Killing Ur Khan the Orc Marshall
I ran into Ur Khan feeling confident after just having smacked Xinroch in 3 shots with minimal damage to myself. I had: Helmet of Understanding +5 Amulet of ESP Mithril Plate Mail, Gloves and boots all +5 Belt of Levitation +5 Phoenix feather Cloak of Fire Resistance +5 Turox+10 Vermis+6 AS 37 LS 22 DX 26 (31) AG 15 End 14 Per 18 Int 23 Wis 21 (16) I zapped him: 2 times with wand of slow 6 times with Wand of fireballs 9 times with wand of striking hit him 2 times with my weapons and finally applied a wand of fireballs beside him Each time I attacked him I would zap him as much as I could and get a shot in if possible before teleporting away (wand) drinking a potion and coming back for more. All I could take was one hit from him (survived two hits once but was almost all red and grey striped) When I was finally out of teleport wands he killed me with just two shots :x Just what the %*^& does it take to kill this mother $*%&er a nuclear bomb? Any help would be greatly appreciated. The Enner Beast is a pansy compared to Ur Khan. I followed Fatty's advice to keep End low but jeez only two hits to kill me really sucks. I've run into Golgor Dhan before with better armor (full octiron +5) but lower stats (AS,LS,DX in 20's End 15) and the bastard killed me with one hit. Is Sherarax even worse? I've never met her. There's lots of advice out there for killing Enner how bout some tips for killing the nastiest named baddies?

Well, Shererax and Ur-Khan are meant to be the two hardest enemies in the game, really. Shererax will dismember all your limbs in about 2 turns unless you're like...Godly or something. Ur-Khan I have never met, so I can't help ya there. And don't get me started on Ischaldirth...Ugh.

OK, I've Killed the bastard Ur Khan now, and just straight melee no tactics. I decided to go with artificial limbs and that makes a difference. I think it took three hits with my: Adamantine Turox+9 Valpurium Turox+9 and my arms were Golden Eagle Feather (AS 300) and I was in full Valpurium armour +5 (except GEF Gauntlets of Dexterity+6) Golgor Dhan was a bit more problematic but I was able to kill him with the same gear and after first blowing up a backpack with a wand of fireballs and then it took 4 melee rounds. Hi saphire scimitar was +9. And then I met Sherarax. Dropped 3 mines and did the fireball trick and meleed her to death......but her damn amulet of life saving kicked in and she killed me (torso death). I think I'll try eating lots of school food (thanks Mellis!) and try my luck with Ischaldirth. And yes I'm save-scumming. I've wasted enough of my life with permadeath. Considering it has taken probably 24 hours of play to get my character where he is and I've died 30 times that's one month of straight IVAN or 3 months of 8 hour IVAN days.

Well frankly, I don't care about your accomplishments if you're save scumming. =\ It takes all challenge out of the game. Even I could beat this game if I scummed my save files. But hey, whatever trips your trigger. >_>

Yeah, look at me, I haven't even gotten to the Enner Beast and I haven't resorted to save scumming.

Savescumming will corrupt your soul and give it to the Devil for lunch. Or something. I once made it to Elpuri, but he kicked my ass. He also kicked Ivan and Vlad's asses. It was fun. But I've never met any of the higher powered random named monsters... mostly just Ron, Guuz, and Xin.

