Does anyone have any easy way of killiing the fire giants in the Marching Mountains? I have been getting my butt kicked. I can get them trapped at the rocky parts, but when I go inside I get killed within the first 30 seconds to 1 minute. PLEASE help me!!

What's your level and what chars do you have ? The bunch is pretty tough and deals out a lot of damage but I never had real problems to kill them ... sure, the fight talkes a while :) Tell what you have and I can give you hints how to use it :)

Make sure you're not standing on the lava... First time I was in there my party got beaten to a bloody pulp before I realized that the lava they were standing in was doing much more damage than the giants. Summon some monsters in, and a Planetar or Deva if you have them yet. Shouldn't be too tough.

You can lure the giants down to a choke point outside (they will follow you if you get them close enough to you...head back outside) There is a lava river just before the entrance, and a choke point that they are too big to go through. Lure them there, and use your long range weapons and a death cloud if you have one.

Nalora

I am a elven mage/thief, Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, Keldorn, Imoen. Levels are from 15 to 20 (Anomen)<---20. I have tried to get them to chase me outside, and have even waited till I was getting hit and they still will not chase me outside. I think that it is because the game saves and then loads the new screen.

the key is to make one of your fighers or clerics immune to CRUSHING weapons. Then they take all the blows while you kill the others. take them out one by one.

Also take note of the laboratory notes from watcher's keep if you have them, especially the ones on how to defeat the fire wizard's guardians.... ;)

what level is the papers that you are talking about? Also what level should the characters be around to start on the Watchers Keep? Thanxs ahead of time to everyone you has commented!!

These notes are found on Level 2 of Watcher's Keep. They basically say ice damage is good on fire. This time my plan is to hit Watcher's Keep up right after defeating Yaga Shura, almost where you are.
I have done it that way in the past too. OF course you can do the Keep far sooner than that, but the Keep notes what level you are when you arrive and sets the kinds of monsters you fight in a lot of areas in the Keep to fit your level. For me, I like to fight the biggest and baddest the game can dish out, so I wait until I am high level before going to the Keep. ALthough there are some enemies you fight regardless of level. It's more fun for me that way.

High Level spells are good on giants, especially if you lower their magic resistance. Maze is effective in getting one out of the picture for awhile. But even better is a well placed Cone of Cold ;). Just make sure you don't get your own characters. And please don't resort to that cheese tatic of leading the giants out of the cave to the bottleneck, that is just pushing it on the cheese/lame level.

My solo F/M/T went through levels one and two of Watchers Keep at level 10/11/13 if I remember correctly. you should be able to go through Watchers Keep with less problems than I have had to date.
The papers you want to know about are on the second level in the various librarys of the mages. The demon that you have to fight before you can get the key to go to level three gave me lots of problems though.

Hint for fighting the statues on level one if you cant stand toe to toe with them. Get the golem statue to stand in front of a door to a room your in and all the other statues outside clustered behind him, and let loose a cloud kill or two, will kill them relatively quickly.

I used sequenced skulltraps and cone of cold spells there, glyphe of warding, smithe evil and - of course - the wand of frost (I unfortunately didn't had the icestorm spell at hand :evil: - the wand of frost seemed to tend firegiants go panic :evil: ). As for the rest:

Since you are pretty weak in melee - only Minsc and Keldorn are real fighters, I'd rely on magic instead. And yes, stay off the lava ...

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited January 25, 2002).]

Ice may be good against fire, but I did not experience any bonus damage against fire giants with for example the cone of cold spell. When entered the Yaga Shura's lair area my sorcerer casted time stop, then I fired a spell trigger with greater malison, slow and horror. My cleric(Anomen) casted holy smite over and over again, Minsc and Mazzy kept the Elite troop giants far enough with missile fire. My sorcerer and Imoen used Abi Dalzim's horrid wilting and power word stun on the slowed and panicked giants. The fight was not difficult at all. I beat the giants without taken any meele damage. If it was good luck or profism I don't know, and I don't care. When you use the available spells wisely you can spare a lot of pain.

