An Undead Hunter can rofl-stomp Bodhi's lair in Vanilla, the only real threat was level drain. Who cares if the vampires can see you?
Also, seriously, undead in general aren't that serious in vanilla, Mace of Disruption +2 kinda puts a damper on their threat level. Sure, 10-15 vampires at once might kill everyone else, but they are likely dead meat themselves after running into undrainable opposition.
...Where are these 'plenty' of undead in ToB?? Did I miss part of the game?! I remember the tiny vampire nest, which is a joke frankly, and a swamp, which has a bunch of pretty easy undead in vanilla. If you count Watcher's Keep, it still isn't very undead heavy. Undead abound in SoA, but really start to drop off sharply after Bodhi.
Now, I have agree Liches should have some way to counter the effect, due to high level caster abilities, but most of those enemies realistically SHOULD be vulnerable to a niche effect. That said, the Crooked Crane lich is a joke; I used to nuke him ASAP every game, usually using Daystar to do it. Daystar frankly is more unbalanced IMHO than Protection from Undead.
Daystar more unbalanced than protection from undead? One AoE spell that can fail to kill the enemy undead, or a scroll that lets you be completely immune to all undead for 6 hours game time? Which is enough to clear most areas three times over.
You can rest to re-use Daystar, and it is reliable enough to let you take down most undead right away. Daystar already trivializes Undead, and does it for free.
The issue may be different with mods mind you, but it pretty much ends most rough undead fights in 1 or 2 rounds.
I have to agree that undead are not much of a threat, save for liches. vampire are especially weak, while they are one of the major enemy of the main plot.
You can rest to re-use Daystar, and it is reliable enough to let you take down most undead right away. Daystar already trivializes Undead, and does it for free. The issue may be different with mods mind you, but it pretty much ends most rough undead fights in 1 or 2 rounds.
Daystar is still pretty damn powerful even in a heavily modded game - but of course it's also quite a lot harder to get when you can't just grab-and-run the sword, or use things like lucky Azuredge hits to kill the Lich guarding it...
I have to agree that undead are not much of a threat, save for liches. vampire are especially weak, while they are one of the major enemy of the main plot.
That's somewhat true, for the unmodded game. Once you deal with the level drain in some way, vampires really do nothing. And of course there's the Mace of Lolsruption and Loledge, which can even smack Liches silly. For all its focus on undead, they really are not the biggest deal in the vanilla game.
Now if you mod things, well, that's a bit different. Reasonable challenge there, and quite enjoyably difficult in places.
Another thing, not sure how mods might affect it, but Turn Undead can get pretty funny at higher levels. Technically, almost any undead is supposed to be vulnerable, though Death Knights are a notable exception. Even if you can't auto-destroy them like Shadows, a turned Lich is a de-animated lich pretty quickly.
Another thing, not sure how mods might affect it, but Turn Undead can get pretty funny at higher levels. Technically, almost any undead is supposed to be vulnerable, though Death Knights are a notable exception. Even if you can't auto-destroy them like Shadows, a turned Lich is a de-animated lich pretty quickly.
It gets ridiculously powerful at higher levels, a solo cleric can explode just about every undead in the game including kangaxx.
I think it's cheesy to take advantage of unintended game mechanics or engine limitations, but it doesn't seem cheesy to me to use the equipment provided by the game for the purposes intended by the devs. Of course I realise that others have different opinions about what is or isn't cheese.
The Shield of Balduran was obviously put there by the designers for the specific purpose of being "the right tool for the job" when fighting Beholders, it's blatantly intentional, and therefore (IMO) it's not cheesy to use it. That said, in my current run I've already cleared out both Beholder lairs (Underdark and Unseeing Eye) relying only upon the Cloak of Mirroring to block most of their rays (because I spent all my gold on various other equipment that I wanted, and haven't yet been able to afford the Shield of Balduran). The Cloak is a workable substitute for the Shield. Neither is any use against an Elder Orb's Imprisonment spell, however.
