(Wizardry 8 question.) My level 10-11 party has encounted a Sige Shade, accompanied by her Trynnie Shade entourage. I would really like to know how to defeat the Sige without her casting any spell(s) on the party. So far, I'm able to defeat her with her only being able to cast one attack round spell.

The way I do this is to hide behind anything, in the case atm it's simply a small hill, and when I *guess* (because I can't see them approaching behind the hill) that the Trynnie group is close nearby, but not in sight (which would initiate combat, effectively surprising my party), I surprise the opponents by entering combat mode. I then press CTRL-R on the keyboard to initiate running. When I then hit RETURN, I can do this run manoveur immediately, and when I do I'm able to run over the hill and right up to the Sige. I then select the melee options on all party members, then end the run manoveur with a RETURN. It's at this point that the Sige casts a spell at my party, and the Trynnie cohorts attack too. After this attack round against my party, I can use melee offensive attacks to kill the Sige (who has HPs of 79). After her death, I find myself surrounded by the Trynnie Shades, but I'm able to dispatch them OK.

I would really like to improve this technique though, so that I can cleverly avoid the Sige's single attack round (and the Shades too) against my party, but I don't know how to do this. Thanks a lot for any comments/ideas!

Some general tips. Always have Magic Shield up at Max. Have a caster with a high initiative be able to cast Element shield at the start of combat.

Thanks a lot. Unfortunately my hybrid party members (ie, I don't have any pure casting types) do not possess those two spells yet, as they are all on spell level 2 at the moment.

One other trick that might help is to blind them. Contrary to popular believe, undead do *not* have complete immunity to every single status ailment; blindness, in particular, still works. If you can't reach the Sige Shade, you should be able to blind the other enemies without hitting the Sige. Once you have done that, some of the enemies will disperse and you should be able to reach the Sige without having to kill them. If you have a Valkyrie or Lord at level 9, you can get Magic Screen. Just practice healing until Divinity + Divine Magic/10 reaches at least 30 (the flames by the downed ship help for intentionally hurting your party) and buy the spellbook from Lord Braffit in Arnika. Once you have done this, casting the spell at max power level is more practical than you think because the spell can be cast in a safe place (so it doesn't cost a combat turn), lasts a while (so you probably don't need to re-cast it until you rest), and can't backfire.

Alternatively, if you have a Bard, there's an instrument available in Marten's Bluff (though you will need to get there via the Mine Tunnels) that would allow her to cast that spell.

Great, thanks a lot. Yes, I have reloaded this segment in the game about 50 odd times, to practice different techniques, and blinding seems to be the best option at my party's disposal atm. I have managed to blind either the 'minions' in the group, or the main troublemaker (Sige).

I've noticed some curious things happening when I use tactics such as 'lobbing' a blind spell (casting, or using flash powder) from a 'blind spot' (ie, using this spell while not actually being able to see its target.) Sometimes the combat will just end, right after the spell is used, even if it's successful, and I am not able to take advantage of the opponents blindess and continue in combat mode, as it wears off them within seconds in 'real time'.

BTW, after moving on from the Sige encounter, Vi (Valkyrie) has just levelled up, and I chose the magic screen spell during the levelling up process!

Also, I just practiced this segment again (many more times), and I was able to do this -

* Spot the group, and ID them.
* Hide behind a small hill.
* Enter combat mode, while hidden from the advancing group, to surprise the group.
* Chuck some flash powder in the direction of the group, hoping to hit them.
* The Sige was blinded, and luckily, combat mode remained active.
* I then ran (SHIFT R) towards the Sige, dodging the 'hastened' minions.
* I instructed all party members to attack the Sige by targeting it.
* My run manoveur was completed, and I was then attacked by the minions first.
* I think the Sige also cast a spell at this point, but it was not an offensive spell aimed at my party, presumably because she was blind. Instead, it was an eye for an eye spell, which didn't bother me, because my tactic was to use weapons.
* My party then mostly attacked the Sige, and killed her. However, some of the party members switched targets to the enclosing minions, rather than what I would much prefer and to ignore them completely, and all of them just concentrate on attacking the Sige. How can I prevent some party members overriding my designated attack target instructions, and attacking other targets that have perhaps come in to closer range than the initial attack target (the Sige)?

