I love all the discussion my thread has produced! No need to worry about going off-topic. This insanely difficult sounding Belhifet fight is making me interested in SoD, which is hilarious because I hate challenge.
@monico I've actually been wanting to do a solo run with a druid in IWD:EE and I think a totem druid seems like a fun choice.
@Grond0 You found it! That is indeed the guide I've been referring to. I suppose I assumed it was not as broad in focus as it appears, hence me not trying to find the section I referred to within it.
The thing that I haven't tested is how much time passes during the cut-scene at the start of the battle with Belhifet.
IIRC it’s about 50 seconds. Almost 1 turn (which is more or less the duration of all the buffs you mentioned ?).
@Elrandir to be honest, with all the new items and lots of potions available in SoD, after tearing my hair apart trying to fight Belhifet solo in LoB, I find the final battle in normal gameplay almost easy... Well, unless I solo with a mage/sorcerer. I still haven’t managed to win that battle with spells (the only reliable method I can think of is using the Polymorph Self: Flind form).
Short update for right now. I'll edit it later to add more details.
Important things from the stream:
-We conquered Durlag's Tower. The fourth level was relatively easy.
-The Demon Knight was a loser and went down more easily than I think I've ever experienced before.
-Returning to Ulgoth's Beard, we dealt with the cult and Aec'latec. Aec killed us a couple times (not the dying effect of death gaze, but just the Hold Person effect), but he ended up being pretty easy overall. Area transition abuse was certainly used, however.
Wow, even with reloads and mild cheese, I say that is pretty impressive ! I'll be sure to check out that video.
Is it available on your YouTube channel ?
@Elrandir I'm currently watching the vid
I see that you have been alerted about the somewhat shakiness of the video. I also noticed it and in the previous video, i'm sure it wasn't the case on the first video on youtube (haven't watched all of them, so I can't tell when it happened).
@Elrandir congrats man, that was quite an epic fight against the cult & tanar'ri !
A few questions/suggestions:
- could you start & end your videos by showing us your character sheet ? That way, we can follow the progress of your monk (I understand, from your base thac0 & +2 fists that you're lvl12 right now, which is at least 900k XP)
- I was impressed seeing the Stunning Blow landing on the Demon Knight ! Do you (or anyone else here) know if he needs +1 or higher weapons to be hit (I'm wondering if a "normal" monk without XP cap removed could hope to take him on that way) ? Looking at the Demon Knight's page on the wiki did not give an answer to that (although it indicated that he uses a non-magical weapon, which would make the fight trivial for a poverty Totemic Druid's special summons I guess... and makes me want to roll one again and do exactly that haha)
- In the final fight against Aec'Letec (which I haven't taken on in ages), you made clever use of hit&run tactics (although you could also have avoided aggroing Aec'Letec by luring him on one corner of the room before going back upstairs, and with your stealth could have just come back and taken on the cult guards without the Demon joining the fight). What surprises me though, is that the demon seems to never have used his Death Gaze on you (which I don't think you can protect from as a poverty monk), except maybe on the first round of the fight when you managed to save against his hold (which, if I understood the wiki correctly, comes hand in hand with his death gaze ability). Or am I missing something ?
The Demon Knight requires magical weapons to hit. His weapon is magical, so totemic summons would be vulnerable. Elemental summons, on the other hand, can tank his melee attacks indefinitely since it isn't a +2 weapon.
On defense ... AC -2, saves 5/7/6/5/8. 85% resistance to magic and to each element, 10% resistance to physical damage. He's hard to immobilize; my last run dropped seven Webs on him and counted themselves lucky he was held in the second round. On the other hand ... stunning fist ignores magic resistance. Once a monk reaches level 9 for magic fists, it's a full 35% chance of stunning with each hit.
Without the XP cap removed, a monk can only reach level 8 in BGEE (before SoD), and thus can't even think about taking on a lot of these challenges alone.
Once again, @jmerry saves the day ! Thanks a lot for those precisions !
About the non-magical fists of lvl8 monks, I feel that it might be a slight oversight implementing the monk into BG1EE (well, it is just the way it is, given that original BG2 made monk's fists magical weapon at lvl9, and in original BG1, there were no monks anyway). Regardless, it feels wrong (to me) that a monk cannot have magical fists in BG1.
That's also why the wolf cape is so useful for monks in BG1.
Since the main storyline does not have any enemy that must be killed with magical weapons, it is not such a problem, and only poverty monks are barred from having access to magical attacks (but who in their right minds play poverty ^^), obviously, that's not a really big deal.