Of the generic enemies, I agree with @Space and others that Elder Orbs are probably the most dangerous.
Of the named enemies ... hmmm, difficult choice. Of course they're all very beatable when you have the right equipment/spells/abilities/tactics, but I guess it's a toss-up between Kangaxx and the Twisted Rune, both of which are very likely to be game-over if you run into them too soon. I've learnt to leave them well alone until Chapter 6, by which time my party are obviously higher-level and better-equipped, so then they're not too difficult.
If we include ToB (although the OP specified SoA), then tackling Demogorgon without traps is definitely tough. If I have a high-level Thief with me, then I don't see anything cheesy about setting traps and thereby making it easy, because that's what traps are for. However, when I'm relying on Imoen as sole Thief (which is often the case), then of course I've got to do it a harder way. The only other ToB enemy who strikes me as a contender for toughest is Draconis - not a problem when you've worked out good tactics and can take him down fast, but that's relying on meta-game knowledge about him - he's a very slippery customer if you're unprepared for what happens in that fight.
While I agree on all of the hard enemies in these comments...I'm waiting for them to adjust Irenicus so that his fight is harder. I haven't fought him myself yet because I haven't brought myself to finish the game yet (Yes yes, boo on me), but I heard his fight was very disappointing compared to the cutscenes, but there's arguements saying that he couldn't use his full power while he was giving his energy to the tree or whatever. Either way, When I fight Irenicus, I kind of hope for a boss enemy who changes his tactics depending on what you do, which would, of course, make it significantly harder...But he's the end-game boss for a reason, right? If you throw up a few party buffs, he instantly throws a dispel, if you start using fire against him, he throws up fire prot, same with lightning and cold and such, if you have somebody using Hide in Shadows a lot, he throws up a Purge Invisibility or something like that and you have to work your way around it. It sounds extremely challenging, honestly, but that's what I would expect from an end-game boss that finishes the BG series.
Well, fight vs Irenicus is like any fight vs mage, he uses the same spells and same tactics. But the spells he uses in cutscenes are in fact something like "instant kill no save throw, magic resistance doesnt matter". He could take down all your party in a blink of an eye.
For me one of the biggest/hardest fight is in the watcher's keep, before you reach Demogorgon, you must defeat a very bad bunch of b*tches, Queen Beholder, Marilith, 2 HL warriors, one priest and ... dont remember the others. But I need to take my time and buff my group before this battle
Another thing, not sure how mods might affect it, but Turn Undead can get pretty funny at higher levels. Technically, almost any undead is supposed to be vulnerable, though Death Knights are a notable exception. Even if you can't auto-destroy them like Shadows, a turned Lich is a de-animated lich pretty quickly.
It gets ridiculously powerful at higher levels, a solo cleric can explode just about every undead in the game including kangaxx.
Even more fun is to turn them with an evil cleric of extremely high level.
Really if you think back to the first time or two you played this game there were likely an awful lot of very hard fights and reload moments. Sure every battle/enemy is manageable after you find the right equipment, spell, or tactic, but I can say for sure I reloaded many of the fights dozens of times to work out strategies that would work.
Most memorable for me was trying to defeat dragons early game. Half your party running around like idiots shitting their pants in fear then being plastered to the walls by wing buffet or otherwise torn asunder. Honestly, the "tricks" that many players use to get past dragon fights would never fly in P&P whereas I think legitimately setting a ton of traps out of sight of the dragon and trying to get him to chase you through them would be a very plausible strategy in P&P if you knew the dragon was in a certain place. OR simply blocking off the cave entrance and filling it with poison gas from your cloudkill wand.
The cheesiest thing I ever allowed to happen in P&P game was giving a party a "bottle of endless water" (can't forget the exact name... random magic treasure from 1st ED DM guide which upon command can pour water at any rate from a trickle to a hose). Pretty useless right?
