Shrieking Mines

[Ghoste]

I'm trying to solo Shrieking Mines with my wizard character. Was wondering if someone could post a map/walkthrough, so I canbetter plan my spell point usage.

[tihocan]

Can't really help you, except that in the two times I've been in there I've found only 1 shrine (but also only 1 beholder, so maybe there's another one somewhere...). If there's only one shrine then it's going to be really hard to solo. There are also very dangerous mindflayers... One mind blast and you're gone.

[Rydlic]

Well, when done right this is a spiraling circle that you will enconter several Oger Mages, three RED NAMED Illithids, lots and lots of Wildman turn coats that are immune to most crowd control.

In theory you can solo this as there are no places that require more than one person. But a Duo of Cleric/Caster may be more in order, with the cleric able to DV back up when you run out.

As said, the Mind Blast is brutal and has a Will save of close to 30, though not impossible to save on, it is hard. Don't forget they also have other mental attacks that reduce Charisma (sorcers) and Wisdom and Intelligence (though these don't happen much, my fighter got hit by the Int one, I laughed and hit the stupid squid) My other thing is that you may be ganged up on too much but that may not be an issue so...

Also as stated there is only one shrine but if you can recall, shrine and back fast enough it may not be an issue.

[Dielzen]

Unless you have someone holding the encounter area open, recalling for mana isn't plausible, as you'd have to fight your way back to the mission. Scorpions, Wildmen/Dogs, Wildmen (this last one can be skipped if you have a 50ish OL).

[tihocan]

I'm usually able to run back into the quest rather fast, but I have good AC/hp and open locks. Will be probably much more difficult with a single wizard.

[Rydlic]

That is also to pending you don't get squished on the intitial recall if you lag.

[Ghoste]

Well, I finally managed to solo this. Thank you for all the tips.

I didnt have to recall, because I used invisibility scrolls to sneak past all the wildmen. So that saved me a ton of spell points.

As far as my strategy for the ogre magi, the trick was to avoid killing too many miners as well. So what worked was finding a place to target cloudkill against a wall where it would get the magi, but no or few miners. And if the place on the wall was in line of sight, but not the ogre magi, i could do it without drawing any aggro.

The mindflayers were surprisnigly easy; I never had to make any saves, but the mindflayers sure did. I cloudkilled their bodyguards, then summoned a mummy to attack the mindflayer, and snuck away. The mindflayer's inertial barrier prevented the mummy from damaging it, and the mummy was immune to the mindblasts, but 99% of the time the mummy manages to infect the mindflayer with mummy rot. Eventually the mummy either turns, or is killed by the mindflayer.

The multiple levels of this quest was handy too, for when I got found out. I would invisible myself and run for the nearest ladder, or whatever cover I could find. The ogres were really easy to lose, but the wildmen were really tenacious. I could get really far from them only to have them catch up five minutes later. The beholder was the worst to lose once he spotted me, but easy enoug to keep him from spotting me.

All the pillars in the quest make it really easy to hide and put a cloudkill out on baddies really close to you.