save scummer
Believe me, I've put in my hours (probably over 200 hours) of regular IVAN playing but after spending many hours building a character and killing Enner (which I've done au natural many times) and then having my $&%^ IVAN program crash and lose all my effort, I started backing up my files. It crashed a lot and it was just too heartbreaking. So the backups were there... and then Golgor Dhan spawned right beside the stairs of GC7 and killed me with one smack. If I didn't reload then I'd never play IVAN again. It's too annoying (for me) to play the same game over again, the same challenges, Sumo is nothing, Genetrix Vesana a joke, getting up to enner is easy unless Guugzamesh spawns but even he is not so bad. I've got the Gods figured out, strategies figured out so the beginning game has lost its luster, its just drudgery (now, but it was shitloads of fun to start with). I'm trying to figure out the middle game but I don't want to have to play 4-8 hours of the same old same old to get to where things are new. Besides, I wasn't braggin' about accomplishments I was asking for help! Yeah, My soul is going straight to Satan for save scumming, but I can reliably get to the same level in the game before I die (GC5 to 8 ) so who cares. My best non save scumming is a kill of elpuri but died afterwards on GC12. My tips to reliably get as far as GC8. Always wear the best armour possible. Gods Mellis to Seges.Valpurus Valpurium sword is OK but adamant weapons from Loricatus (scimitar) are better. Atavus' Arcanite platemail is good but not as good as mithril+2 from elite guard. Nothing beats the benefits of mellis (ommel cerumen and potions and canned goods up the wazoo plus knowledge of other gods) books are best way to raise standing with gods, far superior to offering. Pray to each god every four hours at same time so you don't screw up and make one mad and to keep the balance. Praying to Mellis pisses off Seges and vice-versa but not as much as the benefit of praying so they slowly get more pleased. Don't pray to any gods until you have access to a balanced set EG just Mellis and Seges, or Mellis, Seges and Silva, or Loricatus and Sophos, or just silva. mellis fills broken bottles too so don;t discard them :idea: Edit: Also if you accidentally pray to soon to a god (thats why I pray 4 hours instead of 3 which is possible) and get the message: Name_of_GOD is displeased but tries to help you anyway then you must wait 36 hours to pray to that got again or you will piss them off further. Don't forget to balance your prayers (eg. piss of Silva with my system no prob pray to other gods as usual, piss of loricatus in my system and don't pray to sophos either. If you actually make a god angry then you must read their books but remember that gods more than 2 alignments away will start to like you less so just balance it out. God of very next alignment will like you more and god exactly 2 alignments away is not affected. In theory i think it is possible to pray to all gods from Valpurus L++ to Mellis N but just pick one L god and one L+ god to keep the balance. if you like other gods remember to pray in balance, 5 alignment units is easy to manage, and they will always be pleased. :idea: Save all your bottles - Mellis gives you ommel fluids when you pray with empty bottles. Save all cans to empty healing and antidote bottles via dipping. Use Sulphuric acid mellis gives you to break meteoric steel walls and easily beat sumo. Mellis gives you school food to raise End. Try to have at least six empty bottles before you pray to mellis. Mellis also shares his knowledge of other gods. Pray to Loricatus to fix items, and harden weapons. I like to have wimpy light weapons for training dex and super heavy swords (iron scimitar) to train AS. have two scimitars one that you try to harden to adamant and one you use for training (big heavy and extremely innacurate = more swing and more strength). Whips or daggers are good for dex; save your best daggers (hardened by Loricatus) for toughest opponents in early game and use regular wimpy ones to build dex (it takes more hits to kill so you get faster stats training). Weild your chain or plate mail in hand to get loricatus to harden it (until you get ESP or Infravision and scroll of taming) :idea: EDIT: Oh Yeah loricatus also gives you lots of scrolls of repair that are useful if you go the artificial limb route or for a quick fix of say your broken belt of levitation (it always seems to break). :idea: Pray to Silva in town for wolves(food) or in dungeons for earthquake (exposes valuable stones) Run around stressed and satiated (pray to Seges) to get LS up to 20. If you lose a limb and need one right away pray to Sophos (chance of Ommel Cerumen limb which you can eat once it gets severed), Silva (Nymph Hair, Ommel Hair or Phoenix feather limbs are great) or seges (normal limb) Don't read enchant armour, enchant weapon, SoCM or harden until you get wands of cloning or mirroring unless you have more than 5 of one type. Once you get wand clone/mirror and enchant away without using any scrolls. If you have more than one wand find out which has more charges before you recharge with scroll of Charging. Don;t forget you can apply a wand for one last zap. Carry all scrolls, books and wands in small chests or small strongboxes. Books aren't really important exept for raising Int/Wis or if you want to change alignment. carry extra cloak of electricity resistance best or dual rings for Spell casters in GC6 and up leave hattifattener's alone. You will find valuable stones and can do polymorph trick. After clearing a level carry all mines and backpacks to stairs. use explosives to kill named baddies save all wands for special occasions (named baddies) but always carry a wand of teleport to get your ass out of a bad situation. Use wand of polymorph to zap lined up multiple piles of five useless objects (stones,bones) into valuable gear leave extra healing liquids/ antidotes in chest or critters will drink them. Bring lamps to Attnam and rub them beside patrol guard. If the genies a meanie he will fight guard rather than you. Once you have Esp (eat floating eye, mushroom, drink from fountain, wear amulet) or infravision tame an elite guard in Attnam treasury to get his mithril+2 armour and ring of invisibility (makes GC6 a piece of cake). You can also use him to lug gear to shops. Wear 2 rings of fire protection or better yet multi enchanted cloak of fire protection for mines and dwarves in GC (Dwarves are a joke with good fire protection). Be invisible and throw things at dwarves to kill them and get their backpacks, whips are best for throwing. Kill Enner with wand of Fireballs and Explosives. Bring plenty of canned healing potions and drink them as soon as you are hurt. Use detect enner beast flesh and teleport. Use ring of invis for GC6. Hang out and build up AS and Dex to decent level. Save whips for throwing. Kill a bunch of Crystal golems on UT4 and save stones for light. If you throw things at Floating Eyes you don;t fall asleep. Kill an eye and eat it just before entering GC7 find mystic dark frog and teleport next to it and kill it ASAP. Use same trick on GC9. The Mystic dark frog is the little bastard that teleports all your gear away. If you don;t eat an eye your amulet of ESP or Ring of Infravision is the first thing to go. drinking from fountains can also give you long lasting ESP or infravision. Don;t drink from fountains until you get ring of polymorph control. but then drink from them all the time you will get good stuff more than bad (rings, weapons, ESP, Infravision, hasted, invisible, stats bonuses). Visit Pries of silva to eliminat unwanted lycanthropy. Polymorph into ghost to fly thru walls and find hidden rooms pick up big chest and pray to Sophos. kick it to open it. harden turox into Adamant (loricatus)and enchant the shit out of it (+10 is possible) for a kick ass weapon. Vermis makes a good second weapon if you don't have two Turoxes. No Turox? then adamant scimitar is best or Phoenix feather whips of thievery (only 20 int needed to harden to PF). be very carefull with named enemies often one hit will kill you. Don't give good stuff to angels to carry in world map. If they disappear all your gear is gone. Don't do huge heals when you are really tough (stats in high 20's or more) or you will lose stats points. Only heal a little bit at a time or drink potions if you need a quick big heal. if you are going for artificial limbs phoenix feather or golden eagle feather are best. Save boots of agility and gauntlets of Dex they are good for later in game when your limbs are really strong or artificial This works for me to get past GC 6-7 quite regularly, but frankly I don;t want to play the beginning of the game anymore. been there done that. Edit: I learned all this playing IVAN the regular way and reading the tips in the forums, except the God stuff which I figured out in Wizard mode.