I guess if I was seriously considering making a relatively complete poverty playthrough of BG1 with a monk, I'd allow myself to either reach lvl9+, or use Relair's mistake (or any other magical weapon).
EDIT : about elemental summons from the druid: unless you raise the lvl cap or import from the Black Pits, you don't get lvl6 spells and the (awesome) Fire Elementals as a druid in BG:EE
The lowest difficulty setting above Story Mode grants +6 to luck according to the in-game description. That amounts to another +6 THAC0 for a cleric trying to land a hit on Belhifet with Slay Living--important, since Slay Living doesn't get STR bonuses to hit.
With Holy Power (base THAC0 of 11), Sanctuary or stealth (-4), Aid (-1), Chant (-1), Bless (-1), and the Slay Living item itself (-3), your effective THAC0 would be 1 on Core difficulty, -5 on the easiest difficulty, -2 if you had SCS v32 or IWDification and therefore access to Prayer and Recitation, or -8 if you had IWD spells and were also on the easiest difficulty. That would make the hit chance range from about 50% to 80%, or 10% to 16% if you factor in Belhifet's saving throws, per casting of Slay Living. That's about a 19% to 29% total chance of success without reloads, or even higher if you're a cleric of Lathander or Tyr.
I believe you still have to kill Hephernaan, but Caelar can clean up for you.
@monico Sure, I can show off the character sheet at the start and end.
As for the death gaze with Aec'latec, I did not appear to be given a save at all (judging by the lack of saving rolls in the chat) and, if held, could be considered immediately dead. The way I avoided it was running up the stairs right after he triggered the ability, but before it activated. That caused it to miss since I was upstairs, and he never tried it again after that. Was it dumb luck? Absolutely.
I'm not streaming tonight. The simplest answer for why is that I don't want to. To give the excuses/reasons (depending on your point of view), it's the 4th of July eve in the southern United States. Fireworks are being launched often, my girlfriend is here, I barely slept last night, and it's about to be a national holiday. My apologies. I know I only streamed once this week, but hopefully things will normalize next week. I'll try and get the Aec'latec highlight vid uploaded tonight at least.
A general note on saving throw feedback: if the save succeeds, you see the number. If the save fails, all you see is the effect.
Now, the Aec'Letec fight. If you kill the demon while any guards are still alive, a guard sacrifices himself to bring the demon back. You can win by killing the demon repeatedly, but it's easier and more experience to just kill the guards first.
Aec'Letec has several spells, all of which are innate and uninterruptible. One spell per round, except the script sometimes has it use the gaze and another spell at the same time.
One instance of Silence 15', irrelevant to your monk.
One instance of Hold Person - save vs spell at +1 or be held for 6 rounds. Certain death to a solo player, and your naked level 12 monk needs to roll a 7 to beat it.
At-will Vampiric Touch - some magic damage to you, some HP back for the demon.
At-will Death Gaze - save vs death at +0 or be held for 5 rounds and then die.
Now, why didn't the demon ever use its death gaze ... that's down to the script. It has lots of possibilities, but as far as I can tell it will never use the death gaze on a solo male PC. And yes, there are gender checks in there for no good reason. A female solo PC could face the gaze at any time.
Well, we did it. We saved two dukes (Eltan and Belt). It was a low energy stream that got started late tonight, but we're nearly done.
Summary:
-Paid to be smuggled in to the city. I don't think I've ever done this before, so it was a novelty.
-Got arrested by the guards immediately and escaped shortly thereafter, thanks to chaotic evil gnome Neb.
-Spoke to Tamoko twice.
-Killed Cythandria. Easy. No deaths.
-Killed the guards on the way to save Duke Eltan. Very irritating. 5+ guys spamming hold person required some running in and out of the building. Three or four deaths here.
-Killed Slythe and Krystin. Shockingly easy. I had to reload once because Krystin never appeared or cast spells at all during or after my slaughter of Slythe.
-Stopped the assassination of Duke Belt. Twice. The first time we had to reload after Sarevok killed us post-doppleganger fight. The second time we crushed the dopplegangers and Sarevok fled after leaving us with some nasty wounds. This makes me very concerned about the Sarevok fight next time, but oh well. Liia died both attempts and I didn't feel like trying to save her at the cost of my own sanity. Could we have saved both dukes? Maybe, but it's exceedingly unlikely. We just don't have enough manpower to distract all the dopplegangers.
Next time? The Thief Warrens. Or is it the Thieves' Maze? I dunno, but either way we'll try to finish the run next time. I'm worried about the Sarevok fight, but hopefully it'll go well.