I also use props in a P&P game so enter the "deck of many things" for which I use actual playing cards and players can pick 1 to 3. One player got turned into an artifact, someone else took a really bad hit (not as memorable as the artifact one) but someone pulled a WISH. Of all the things they could have asked for, they opted to make the decanter of endless water produce holy water. They phrased it well, and it seemed well within the bounds of a wish spell's power, what could I do?
Think about that, essentially a hose that never runs dry that shoots holy water. I let them abuse it on some encounters then took it away. In P&P I like giving some really great items to a party, but I also take them away as quickly. For example, if they want an audience with anybody important or services at a temple they have to "donate" their most powerful item(s). Or they have to trade something nice for an important quest item. Easy come, easy go.
All prebuffing is cheese in my opinion. Unless the party can deduce from things in the game that a fight is coming up soon (clues in a dungeon for example), this feels cheesy to me. The ultimate cheese for me is unleashing fireballs or cloudkills at an area where you know enemies are via metagaming or reloading. AKA the party would have no idea in game that the enemies were there. I tend to agree with @Gallowglass regarding items though. If the devs put it there, I'm gonna use it! Although I did use the mod for my game removing the shield of Balduran, so I'm not really looking forward to those beholder lairs in my first ever no reload run of BG2 coming up...
I agree with Seldar about the fight after you break the final seal before demogorgon is the most difficult. The party you battle with has lvl draining, epic feats, beholder rays and more I can't remember.
Can I say everything with SCS? Because those opening mugger ambushes after Chateau Irenicus feel just as hard sometimes as going against someone like the Shade Lord or the Dragon a few levels (and few thousand gold in items) later. PLEASE QUIT BACKSTABBING MY POOR SORCERER!
The only fight I remember being hard in unmodded BG was the Rune fight in the Bridge District.
I'm far too much of a poor player to do SCS. In the Black Pits 2 I couldn't beat the final fight against the Winged. I just couldn't do it.
This was with a party of a sorceress, a cleric and 4 monks.
Eventually I had to turn the difficulty down to easy (part of me died inside), and even then I had to all but use up my rod of resurrection. Luckily, monks can jump right back in the fight even without items.
And I still had to reload, after the Winged vorpal sworded two monks in a row!
The only reason I won is that a planatar confused the joker, who got beaten down by 4 angry monks. The golem got swarmed by monks (I'd have body switched it, but I can't zoom in on my iphone after using the scroll, making fighting impossible). Even then, after the enemy slaughtered my sorceress and cleric (they all bee-lined the squishy ones) I had to run around with the monks avoiding the enemies until some of their buffs wore off.
Thank god for high magic resistance and movement speed for the monks.
A truly, utterly, hard battle. Even when using my HLAs, time stop, etc, it still kept kicking my arse. I've never struggled that hard on any fight before that.
It was that fight which convinced me that I'm still not ready for anything like SCS...
It was that fight which convinced me that I'm still not ready for anything like SCS...
Or do SCS on an easy difficulty so you can learn to adapt?
Not trying to be rude or snarky, just seems like if you want to play with SCS, just dive in and take it slowly. Stay in town, do the easier stuff, learn the combat patterns (like how to properly mage duel, or invisible/teleporting enemies) off easier mobs, then slowly branch out to things like Trademeet and then The Keep. Just don't go to Shade Lord or the Bard quest early...it will hurt. A lot.
The thing that keeps bringing me back to BG/IWD is just how good the combat can be in the Infinity Engine when modders got their hands on it. It's just so fun when you start breaking it down tactically instead of brute forcing through it, and when I played BG and BG2 way back in the day during initial release I had no strategy. I was run in there as a Kensai and hit things, while Fireballs and Healing spells were spammed. SCS really broke me of that.
SCS mages have unlimited Improved Invisibility (or some similar thing... it's been a while since I documented it). You don't have unlimited spells. It can be really annoying to have a mage hide again and again, especially as you run out of spells to remove the invisibility during early-mid game.
