Is this part of the game, in that ice temple, necessary to advance? I find it quite annoying.

Gabriel :confused:

No, but you do get rewards. Good ones, too.

Err.. sorry to contradict. But, yes. It is very necessary to advance. You need the key to Oria's chambers, which you get by winning just one battle in there. But you don't need to play it more than that. And you can choose the easiest battle (Rank 1 (leftmost) lever - and play a regular tic-tac-toe game - so 3 mosters to kill).

[ December 03, 2002, 01:49: Message edited by: Quint ]

To complete all 10 levels is very time consuming, and quite buggy. Frequently, an opponent will teleport to the room (next to the shadow room) where your party is held incommunicado. Your party can kill the monster there -- HOWEVER, if the golem doesn't see him, then the game goes in limbo. What I did was to take my challenger down to the incommunicado room and wait for the golem. When he shows, the rest of my party kills the monster. I usually just make them invisible or run around until he arrives -- then the games proceeds normally. Also, there are some nice treasures to be had, plus exp. points. You can go back here (if I am really close to the next level and a major battle is coming up, I will come here to gain the next level) until leaving with Maralie to travel back to Kuldahar Pass.
IaaA

Are you using the latest patch for Icewind Dale II?

The thing is, I remember reading in a walkthrough somewhere that a person used "summons" to defeat all the high-level monsters. However, that same person also commented that this was patched in the latest 2.01 version, though he never mentioned how.

Perhaps this stupid teleportation effect is the result? In order to prevent using summons to win the battles, the game "teleports" any summoned creatures to that !@#$ closed room. But since the creatures you fight are also summoned, the game gets confused?

The thing is, I remember reading in a walkthrough somewhere that a person used "summons" to defeat all the high-level monsters. However, that same person also commented that this was patched in the latest 2.01 version, though he never mentioned how.i believe that that person would be me. i have changed the battle square part in the faq so it fits in v2.01. You can find this part only in the following link

http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000766

Oh yeah, forgot about Oria. Thanks for the correction. But other than that, it is not necessary.