[This message has been edited by TIN_MAN (edited January 25, 2002).]

Hmm, if you think about it, the luring-out-fire giants-and-try-to-get-them-stuck cheese tactic is actually very much role-playing. I mean c'mon, I'm sure you've seen giants getting stucked in TV/D&D. Don't get me wrong, I don't use it, no cheese for me.

Oh and the fire giants are afraid to take one step into a little stream of lava and go around you, because it might give them a boo boo? :p.

Those giants just inside Yaga Shura's place are a pain - literally :) First time through I didn't realise that the lava pools were damaging the party - lost a lot of hp that way. I found that by placing a couple of good, tough melee combatants up front (my fighter/thief, Jaheira and Anomen with lots of healing potions) I was able to keep the giants away from the spell casters and distance fighters (Mazzy, Aerie and Nalia). While Mazzy kept hitting them with arrows, Nalia and Aerie were casting Abi Dazim's Horrid Wilting (?), Holy Smite, and a Finger of Death or two. One of the keys was to keep the party members from running into the lava pools - had to keep a close eye on them.

[This message has been edited by Gnolyn Lochbreaker (edited January 25, 2002).]

my kensai/thief managed to backstab most giants altough I dont know if you need the kensai thaco to make it work.

i heard monks are pretty good vs fire giants too..

I love bg2
*Every* thief can backstab ... the kensai-THACO helps though ... it wouldn't really make sense when a thief *has* the inherent backstabbing ability but would be unable to use it unless dualled from a fighter ;) Even plain thiefs backstab perfectly well with * and an average THACO

IstvAn
Monks are good vs everything, they can easily beat up any enemy quickly ... they are immune to many things, their MR is awesome and these are about the very facts that make the monk that boring to play :D

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited January 26, 2002).]

ragusa: what i was trying to say is I dident know if a thief has good enough thaco to hit someone as tough as a fire giant, I guess I just have a bad way with words and getting my point across sorry if I have been confusing.

Playing on the most difficult setting has helped me realize some things. Right now, the thing that is helping me with the fire giants the most is Ironskin on my fighter/druid. Stoneskin mixed with Tenser's Transformation and Mirror Image on a mage is good as well. Don't overlook the level 2 and 3 Cleric spells that add resistance to fire. These coupled with rings, armor, and whatever else fire resistance equipment you already have, really helps against fire damage.

I do not know if Yaga-Shura's cave is a party-required area. If not, you can do it all with one potent thief. Of course, you will not get all the experience, but what do you want - it is the sly way.

Last time through (I was lucky to play a solo DC Swashbuckler/Fighter) I did the following:

1) When entering the Marching mountains go straight to the right and up - this way you will have to fight only one Fire Giant and two Burning Men.
2) If the cave is a party-required area, then use soem invis potions and rings and enter. Put your party somwhere in the middle of the big stairs and turn the AI off.
3) Take your mage/thief and give him at least 4-5 potions of invisibility. Youreally should have some of those at this point. if not, Invisibility spells will work just fine.
4) Attack one of the Fire giants on the lowest staircase and run near the exit. Fire giants will follow you, and that's the time when you use your potion or spell. The trick is that enemies will not stop right after you become invis, but will proceed to the point where you "disappeared". This way you will have a happy bunch of 7-8 Fire Giants standing in front of the exit, while two side rooms are clear.
5) Do the same thing on the top staircase: you enter the room, let the monsters run to you, open the container, take the wardstone and use your potion.
6) Then you go at the bottam, and as the side rooms are free, you can ring those huge gongs with no problem and open two middle passages. Proceed as above.
7) The cave is so big that you can lead Fire Giants to one corner and do whatever you want in the other without fighting them.
8) Now to inner bedroom. Here you can do exactly the same, because you have to kill only Berenn and Fire Elemental Prince, and you can isolate those easily.

**** BUT **** It is not that easy to do because there are FELL CATS that can see through the invisibility. More over, every other monster who is in sight, will also attack you if a fell cat sees you, so you'll have to kill thse beasties first.