And if you are a roleplayer, SCS enemies will pre-buff/insta-buff at an unrealistic level. It's disproportionate. Big suspension of disbelief as a roleplayer.
If you tend to prepare for battles before your characters would know better (as most players do and this is perfectly fine!), SCS can be a good and fair challenge.
Some of the changes are nice: - wolves tend to keep their distance instead of attacking - enemies will target less armoured characters (thieves, mages) - some other things I can't remember...
Personally, I always saw the Mage buffing as a role-playing change. The spell lists for buffing are just longer duration defensive spells that a Mage would have on them when they expected trouble to be coming - like hearing an adventuring party crashing through their dungeon heading right for them. You can also tie it into difficulty levels so that on easier difficulties they won't pre-buff at all. I will say if you aren't used to it it's highly annoying. 'Stupid, cheating mages!' was a common saying of mine in my early SCS days.
I could be wrong here, but I don't think they have unlimited Improved Invisibility. They may have a ton of casts, but I'm pretty sure all the casters are limited by a finite amount of spells in SCS, as I'm pretty sure one of the methods people use to break past a gatekeeper mob is to use an army of summons to eat up their spellcasts, and then run up and hit it in the head with a really big weapon.
I tend to agree with @Gallowglass regarding items though. If the devs put it there, I'm gonna use it!
I'm glad there's someone who sees it my way! Thanks, @CField17. For the avoidance of doubt, I don't feel comfortable (ab)using items in ways which the devs don't appear to have intended, but in the case of the Shield of Balduran it's pretty much spelt out in the item description that the whole point of the item is for fighting Beholders.
Although I did use the mod for my game removing the shield of Balduran, so I'm not really looking forward to those beholder lairs in my first ever no reload run of BG2 coming up...
Well, you can use the Cloak of Mirroring intead, almost as effectively. That takes care of the Beholder lair in the Underdark, and you can leave the Unseeing Eye quest until you return from the Underdark (as I did in my current run, in which I relied on the Cloak instead of the Shield). Nevertheless, I don't intend to go without the Shield into ToB ... I don't absolutely need it, since I've got the Cloak, but it'll certainly make life easier to be able to send forward two characters who can face a Beholder without dying in seconds, instead of only one.
All prebuffing is cheese in my opinion. Unless the party can deduce from things in the game that a fight is coming up soon (clues in a dungeon for example), this feels cheesy to me. The ultimate cheese for me is unleashing fireballs or cloudkills at an area where you know enemies are via metagaming or reloading. AKA the party would have no idea in game that the enemies were there.
I agree in some circumstances. However, I regard it as "natural precaution which any sensible party would realistically take" to keep certain very-long-lasting buffs up at all times, such as Stoneskin for a Mage or Iron Skins for a Druid, and to keep some moderately-long-lasting buffs up whenever I explore any obviously-likely-to-be-dangerous area (e.g. dungeons), such as casting Remove Fear on the group before entering.
Also, however, I often use stealthed or invisible characters to scout ahead of the party, so quite often my party will "legitimately know" that there's a bunch of enemies around the next corner, so it's fair to prepare with additional buffs. Furthermore, in some of the major set-piece battles, you're quite likely to have met the enemy peaceably beforehand (Firkraag is a good example of this), and be going back to confront them later, so again your party will "legitimately know" what's about to happen, and therefore pre-buffing is justifiable (and so is chucking an AoE spell forward to where they know their enemy is waiting, if that's how they choose to start the battle).
SCS mages have unlimited Improved Invisibility (or some similar thing... it's been a while since I documented it). You don't have unlimited spells. It can be really annoying to have a mage hide again and again, especially as you run out of spells to remove the invisibility during early-mid game.
And if you are a roleplayer, SCS enemies will pre-buff/insta-buff at an unrealistic level. It's disproportionate. Big suspension of disbelief as a roleplayer.
If you tend to prepare for battles before your characters would know better (as most players do and this is perfectly fine!), SCS can be a good and fair challenge.