Thanks a lot for your help! What a great fun game. :D

Last time I went there I had a weakish character, so I spotted them and immediately retreated, before combat started. There are walls to both sides at the entrance of the graveyard. You can run out of that entrance and hide (that's probably what you did anyways). Perhaps I was just lucky but the Sige didn't follow, so I could fight the Trynnie w/o the Sige involved. Btw: you can check how close they are while hiding. Initiate combat while hidden, take a step out to look and retreat back into cover in the same move. Combat ends - you know a little more. In that game I used Concussion Powder to quickly dispose of her afterwards (although one likely isn't quite enough to finish her by itself). Any decent Fighter ought to make short work of her in melee.

Hope you are aware that you can choose a target for all the party at once by shift-clicking the target. Also you can lock weapons in the character inventory to prevent them from swapping from ranged to melee (lock icon below the weapon slots). It generally isn't advisable to stick to ranged weapons while in melee, which is why they do that in the 1st place. Actually I am not too familiar with the details regarding ranged combat tbh yet I think your attack rating is lowered if in melee. You could check in the inventory / character screen by comparing your stats in and out of melee while using a ranged weapon.

Thanks a lot, that's great advice. Also, just to supplement your advice, and I know you'll already know this, but SHIFT W will toggle all of your party's current combat weapon from its primary choice to secondary choice.

Edit: Just staying on the subject of keyboard shortcuts for a moment, I've just realised / remembered that the keyboard keystrokes are rebindable, and so I've rebound all party members in numbered sequential order, with both RPCs starting at 1 then 2 (as opposed to 7 then 8), followed by keys 3-8 for my original party members, rather than keys 1-6.

I wonder if my party (about level 11) is simply too weak atm to face these latest opponents? I was hoping to do this kind of combat strategy against them, but the game won't let me -

* Attack them from the other side of the main long wall. So, my party is on other side of the main long stretch of wall positioned on the right side of it (looking at the attached image below). With everyone in this position, I surprised them by entering combat mode, but then I couldn't chuck any spells over the wall at them. Being in this position is convenient, because although you can just see the tops of the Sige's heads, they can't see you, so your party remains undetected as they walk past.

* Attack them from the current position (seen in the image), with my party tucked in front of the 'wall alcove' seen in front and slightly to the right. However, I had the same problem as above - when trying to chuck spells over this alcove wall, the game wouldn't let me use these chuckable spells.

I feel that there must be some strategy that I can use to make the very best use of the landscape, and that would include positioning the party in a good place close to some area of the wall. I think using the blinding spell is a good option, but I think I then need to follow this up very quickly with offensive combat, otherwise the Siges shrug off their blindness after about just 1 attack round!

Also, I was hoping that the game has some kind of 'lay a mine' option, whereby you can determine an opponents line of movement through observation, and then plant a bomb/mine on the ground in their anticipated path, so that they trip the mine when they walk over it. Does the game have this kind of weapon?

Also2, I am using phased combat mode, as opposed to continuous combat mode. Am I at any disadvantage doing this, because when in phased mode, I take quite a lot of time thinking about what to do, and I wondered if that was one reason why opponents seem to be able to quickly shrug off timed spells effects that have been cast against them. Thanks a lot for any comments/tips.

going from your screenshot the party is in trouble because two sige will range you down with fireballs or other nasty spells... I would 'run' back behind the wall so they follow in ones and twos for an easy melee battle

OK thanks. I managed to defeat both Sige Spectres, the Trynnies Spectre group, plus a couple of summoned elementals. I didn't sustain much damage - both during and also after the successful battle, I didn't need to supply any of my party members with any health top ups. However, during the battle I used some expensive chuckable items, such as one acid bomb and one firestorm bomb.

