I believe I am in the final stages of NWN1 Shadows of Undrentide and I am playing a level 10 Wizard. I had to fight a few monsters that are immune to Magic like Spider Queens or SHIELD GUARDIAN. I tried every possible magic on them and noticed that there is no way I can hurt them directly.

So far only tactic I have is,
Summon a Dire Bear (lv5 spell)
Have Dora on Malee (my henchwoman)
Use Bull's Strength, Stoneskin and Haste on both of them.
Use Grease. I found that they have very low resistance to that and they keep falling.
Use a crossbow with fire bolts. (+2 bolts dont work)

So my question is, is this the only way to fight those montsters? I didnt really have much problem, bears take good care of anything but I wanted to know if there is an other way i am missing.

tnx
Engin.

Summons work well for this purpose. Dorna is a pretty poor henchman due to her unfavorable multi-classing. I would not rely on her. Haste is a good way to boost melee combatants. I wouldn't waste stoneskin on them; use it to protect your fragile wizard self! Grease ignores spell resistance. A lot of conjuration spells do. It's one of the best 1st level spells in the game for that reason. Crossbows are nearly useless at level 10. They deal poor damage, your accuracy as a wizard is bad, and if the monster has piercing resistance or damage reduction then it probably won't do anything at all. My favorite approach is to stoneskin myself and cast acid sheath, fire shield, and/or death armor. Stoneskin absorbs the damage and my enemies take retaliation damage back.

Sometimes a monster isn't actually immune to your spells, it just has high spell resistance. Using feats like spell penetration and a spell like lesser spell breach can really help. For instance, if you combine spell penetration, greater spell penetration, and lesser spell breach a 10% chance of success rises to a 45% chance of success. Still not great odds, but way better than nothing. You can often tell whether the monster is immune or resistant by right clicking on it and choosing the "examine" option.

I really like Dorna. I made her focus on Rogue mostly so she is Lv7 Rogue lv4 Cleric. She doesnt hit often but with her 35 AC and high reflexes she rarely gets hit. Sometimes she kills everything alone when i am dazed.

I use fire, ice and lightening bolts and with 13 Attack i hit half the time. Its awesome when i run out of spells in the middle of a fight. My dexterity is 20 btw with +5 dex gloves.

I read about that fire shield tactic but it does so little damage that its a pain to wait.

Tnx for the responses. I appretiate it.

Just so you know, the Shield Guardians are not immune to spells. They're immune to level 4 and under spells. And if Dorna is level 11 then you're level 11...and you get access to level 5 spells at level 9 (or 10 as Sorcerer).

Also, what makes you think Spider Queens are immune to spells?

Because it says "spell immunity" on their profile and because cone of cold "lv 5 spell" didnt work on them. It didnt say "spell resisted", it said "spell immunity" on the chat log. I was level 9 when i was fighting with them so had only one chance.

EDIT: I noticed that NWN wiki supports what you said about level 4 and under spells so i took a screenshoot of the golems. Unfortunately Spider queen didnt spam this time but i am sure she had the same sign because none of my spells, fireballs, lightnings etc didnt work on her.

"Spell Immunity" literally just means the creature is immune to one or more spells. So if I took an Ancient White Dragon and gave it immunity to Ray of Frost (which...it already takes 0 damage from) you'd see the same "Spell Immunity" thing there.

Think of it like the term "Damage Resistance" -- just means it has SOME damage resistance. Could be 5 resist to Fire or 50 resist to every type, you don't know from the examine option.

Can confirm that neither cone of cold or flame brand ( both 5 level spells ) dont do nothing against those golems and going into spell immunity, my dire bear do 0 damage to them and garbage bugged kobold do no damage either, i simlply dont know how to do those golems, ring doesnt matter since i cant do single point of damage to them.

Edit: Actually only the Butler is immune to level 5 spells, but somehow kobold managed to strike him once after i got for him rapier +2 and all buffs/potions on him i could manage, he couldn't do any damage to guardian golems still, but the level 5 spells works on them. After completing this quest and getting level 11 i took tengser or whatever transformation to be able to deal with such situations. Dont get kobold into chapter 2, completely useless with wizard and also bugged, he simply dont attack half fight doing 2 attacks or spells and then freezing in the middle of fight even if being attacked himself, spam attack nearest target help sometimes but can also mess his sequence. I really regret not taking dwarf with me, at least she had no problems with AI or at least attacking and was better meatshield than that junk kobold.