Here's our character right after the fight at the palace:
Why did you kill the Flaming Fist guards ? I mean, you're a monk so you can hide in shadows, plus from a RP point of view, you know you're wanted by the guards so sneaking around the city is logical.
Or was it for the XP ?
About the coronation fight: yeah, that's quite difficult when playing solo, the dukes fall too easily and they are hard to protect.
EDIT : oh, after re-reading your post, I see you mean the flaming fists guards inside the building, not the patrols. You could still avoid that, but that makes also sense to just fight them too.
Come one, come all! Tonight we try to finish the game! Will we succeed? Not a clue. But we will try! www.twitch.tv/caron_driel
I'll be on in 5-15 minutes.
Progressing through the Thieves' Maze after a short nap at the Elfsong Tavern, we found ourselves fairly unscathed. Now certainly we had to rest in the middle after traps and skeleton warriors had left us bruised, but overall it wasn't a challenge. After exchanging words with Winski, we chose to let him live. Pushing forward, we...
Arrived in the Undercity. After an unfortunate death at the hands of Rahvin and Co., we restrategized. The initial plan was to crush Shaldrissa and then disappear, but Shaldrissa's Mirror Image copies were too numerous and Wudei hit us with a Hold Person that spelled our doom. On a second attempt, we tried a similar strategy, this time darting into the shadows of the ruins nearby before Shaldrissa fell. Diving in and out of the shadows, staying one step ahead with our improved monk speed, we separated and murdered the Sembian Iron Throne mercenaries, much as we had done with Rieltar and Sarevok's mercs throughout the game. From there we simply cleaned up the rest of the undead monstrosities plaguing the place. An unfortunate death came at the hand of a ghast who got a lucky hold on us, but overall it was easy pickings. In front of the Temple of Bhaal we came across...
Tamoko. I debated whether or not to allow her to live, but decided against it in the end, slaying her where she stood. Remorseful or not, she is evil and had a distinct hand in slaying Gorion. Truthfully I just wanted the 5000 experience. The fight against her was brief and pitiful. She tried to cast two spells, but with three attacks a round at level 12, she couldn't stand up to Tugul's onslaught. With apprehension in our heart, we stepped into...
The Temple of Bhaal. We initially tried to trigger the Battle Horror traps, as we could still leave the area, meaning a potential boost in experience could raise us to level 13 with no downsides. Unfortunately the traps are inactive until Sarevok speaks to you. He initiated the conversation as I came into view, unaware he could ignore stealth so long as it was for a dramatic monologue. Immediately the traps I had stepped on exploded into activity and I was held in a Web, dropping in and out of consciousness from the Stinking Cloud. My stealth ran out before the Web did, and Sarevok and Tazok descended upon me, hacking me to pieces. One death...
Our second attempt involved triggering the dialogue and dashing away under cover of stealth. Semaj made the poor decision to follow, which resulted in his death. Tugul landed a couple of powerful blows before a Contingency (or pair of Contingencies?) blasted Tugul with a Magic Missile and Greater Malison. He then failed to best us via Domination, and resorted to a Dimension Door, followed by a release of his "magic staff" and then his "tattoo of power". This caused a Chaos and a Mirror Image to fire. The Chaos sent Tugul into the lower left corner of the temple where he triggered nothing and was left alone to recover from the effects, but not before he landed a near-useless critical hit that removed one of Semaj's new Mirror Images. After recovering, Tugul snuck back up to Semaj and crushed his head with a few more blows. Semaj's only attempt to defend was a Dimension Door that came too late. One down...
Moving to the northeast corner, I stepped out of the shadows, waiting for Tazok to appear. Tazok obliged, but the scuffle was far too much of a battle of attrition. This was made worse by Angelo appearing and joining in, although he didn't do much. After Tazok fell, Angelo used Shadow Door and I fled south, bleeding out as I did. Unfortuitously, Sarevok noticed us, and chased us to the doors of the temple, cleaving us to pieces. Angelo's arrows aided him in our swift demise. Two deaths...
Continuing from Semaj's defeat, we tried again, casting a DUHM and traveling to the northwest side of the room. There we hid from Sarevok's line of sight, hoping to draw out Tazok. Tazok didn't bother to show up, but Angelo dispelled our DUHM, prompting a reload from me (Oops. RIP my 6th rule for the run). Following that error, we tried the same strategy as before, this time not casting DUHM in the first place. Angelo still cast a Dispel (I assume because of our permanent Mind Shield and Poison Immunity), but all he did was dispel the Greater Malison. He then made the foolish mistake of charging us, and while his arrows of detonation hurt, Shadow Doors and exploding arrows could not overwhelm Tugul's fists. Two down...
