I'm playing a solo Assasin and cannot seem to defeat Rayic Gethras... the game won't allow me to backstab him before he dispels my stealth, then he defeats me with his spells. In any event, he has protection from normal weapons, so I'm not sure if my +2 sword even hurts him. It does not seem to. Is there any way for a solo thief, early in the game to either raise my Save throws, and penetrate Gethras' defenses?

Help!

[ March 05, 2007, 20:02: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

Never done this without a mage, better get one (yeah you solo, I know, but just for the moment) and cast Breach on him.

If you want to play cheap, you can run back down the stairs and wait for his protection spells to expire.

For my solo F/T, I seem to recall a strategy centered around running out of his line of site and trying to hide in shadows, and getting lucky to save vs. his finger of death, and waiting for his weapons protections to end, drinking an oil of speed, and hacking away. Might be different though considering the crappier THAC0 you'll have as a solo thief. What about luring him into traps?

The easiest way for a low level thief to face a Mage is to use Imp.Invisibility from the Rings of Air Control (Ribald sells unlimited rings).


Mages who cannot see through invisibility, cannot target with their spells an improved invisible character.

IIRC Rayic Gethras has True Sight though, so either you make him to cast all his T.Sights hiding in Shadows & running away, or you can use the Cloak of non-Detection which when combined with Stealth protects from Divination spells like T.Sight.

Other ways to kill a Mage:

- Tuigan bow + Acid Arrows (no save to the dmg).
3 attacks/round with elemental damage = spell casting failure for the mage.


- The Arrows of Dispelling (a Merchant in the Promenade sells some of them).They will dispel protections like Stoneskins/Mirror Image and then with your poison ability the Mage is already dead.
(Poison does not bypass Stoneskins)

- Summons like the Spider figurine and the Horn of Valhala can distract the mage while you shoot arrows at him.

Set LOTs of traps around him and he will fall like a log...hopefully.

Otherwise yuo will need very good saves against his symbols, chaos, disintegrate and finger of death spells. Fail at any of them and you are toast. Some fire resistance can also help against his suprise Sunfire spell.

thetruth's advice is very good, listen to the best BG player around! :)

I think your problem is the auto-Stoneskin that pretty much all modded mages use. It takes forever to run out, so the Arrows of Dispelling idea is a good option. So is the Improved Invisibility idea.

Frankly, you'd better get used to killing Stoneskinned mages, 'cause you're going to run into a ton of 'em in a modded game.

SPOILERS!!!

Yeah, he was tough for my solo cleric-thief early on.

His True Sight will not see through your stealthy thief wearing the cloak of non-detection. Using a potion of speed along with stealth you can wear away the stoneskins. Dodge down the stairs when he starts to target you, rehide, then go back up.

You may want to do a few other quests first in order to build up your levels and acquire some good magic items. I would recommend doing the Murder quest in the Bridge District (and of course the Copper Coronet/Slavers quest). Go pick some pockets (two in particular will come in handy for all battles). There are quite a few relatively battle free quests that can be done very early on for a solo.

As an assassin you should give yourself proficiency in clubs as soon as possible. There are two very good clubs you can get at trademeet/druids grove that could really help you.

The best backstab weapon early on is a +4 staff you can buy at the Adventurers Mart. Also buy the Ring of Air Control (as mentioned earlier).