Some of the resistances that enemies have (or lack) run counter to common sense. Here are a few things to note:

Androids have a long list of immunities, but there are a few holes. Specifically, they are not immune to paralysis, insanity, unconsciousness or blindness. This means, in particular:
You can freeze them with Freeze Flesh, even though there's no flesh to freeze.
Insanity works on them, even though it doesn't make sense for it to work here.
You can hit androids with Noxious Fumes, and although none of them will be nauseated, they will still take damage and may fall unconsciousnes.
Blinding Flash works, but that at least seems to make sense.

Undead are also vulnerable to paralysis and I believe blindness. This means that you can freeze the flesh of ghosts. (Wait, what flesh gets frozen?)

On the other hand, undead are immune to instant death. This does include Quicksand, even though it would make sense for it to be able to work on undead. On the other hand, their low Divine resistance means that Lifesteal works well against them. (What?)

Speaking of Quicksand, that spell actually works well on flying creatures, since they have low Earth resistance. Of course, flying creatures tend to have low HP and appear in large numbers, so Earthquake is typically the better choice if you have it. (Yes, not only do earthquakes hurt flying enemies in this game, but flying enemies are actually weak against it.)

Large golem-like monsters tend to have high HP and earth resistance, but low wind resistance. This means that suffocating them with Asphyxiate or Death Cloud is not a bad idea, and you can add Toxic Cloud to the mix in case the other two spells don't work.

As a side note, anti-magic areas prevent the use of nearly all spell casting items, I believe. This means that you can't even drink potions or throw dust in such areas. You can't play music, either. (There is an exception: Gadgets work just fine in anti-magic zones.)

Edit: Undead are immune to unconsciousness, according to the text that appears when you right-click.

Android is a human like artificial organism, not limited to robots,
paralysis may result from blocked transmitters in a neuronal system,
which might also be affected by insanity

Quicksand works well on flying creatures because it creates an implosion :D


However, i agree that the magic system has serious flaws. Perhaps engine limitations.

I actually like the fact that the game doesn't always behave as one would logically expect. I actually like the fact that there is no rule preventing Quicksand and Earthquake from working on flying enemies; it makes things more interesting. It also keeps the rule system simpler by not having as many special cases. (I actually think Wizardry 8's ruleset is actually simpler than the one used by 6 and 7.)

It helps that, for a player familiar with how the game works, if a strategy looks like it will work, it probably will. It's annoying when strategies are blocked by arbitrary rules (like with Terraria's new superboss preventing health leech effects from working or Oblivion making Fortify Alchemy effects useless). Then again, it also helps that this game has a decent number of minor exploits and (unlike Morrowind) no major ones.