Problems with Aec 'Letec
Wigmonster
Member Posts: 38
I have fought Aec 'Letec 8 or 9 times and have been beat every time. My main character is a Monk 7th Lvl, Minsc 7 Lvl Ranger , Neera 8th Lvl Wild Mage , Inomen 7th Lvl Thief, Kagin 7th Level Fighter, & Brawnen 7th Lvl Cleric. Aec 'Letec keeps casting hold person and Rigid Thinking on my Mage and Cleric so I cannot cast Dispel Magic. Then he cast hold on my fighers and then I'm royally messed up so any tips. I usually end up with Inomen fighting by herself which don't last too long.
So any tips would be appreciated.
Wigmonster
So any tips would be appreciated.
Wigmonster
0
Comments
Preparing for battle
- buff as much as you can. Potions of Storm Giant strength, Potions of Heroism/Might, Regeneration, Invulnerability and anti-polymorph.
- Cleric should buff you too - Protection from Evil, Bless, Defensive Harmony, Chant...whatever you can get.
- Mages should get their protective spells too, but I never had problems with Neera being targeted. Just move aside. PREPARE DISPEL MAGIC SPELLS (important).
What to look for
- spread your group. Aec' or the mage will try to Silence them and dispel magic (dispelling all your protections and buffs)
- Aec' will target your party members and use a spell on them, where they get to be transformed to a Ghoul. "Dying", on their status screen. To counter this - dispel magic.
- Aec' might also Hold your companions and then usually proceeds to kill them.
- He hits hard...but luckily, he only fights melee and is slow, so you can kite him.
- You'll need magic weapons. Yea, my monk spent some time pummeling his face, but in the end resorted to the +2 Scimitar to kill him.
And, here we go
Order of killing:
1) the mage that greets you (You can actually start hitting her before she engages the dialogue)
2) all the monks standing around
3) Aec'Letec himself
Kill the mage chick asap, summon monsters to either help you kill the Cultists (you must!) or swarm Aec, so he spends some time killing them. If Aec' targets your members and they fail their save, move them out and dispel magic. (So you don't remove all the other buffs from everyone else around).
If Aec' wounds your fighters, move them away and heal (quaff potions...). This can get a lengthy battle, so don't worry.
One tip: Aec' has a high Magic Resistance, but you can get certain awesome spells/wands working. Like Ray of Enfeeblement, or Wand of Paralysis (!!).
Good luck, soldier. Kick that bastard's arse.
Tactics wise, I found it really useful to use summons to distract him whilst my party tried to kill all his minions first.
I sped up that process through the use of AoE attacks, including Arrows of Explosion, fireballs and most importantly (cos his minions don't move) Cloudkill.
My main issue with him was his gaze attack that doomed my party members to turn into hostile monsters. That's what mirror eyes potions are for. Dispel can save u, but it's not practical to cast in the midst of a chaotic battle, and it could strip party members of buffs.
I'll try that in my next run.
Also, good to know he is probably the single toughest encounter in the game. At least for me...
@Southpaw - don't over-emphasize killing Tracea Carol (the mage) too quickly. If you kill her extremely fast, then you can actually take her down before she summons Aec'Letec, in which case the demon never appears and the quest is broken! This has happened to me a couple of times. (I've already reported it as a bug.) You must allow Tracea Carol time to speak before she dies, so that the demon gets summoned. (It's okay if she's nearly dead by then, just so long as she's not actually dead.)
The fourth-level priest spell Death Ward (Clerics and Druids both have this) is what I use to beat Aec'Letec, it makes you immune to his death gaze. Cast it on a tank (and you might want to give the tank Free Action too, with a spell/potion/item, unless he has very good saving throws or magic resistance) and send him to engage Aec'Letec in melee alone, while the rest of the party kill off all the cultists. The demon will (usually) focus his attacks on the tank, but the tank is immune to the showstopping magic and will merely take some damage from Aec'Letec's Vampiric Touch and melee attacks. Then when all the cultists are dead, the rest of the party can join in attacking Aec'Letec (it's probably safer to do this with magical ranged weapons so that the demon's attacks stay focused on the immune tank, but you might want to send one of them into melee), and he'll go down before he kills your tank (provided that your tank is fairly tough).
@Wigmonster - with your party, I'd use Kagain as the tank to tackle Aec'Letec (because his saving throws and HP are better than Minsc's), and Branwen can cast Death Ward on him before you go down into the basement to confront Aec'Letec. (Obviously you should also cast the usual general-purpose buffs on your party before going in, and have Neera cast either Vocalise or Minor Globe of Invulnerability on herself, because that'll block Aec'Letec's Silence spell.) Remember that you don't want to kill Aec'Letec until all the cultists are dead, because otherwise he'll just take over the body of any cultist still alive and you'll have to kill him all over again (which is not impossible, but pretty difficult because your buffs might be expiring by then!)
During this time your melee destroy the cultists while your casters hit Aec'Letec with doom, greater malison and then wands of paralysation, slow, glitterdust, blind or whatever your favorite disabling spell is. By the time all the cultists are dead he should be weakened enough to be easy pickings for your fighters.
It might make some sense if you could prevent the summoning by killing Tracea Carol extremely quickly, if she then dropped the Soultaker dagger for you to take back to Hurgan for him to destroy, and succeed in the quest that way instead of by facing the demon. However, that doesn't work: you can only complete the quest by killing the demon, so the quest is broken if the demon doesn't get summoned.
Alternatively, take a combat monster (Minsc is probably your best choice, unless Kagain has the big-fisted belt, because good damage is gonna matter more than tanking ability), give them boots of speed, a small stack of potions of magic shielding, and a large stack of healing potions. Drink one of the magic shielding potions and send the combat monster down alone. Then run around killing cultists and avoiding Aec'Latec, healing as necessary and refreshing magic shielding if the fight takes too long. Once the minions are down, either kite Aec'Latec to death or bring in the rest of your party and swarm him.
Yes I am pretty sure it does work. But Dynaheir was my only mage in BG 1, so I didn't have enough spell slots to protect everybody, so it's easier to just use Mirror Eye potions, which I don't recall being very difficult to find or buy.
I didn't find this fight hard at all. With potions of protection from magic/ strength potions and haste he went down fast. Surprisingly fast.
I just had Khalied and Minsc tank him while I ran around and killed all the cultist. Easy peezy. Imoen just stood back with arrows of dispelling, while Jaheria healed, buffed, dispelled etc. They also took pot shots at the cultists.
The fight when you first reenter Ulgoths Beard was harder.
All the boss fights were easy.
Haste, PFM potions...dead demon.
Wigmonster
In BG EE the cloak can only be used once a day, and I think it was less reliable too, but I am not sure about this.
I usually do that fight with a single buffed-up character, using the awesome Durlag goblet to heal up from Aec'Letec's damage. I found that bringing my whole party normally ends up with at least one character getting ghoulified.