My strategy was to always stay behind the wall alcove (seen pictured in the updated screenshot attachment below), and keep casting chuckable spells such as holy water. This way, the Siges never had a direct line of sight on my party, and so didn't attack the party directly. As the enemy group grew fewer in numbers, the last weakened Sige decided to move around the alcove wall corner in to the party's line of sight, and in doing so, got shot and hacked to pieces by them.

So, I decided that the strategy of "wait for the enemy to move rather than me move" was OK, and safer. I think to some degree however it's a poor/inferior strategy, because I feel that I ought to make a move myself at some stage, and finish off the Siges more quickly. Doing so would help to prevent more summoned elementals. Perhaps I should wait for the Trynnie Spectre group to be mostly wiped out, before 'rushing' the Siges, and hope that I can finish either one or both off during a single melee combat round?

Elementals have an Achilles heel: They are low level and have low resistance to 5 of the 6 elements. This is something you can take advantage of. In particular:

Paralyze and Web are effective at disabling them. (Web is good to use against water elementals because they resist water.) Other status ailment spells work as well. When you get to higher levels, try Instant Death or Turncoat.

Physical attacks that cause status ailments also can be quite effective. If you have a character whose normal attack can cause a useful status effect, have that character target the elemental. Being able to hit the elemental with a status ailment will make it easy to kill it and eliminate it as a threat.

If every other enemy is dead, getting a summoned elemental to run far enough away for the battle to end will get rid of it, as will hitting it with Turncoat and having the battle end. (This does not apply to elementals that are just wandering around, often with enemy spellcasters focused on the element.)

Siege shade + trynnies at the graveyard in particular are rather easy,
2 casters with radius aoe spells should be sufficient from outside.
The key is to hold the right mouse button when you get the target cursor,
now you can push/pull to move the cursor in vertical direction,
place your aoes on the pillar in the corner,
and delay the 2nd turn with movement so you can adapt the aoes placement(r-click on symbol) to their moves,
using the target triangles as feedback.

If you like a challenge or have no aoes,
make sure not to pull them out when you approach the graveyard,
move behind the westernentrance pillar, enter combat to run into the small indent(?) of the western wall,
from there behind the closed gate which blocks their "vision" comletely, despite having mostly transparent texture.
Now enter combat, select your actions and move in to release them from their misery.

Thanks a lot, that's great tactical advice.
What does aoe mean? Is it area of effect?
(Please note that in the second screenshot scenario above, I'm fighting Specters, which are tougher than Shades.)

Edit: actually there's one thing you said in your post that I don't understand. Please could you re-explain this sentence:

>> and delay the 2nd turn with movement so you can adapt the aoes placement(r-click on symbol) to their moves,
using the target triangles as feedback.

So for my 2nd turn, I press the R key for movement. Do I move (now), or (always) stay still? Also, I don't understand what you are referring to, when you use the word "symbol". What symbol is this? Thanks a lot for any clarification on this.

Yes radius aoe means area of effect spells centered at point, the ones that give you the 3D target cursor.



Every time you select to move in combat,
the movement is delyed to the point where the slowest party member(initiative modified by random number)
would get his/her action, also the action sequence is fixed according to sequene in party
unless characters have snakespeed.
This usually results in all enemies with decent speeed moving first, often out of the aoe of your spells
but you can retarget any action with r-click on the small symbol near a PCs portraits health/stamina/mana bars.

Note that even if you dont move an inch, members with multiple attacks/turn
will lose all additional attack sequences, but casters always cast their spell.


I leave it to your own evaluarion whether you should stay still and use that as intended for timing,
reposition to get back into cover with risk to lose an action,
or take the chance to run away from the beast of caerbannog which proved to be literally immune to your spells.

Thanks a lot, that's all good to know.