Some of the changes are nice: - wolves tend to keep their distance instead of attacking - enemies will target less armoured characters (thieves, mages) - some other things I can't remember...
@typo_tilly Have you ever installed SCS? You can control these factors with install options.
All prebuffing is cheese in my opinion. Unless the party can deduce from things in the game that a fight is coming up soon (clues in a dungeon for example), this feels cheesy to me. The ultimate cheese for me is unleashing fireballs or cloudkills at an area where you know enemies are via metagaming or reloading. AKA the party would have no idea in game that the enemies were there. I tend to agree with @Gallowglass regarding items though. If the devs put it there, I'm gonna use it! Although I did use the mod for my game removing the shield of Balduran, so I'm not really looking forward to those beholder lairs in my first ever no reload run of BG2 coming up...
I use Fireballing the edge of FoW to clear the goblins in Chateau Irenicus. It's just so much easier, and doesnt really affect the outcome.
Just the other day I attacked Renal Bloodscalp. I got attacked by an unkillable and hasted version of Arkanis Gath with a script called "KILLPC" that apparently allowed him to instantly kill me just by touching me. Stoneskin was no help, and he saw through invisibility. He chased me all over the Docks for several in-game days.
So I used Limited Wish to stop time and eat his brains as a Mind Flayer. Stat drain is the only way to kill something with the MINHP1 item.
Arkanis Gath doesn't actually kill you via script (not in the original anyway, haven't tested on EE lately), but via a weapon he has that kills you on hit. That weapon is enchanted, so if you're immune to magic weapons he cannot one-hit kill you. I used to murder Renal for his loot regularly with a K->M that laughed while Arkanis tried to get past her PfMW.
Of course, killing ARKANIS is a bit tricky. The stat-drain as you mentioned is one way, level-drain is another. Imprisonment probably also works. He doesn't drop anything special, though.
@Lord_Tansheron: I never even checked the .itm file. It is a +3 weapon with an instant death, non-vorpal strike on hit, no save and nonmagical. PFMW wouldn't be necessary. I could just block it with Death Ward!
I'm afraid level drain and Imprisonment will not work on him. The MINHP1 item he is wearing provides immunity to both. Stat drain is the only method.
@semiticgod - Arkanis Gath is intended as a deliberate game-stopper to prevent you from breaking the plot; that's why his script is called "KILLPC". The intention of the "Belt of MinHP1" is to make him unkillable (to make sure that he does indeed succeed in forcibly stopping your game), but the original devs overlooked the fact that you can kill him by stat drain. However, if this version of Arkanis Gath appears at all, then that usually means that you've broken the plot, i.e. that your game cannot now be completed.
(There's a different version of Arkanis Gath, without the Belt of MinHP1 and the instant-death sword, who can appear as an ally in Chapter 6.)
If you're still in Chapter 2 and have still left open the option to side with the "other guild", then ... er ... maybe it'll still be possible to complete the game, although that probably depends upon the exact circumstances. If siding with the "other guild" is no longer available to you, then you're shafted and will need to re-load to an earlier time (before attacking Renal Bloodscalp).
Comments
The issue may be different with mods mind you, but it pretty much ends most rough undead fights in 1 or 2 rounds.
vampire are especially weak, while they are one of the major enemy of the main plot.
Now if you mod things, well, that's a bit different. Reasonable challenge there, and quite enjoyably difficult in places.
The Shield of Balduran was obviously put there by the designers for the specific purpose of being "the right tool for the job" when fighting Beholders, it's blatantly intentional, and therefore (IMO) it's not cheesy to use it. That said, in my current run I've already cleared out both Beholder lairs (Underdark and Unseeing Eye) relying only upon the Cloak of Mirroring to block most of their rays (because I spent all my gold on various other equipment that I wanted, and haven't yet been able to afford the Shield of Balduran). The Cloak is a workable substitute for the Shield. Neither is any use against an Elder Orb's Imprisonment spell, however.
