The Black Pits 2 : The Gladiators of Thay - 5th battle, the drow party from he house of Aiel´for

Tarlugn

Greetings!

My party personnel keeps on dying to the drow battle in the arena.

What can I do?

My party personnel consists of blackguard, dwarven defender, priest of talos, skald, shadowdancer and a wild mage. My party´s theme is "we´re evil, hail & kill!".

Should I roll a new party?

Gallowglass

It's one of the tougher early battles, but no, you shouldn't need to give up. That looks like a viable party composition already, so you ought to be able to find a way to beat the drow.

I think the key is to remember that direct magical attack is weak against drow because of their magic resistance, so go for buffs (and eventually summonings) instead and rely mostly on melee. Let them come to you instead of charging at them, which gives you time to buff before they arrive. Haste is essential, and also use Improved Haste if you can. As ever, your priority is to take down the enemy wizard a.s.a.p. (e.g. Breach and then backstab) - fortunately, he doesn't seem to have any re-buffing contingencies prepared, so he's a soft target for physical attack after a Breach. The enemy cleric seems fond of going invisible and trying to sneak up on your Mage, so get a Stoneskin up and then cast to reveal her. The drow are fond of poison, so have potions handy.

FinneousPJ

Yep, use summons to distract them. IIRC the wizard in this battle is surprisingly non-threatening - I remember having to kill the crossbowmen first to best succeed.

Alexisisinneed

As you do know is you don't want to ignore those spiders that seem to burst out of their bodies as they have a pretty powerful poison too.

lunar

Summon heavily and let the summoned monsters take the initial wave of drow attacks. While you use ranged attacks to soften them up. Here are my reccomendations:

Priest of Talos-this guy can be the star in this battle. Let him cast animate dead a lot, right at the start, this should get you nice skeleton warriors highly resistant to drow crossbow bolts and immune to poison&most magic. Summon up a few Aerial Servants if you can, they are heavy hitters. A pyschial mirror spell will make you immune to drow crossbow bolts. He should also get a True Seeing up and moving, the drow priestess is reslly sneaky with invisibility+harm combo. Lastly, keep slow poison spells ready if a party member is poisoned.

Blackguard-let the drow taste their own medicine and use poison skill with ranged weaponry. (Under haste) look for opportunity to dispel arrow the mage and poison him to shut his spellcasting. Lastly help in with the melee if the summons are killed.

Skald-protect self with stoneskin/mirror image. Haste the party AND the summons. Sing battle song. Tank with protection from magic weapons active. Pelt the drow with melfs minute meteors, other attack spells are not quite effective as drow are highly magic resistant. Keep some remove magic/breach spells ready to use against the enemy mage.

Dwarven defender-use throwing axes or sling with a strength potion+heavy magic bullets and be ready to tank the drow if the summon wall is breached. Have extra healing potions on his belt/quaff occasionaly.

Wild mage-stoneskin+spirit armor+mirror image self via sequencer, create Mordy swords and send them off to tank the drow, secret word+breach the enemy mage when possible, attack with melf minute meteors since drow are magic resistant. Keep protection from magical weapons on ALL the time (cast once per 4-5 rounds)

Shadowdancer-umm. My thief set quite a few traps while drow were away but this guy can't do. Protect the casters, Detect illusions to reveal the sneaky drow priestess. HiPS to go and backstab a seperated drow archer and force him to melee you

I am not sure but there can be a scroll of protection from poison in some of the vendors? Cast it on a character at the start of the battle. Have a non-caster read it on himself or some one else as the real casters should be busy summoning/animating dead/buffing/protection.