From memory, Shield Guardians have 10/+3 Damage Reduction, and Immunity to Level 4 Spells and Lower. Spider Queens spawn with Greater Stoneskin [20/+5, soak 110 damage] and Globe of Invulnerability [Immunity to Level 4 spells and under].

There's a few options you have as a wizard to defeat these type of monsters if you don't have high level spells:

1. Damage Reduction + Damage Shields + wait for them to kill themselves,

2. +3 weapons [weapons, not ammunition] for yourself or companions [for Guardians]. Ashtara sells +3 Ranged Weapons, and the Tenser's Transformation form has a +3 longsword.

3. Familiars that deal elemental damage. Some use touch attacks, others do little bits of damage per hit. Some weapons found throughout the Campaign similarly deal elemental damage and can be given to companions [E.g. the Talona's Strike Halberd].

4. Flame Weapon/Greater Magic Weapon. Granted these are both HoTU spells, but if you happen to have them, why not use them? Alchemists Fire, when 'used' on a weapon, works like a level 1 Flame Weapon spell. Ashtara sells Alchemists Fire.

5. Lob lots of Acid Flasks and Alchemists Fire at them. Slow going, but still works. Ashtara sells these.

6. Use a summon, WITH STONESKIN ON THEM. Creature weapons bypass Damage Reduction depending on what level of Damage Reduction they currently have. Stoneskin is 10/+5, so a stoneskin'd summon will have +5 fists! [for the purposes of bypassing DR]

Similarly, if you cast Stoneskin on yourself and use Polymorph Self, then you should gain +5 fists.

7. For creatures with Buffs from Spells [like spiders], Spell Breach spells should remove them.

For the Guardians, there's an ultra cheap way, that doesn't involve much fighting at all.

Notice how all the Golems keep mentioning to visit an Emporium? This is where they were all made!

In the North Fragment area, there is a Stone Golem, and behind him a locked container with a ring inside: The Golem Maker's Ring. If you get your hands on the ring, you can use it on the Shield Guardians to disable them. You'll have run your way there past a few things first, and the Stone Golem will of course fight back.

Subtle :)

yea stoneskined creature seems like a good solution, didnt know about that one. I only thought about greater magic weapon to bypass their defence, but i didnt have it at the moment neither vendor had it. In the end only butler was a problem with his level 5 immunity, common guardians didnt have it.

That's the annoying bit about playing wizards: spells added by later expansions cannot be bought in the OC or the first expansion. So you won't ever find a vendor with such spells for sale. (Until you move to Hordes of the Underdark.) Clerics get the new spells automatically, Sorcerers can select them whenever they gain a level just like any other spell, but wizards can't get them unless you remember to pick them on levelup.

It's a pretty good idea when playing a wizard in Shadows of Udrentide to learn all the Hordes of the Underdark spells on levelup.

This page lists all said spells. (if you scroll down a bit) Though if you're in the second chapter, it won't be important for much longer since you're nearly done.

Easy. Buff with Bull STR, Endurance, Cat DEX, haste your mage, polymorph then attack. Tenser is best (you'll need level 11 for this one) but Umber Hulk works fine, too. If you use the Hulk, buff with some DR spell like Stoneskin first (plus the abilities and haste already mentioned) and your Hulk form will be able to penetrate up to +5 DR on the enemy. Oh, IIRC Hulk gets True Seeing automatically... for what that's worth.

If you took any combat feats like KD, Cleave, Expertise or whatever, they will all work while polymorphed. Tenser gets Cleave for free and immunity to mind spells.

This is standard melee mage strategy, btw.

There are very few monsters with actual magic immunity. Most of the time when a mob resists your spell, they either have high spell resistance, have some buff that protects them from spells like globe of invulnerability, have racial immunities to specific spells (like spiders being immune to web or undead being immune to mind-affecting spells) or have enough resistance to an element that your spell of that element will do no damage.

There is a way to deal with all of those without resorting to melee; taking spell penetration feats and using spell breach for spell resistance, using dispel magic or spell breach for buffs, just using spells they aren't immune to for racial immunities and using spells of a different element for elemental immunities.

The only nice thing about wizards compared to sorcerers (who are more powerful overall in NWN) is that you're more flexible in your approach to a fight, so you can just rest and bring the right spells to every fight.


In the case of the shield golems, they're only immune to lvl 4 spells and under IIRC, although they also have high resistance to elemental damage. You're not actually supposed to fight those, you can find an item that disables them.