Of the generic enemies, I agree with @Space and others that Elder Orbs are probably the most dangerous.
Of the named enemies ... hmmm, difficult choice. Of course they're all very beatable when you have the right equipment/spells/abilities/tactics, but I guess it's a toss-up between Kangaxx and the Twisted Rune, both of which are very likely to be game-over if you run into them too soon. I've learnt to leave them well alone until Chapter 6, by which time my party are obviously higher-level and better-equipped, so then they're not too difficult.
If we include ToB (although the OP specified SoA), then tackling Demogorgon without traps is definitely tough. If I have a high-level Thief with me, then I don't see anything cheesy about setting traps and thereby making it easy, because that's what traps are for. However, when I'm relying on Imoen as sole Thief (which is often the case), then of course I've got to do it a harder way. The only other ToB enemy who strikes me as a contender for toughest is Draconis - not a problem when you've worked out good tactics and can take him down fast, but that's relying on meta-game knowledge about him - he's a very slippery customer if you're unprepared for what happens in that fight.
I haven't fought him myself yet because I haven't brought myself to finish the game yet (Yes yes, boo on me), but I heard his fight was very disappointing compared to the cutscenes, but there's arguements saying that he couldn't use his full power while he was giving his energy to the tree or whatever. Either way, When I fight Irenicus, I kind of hope for a boss enemy who changes his tactics depending on what you do, which would, of course, make it significantly harder...But he's the end-game boss for a reason, right? If you throw up a few party buffs, he instantly throws a dispel, if you start using fire against him, he throws up fire prot, same with lightning and cold and such, if you have somebody using Hide in Shadows a lot, he throws up a Purge Invisibility or something like that and you have to work your way around it. It sounds extremely challenging, honestly, but that's what I would expect from an end-game boss that finishes the BG series.
He could take down all your party in a blink of an eye.
For me one of the biggest/hardest fight is in the watcher's keep, before you reach Demogorgon, you must defeat a very bad bunch of b*tches, Queen Beholder, Marilith, 2 HL warriors, one priest and ... dont remember the others. But I need to take my time and buff my group before this battle
Really if you think back to the first time or two you played this game there were likely an awful lot of very hard fights and reload moments. Sure every battle/enemy is manageable after you find the right equipment, spell, or tactic, but I can say for sure I reloaded many of the fights dozens of times to work out strategies that would work.
Most memorable for me was trying to defeat dragons early game. Half your party running around like idiots shitting their pants in fear then being plastered to the walls by wing buffet or otherwise torn asunder. Honestly, the "tricks" that many players use to get past dragon fights would never fly in P&P whereas I think legitimately setting a ton of traps out of sight of the dragon and trying to get him to chase you through them would be a very plausible strategy in P&P if you knew the dragon was in a certain place. OR simply blocking off the cave entrance and filling it with poison gas from your cloudkill wand.
The cheesiest thing I ever allowed to happen in P&P game was giving a party a "bottle of endless water" (can't forget the exact name... random magic treasure from 1st ED DM guide which upon command can pour water at any rate from a trickle to a hose). Pretty useless right?
I also use props in a P&P game so enter the "deck of many things" for which I use actual playing cards and players can pick 1 to 3. One player got turned into an artifact, someone else took a really bad hit (not as memorable as the artifact one) but someone pulled a WISH. Of all the things they could have asked for, they opted to make the decanter of endless water produce holy water. They phrased it well, and it seemed well within the bounds of a wish spell's power, what could I do?
Think about that, essentially a hose that never runs dry that shoots holy water. I let them abuse it on some encounters then took it away. In P&P I like giving some really great items to a party, but I also take them away as quickly. For example, if they want an audience with anybody important or services at a temple they have to "donate" their most powerful item(s). Or they have to trade something nice for an important quest item. Easy come, easy go.
Ex: Scrolls of magic and undead protection.