Wow, great post, and although savescumming technically isn't a SIN, it's still looked down upon by people. Still, your story is good and the info in all that post pretty much makes up for it for me. Anyway I can't help much but I'm just gonna say useful post.

PS. I was joking with the whole satan thing. Savescumming is like the easy button, though. I can see your reasoning (timesaving), when I use emulators I use save states for exactly the same purpose. Walk clear back to the save point? Or save right now?

I finally got the punk. For me, I hadda snatch him in an adamatine beartrap, and dump wands of striking on him until I ran out (about 6-7 shots), then a fireball jarred him loose (or he got out, the trap wasn't broken), and then I mellee'd him. Much of his armor was trashed by then, including his plate, and that probably made the difference, because that fool has one-shotted me when missing an arm and a leg in the past.

It's not good to revive old topics. I did not try to use this tactic yet (except in wizard mode), but using your revival: be faster than them (120 Agi + haste + slow works here), be nice to Cleptia, and throw whips of thievery at them. Without their favorite weapons (or with only a crappy whip of thievery 3-6 in case of Sherarax) they should no longer be a problem. (Does not work against Petrus, he is protected from thievery.) And the best way to kill Sherarax (and Petrus and Inlux) is to behead them, you will get AoLS ;) My last dude was resting ('h' command) and did not notice Sherarax coming for him, i.e. "attack of Sherarax interrupts your rest" without any chance of reaction :( I think that's a bug, she is not that fast. (He had to specially wish for ESP to protect himself against Sherarax).

One thing that has worked consistently for me is using valpurium bear traps. Set them up in a narrow tunnel shaped like this: A B X X XXXXXXXXXXXXXX After laying about 5 traps along the length of the tunnel, lure the baddie in question in through point A. If you feel very insecure, lay some backpacks down and fireball the mothers while they're stuck. When he or she reaches the final trap, lay into him or her with a melee flurry and then hightail it out of point B. IVAN monsters aren't good at negotiating corners, so you'll probably lose them. Go back into the tunnel and retrieve the traps. Get Loricatus to fix the ones which are broken. Lay them down again. Lure the baddie in again. Rinse, wash, and repeat until your baddie has no legs. Lay the traps again. Let the baddie crawl until a trap which traps one of his or her arms. Melee that mother. Kill it. Done. Killing baddies has to be the best part of this game. I wish they would spawn more often.

Hmm. The graphic I drew didn't display correctly. Points A and B should be on opposite sides of the tunnel, obviously.

To edit your post you got an... edit button, just below your post. It avoids double posting and allows you to correct graphics that doesnt display correctly. Otherwise: Your technique seems quite long to take down one baddie. How many turns do you take for that ?