Ankheg Help
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Member Posts: 52
Hi there, anyone have any tactics to beat an ankheg or two at level one? Cheese welcome
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If you can wear plate and be proficient in a weapon you can fight them straight up (tried and tested with plain fighter dual wielding long swords at lvl 1, 18/91 str)
1. Get ring of protection from the hidden stash in the very first map
2. Get the ankheg plate from the hidden stash in nashkel
3. Get a helmet, weapon of choice (need a couple, they break!), maybe a shield from a shop and you should be able to kill one before it kills you (may have to reload if you get unlucky, it's not 100 percent certain at lvl 1 due to low hp)
4. Heal with potions or the temple healing, repeat as many times as you can stomach. If you rest in the cave they will spawn indefinitely, taking you to whatever lvl you desire. Once you get lvl 2-3 (only 4-5 kills) you get near a 100% success rate.
If you are still having difficulties, i suppose you could find the hidden ring of wizardry and sell it, buy yourself a +1 weapon and +1 shield? That should def. Do the trick
Haven't tried thief or mage at lvl 1 yet so no advice there.
Protection from Acid spells work rather well from memory.
Second, if you are going to all the trouble of heading down to Naskal for the armor, why not stop by and get Greywulf's Long Sword. That will give you cold damage as well as weapon damage. And won't break.
Third, be really careful if you are "Pulling" the Ankheg. The thing that will kill you is triggering a second. Then you are really hosed.
Also, Sleep might not work. Anything 4Hd or above ignores sleep entirely. Not sure where Ankheg fall in the scheme of things, but it MIGHT be too high level to be effected.
But at the end of the day, what are you trying to achieve by attacking Ankhegs at 1st level? are you trying to power through XP? there are better and safer methods to do that. Look around for the quests they give you in Friendly Arm Inn and in Bergost. With a limited party they alone will almost get you to level. (find the book, talk down the grieving father, fetch the boots and bottle, etc...). If done with only 1 or 2 companions, you can easily get a thief or fighter to level 2.
In my first playthrough, i think it took something like 5 hours to get lvl 2 in a full party. I found the slow pace at the start and the randomness of battles with low hp a bit boring, so killing a few ankhegs at the start is a fun way to either beef up for a solo run, or to simply skip the part of the game where you are running around with 14 hp and don't have many fun abilities yet. Each ankheg is allmost 1000 exp, so it's a fast way to get some early levels.
For me, the fun starts around lvl 4 where hp pools are a little larger and you have gained at least some fun spells/abilities. Not to mention if you dual class, how boring it is to wait for your first class levels to return - much better to use 10 minutes to kill some ankhegs to get your levels back.
@the_spyder i guess i have finished bg1 quite a few times when it first come out. I am just planning my new playthrough but i always take viccy through entire series as i like her stats and romance and always play cg character. I always try to pick her up first asap by staying off roads and roleplay missing out on friendly arm inn, reliase baldurs gate is closed and finish areas around nashkel instead. I have never been able to beat ankhegs at level one before and was just seeing
If it was possible. If i could get that new buckler from selling shells and perhaps new ankheg armor as well as a few levels, i thought i would give it a go and could be fun as well. Seems it may be possible so i will give it a go methinks.
I use 2 or 3 close combat charachters and the rest just attack or casts spells from a range
Also make sure the one being attacked ALWAYS has more than 15 life points 'cause with a lucky shot an Ankegh can kill almost anybody
His friendship will last long enough to just about clear them all. I'm not sure if you need to do the majority of the damage yourself or just the killing blow, to get the exp, but he is very handy since he also paralyses enemies (and pretty funny too, would make a nice party npc).
If you have trouble with ankhegs at lvl 1, getting these 24k exp first will get all classes to lvl 5 solo, at which point you should be able to solo ankhegs really no matter what class
If you and Neera don't cut it, grab Ajantis additionally for a bit of muscle.
Rest in the Nashkal Mine area or travel a lot between Nashkal and the Nashkal Mines to find them.