One of the hardest fights in the game is the twisted rune building. A character with both walks through it without a problem. So it's 'cheese'
The only fight I remember being hard in unmodded BG was the Rune fight in the Bridge District.
This was with a party of a sorceress, a cleric and 4 monks.
Eventually I had to turn the difficulty down to easy (part of me died inside), and even then I had to all but use up my rod of resurrection. Luckily, monks can jump right back in the fight even without items.
And I still had to reload, after the Winged vorpal sworded two monks in a row!
The only reason I won is that a planatar confused the joker, who got beaten down by 4 angry monks. The golem got swarmed by monks (I'd have body switched it, but I can't zoom in on my iphone after using the scroll, making fighting impossible). Even then, after the enemy slaughtered my sorceress and cleric (they all bee-lined the squishy ones) I had to run around with the monks avoiding the enemies until some of their buffs wore off.
Thank god for high magic resistance and movement speed for the monks.
A truly, utterly, hard battle. Even when using my HLAs, time stop, etc, it still kept kicking my arse. I've never struggled that hard on any fight before that.
It was that fight which convinced me that I'm still not ready for anything like SCS...
Not trying to be rude or snarky, just seems like if you want to play with SCS, just dive in and take it slowly. Stay in town, do the easier stuff, learn the combat patterns (like how to properly mage duel, or invisible/teleporting enemies) off easier mobs, then slowly branch out to things like Trademeet and then The Keep. Just don't go to Shade Lord or the Bard quest early...it will hurt. A lot.
The thing that keeps bringing me back to BG/IWD is just how good the combat can be in the Infinity Engine when modders got their hands on it. It's just so fun when you start breaking it down tactically instead of brute forcing through it, and when I played BG and BG2 way back in the day during initial release I had no strategy. I was run in there as a Kensai and hit things, while Fireballs and Healing spells were spammed. SCS really broke me of that.
I could be wrong here, but I don't think they have unlimited Improved Invisibility. They may have a ton of casts, but I'm pretty sure all the casters are limited by a finite amount of spells in SCS, as I'm pretty sure one of the methods people use to break past a gatekeeper mob is to use an army of summons to eat up their spellcasts, and then run up and hit it in the head with a really big weapon.
Also, however, I often use stealthed or invisible characters to scout ahead of the party, so quite often my party will "legitimately know" that there's a bunch of enemies around the next corner, so it's fair to prepare with additional buffs. Furthermore, in some of the major set-piece battles, you're quite likely to have met the enemy peaceably beforehand (Firkraag is a good example of this), and be going back to confront them later, so again your party will "legitimately know" what's about to happen, and therefore pre-buffing is justifiable (and so is chucking an AoE spell forward to where they know their enemy is waiting, if that's how they choose to start the battle).
Just the other day I attacked Renal Bloodscalp. I got attacked by an unkillable and hasted version of Arkanis Gath with a script called "KILLPC" that apparently allowed him to instantly kill me just by touching me. Stoneskin was no help, and he saw through invisibility. He chased me all over the Docks for several in-game days.
So I used Limited Wish to stop time and eat his brains as a Mind Flayer. Stat drain is the only way to kill something with the MINHP1 item.
Of course, killing ARKANIS is a bit tricky. The stat-drain as you mentioned is one way, level-drain is another. Imprisonment probably also works. He doesn't drop anything special, though.
I'm afraid level drain and Imprisonment will not work on him. The MINHP1 item he is wearing provides immunity to both. Stat drain is the only method.
(There's a different version of Arkanis Gath, without the Belt of MinHP1 and the instant-death sword, who can appear as an ally in Chapter 6.)
If you're still in Chapter 2 and have still left open the option to side with the "other guild", then ... er ... maybe it'll still be possible to complete the game, although that probably depends upon the exact circumstances. If siding with the "other guild" is no longer available to you, then you're shafted and will need to re-load to an earlier time (before attacking Renal Bloodscalp).