, hoping he'll hold out because the monk doesn't do enough damage, the paladin is chunked and the bard's spells arent powerful enough...he's the last hope. Because I can't see his HP status I have no idea how near to dying he is, so I just sit back and hope...and then, after a while, isair goes down, the cutscene plays and my cleric, tank and wizard run for the exit as the severed hand starts crumbling down. Beat the game!! After being only left with a cleric at a certain point of the final battle it was really rewarding, as you can imagine. And I like to praise myself for the stroke of genius of equipping Rinox with the Axe of Souls. If the paladin wouldn't have disappeared the battle would have been easy I think...but if, if, if. I think it's kinda fitting that a paladin didn't make it to the end in a party of mine, don't you?

Anyway peltz, tips for the final battle:

- take out the summoner behind the wall, will spare you a lot of frustration
- focus on ONE twin only. As soon as you can kill one of them, you win the game.

Have fun man...I know I did!

I was out of the country for a few days, so i havent had the chance to play yet, still at the keeper. I havent come up with any ideas how to kill the keeper because, for good or worse, i built my party for delay tactics which means i have few offensive spells but lots of buffs and debuffs.

I dont know man, i think the keeper might be too tough. I woulndt want to give up but i aint planning on trying for months to kill one lousy animal.

Hehe, killed the poor bastard.

The battle was beyond my meager IWD skills so i:

1) turned the difficulty to very easy
2) Had my rogue run around the monster while mages used up any DPS spell he had
3) Once the offensive spells were out i equipped slashing weapons, forget blunt weapons, and hasted them and then i used about 25 potions of health
4) he dropped down dead.

Heh i suck, but he's dead.