Tazok cried out, though I'm certain it was not out of concern for his fallen comrade. Tugul paced a moment, anticipating a sudden attack, which came shortly thereafter. A bloody fight between the two bruisers ensued, with Tazok coming out the weaker of the two. Perhaps it was the Lay on Hands that determined the fight, however. Regardless, whether you think he's a half-ogre or full ogre, Tazok's ogre blood could not match the might of a half-orc. Three down...
At this point I expected our two Cure Light Wounds to be insufficient to recover from Tazok's blade. I used them despite my gloomy prognosis and cast a DUHM, assuming a vain attempt could be made at defeating Sarevok. I made a save in case this was a good point to press on from, but I assumed Sarevok would hew me apart with only 45 HP. I suppose I could have simply waited for several minutes to pass, giving my 20 CON a chance to heal me, but I pushed ahead. What followed next was something that left my jaw on the floor...
Throwing the first blow from the shadows, Tugul hit Sarevok for 25 damage in the kidneys. Sarevok responded with 12 of his own across Tugul's chest. Reeling but not cowed, Tugul answered with a kick into Sarevok's gut for another 25 damage, denting his breastplate. Sarevok was unphased, however, carving out another 11 damage from Tugul's shoulder. Tugul growled, baring his rather small tusks, launching a powerful kick into Sarevok's right jaw, dealing another 25. Sarevok felt that one, and brought down his massive blade, peeling back Tugul's flesh across the same leg with another 12 damage. Tugul was near death now at only 10 hit points, while Sarevok was only injured. Trying to stand on the wounded leg, Tugul threw another kick into Sarevok's side, dealing a respectable but reduced 22 damage. It winded Sarevok, though, as his next swing slowed just enough for Tugul to duck under it before throwing out another kick, this time catching Sarevok in the stomach for another 24 damage. These repeated blows took their toll, and even the fortress that was Sarevok felt his sword arm growing weak. His next blow was a fiersome one, however, as it cleaved through Tugul from his left shoulder down to his right hip, dealing 9 more damage as the blood sprayed across the altar. Somewhere within them, both combatants felt a malevolent force smile at the first offering of blood this temple had witnessed in many years. Had the wound been any deeper, Tugul would have perished, but as it stood, he was still standing, just barely, with 1 hit point. Blood gushing from Tugul's lips, he looked through Sarevok's helmet, misshapen after Tugul's kick. Staring into Sarevok's left eye, as his right was closed to prevent blood from pouring into it, Tugul simply scowled, narrowing his eyes and summoning the last of his strength. With one powerful left hook he tore the fanged jaw of Sarevok's helmet clean off, taking Sarevok's own jaw with it. 23 damage and a broken left hand was all that Tugul had needed to finish off his father's killer and bring him to justice...
Spitting a gob of blood out of his mouth, Tugul slumped against one of the pillars and watched as Sarevok's limp form turned into sand and flowed down a hole in the corner of the temple. Tugul looked up at the ceiling, his head swimming and his eyes blurry, muttering to himself,
"May Ilmater soothe your suffering in the afterlife, Sarevok. And more importantly, may he soothe the suffering of every poor soul you've hurt in your bloodsoaked life." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUKacs2dVME
Comments
@monico I've actually been wanting to do a solo run with a druid in IWD:EE and I think a totem druid seems like a fun choice.
@Grond0 You found it! That is indeed the guide I've been referring to. I suppose I assumed it was not as broad in focus as it appears, hence me not trying to find the section I referred to within it.
IIRC it’s about 50 seconds. Almost 1 turn (which is more or less the duration of all the buffs you mentioned ?).
@Elrandir to be honest, with all the new items and lots of potions available in SoD, after tearing my hair apart trying to fight Belhifet solo in LoB, I find the final battle in normal gameplay almost easy... Well, unless I solo with a mage/sorcerer. I still haven’t managed to win that battle with spells (the only reliable method I can think of is using the Polymorph Self: Flind form).
Important things from the stream:
-We conquered Durlag's Tower. The fourth level was relatively easy.
-The Demon Knight was a loser and went down more easily than I think I've ever experienced before.
-Returning to Ulgoth's Beard, we dealt with the cult and Aec'latec. Aec killed us a couple times (not the dying effect of death gaze, but just the Hold Person effect), but he ended up being pretty easy overall. Area transition abuse was certainly used, however.
Is it available on your YouTube channel ?
I see that you have been alerted about the somewhat shakiness of the video. I also noticed it and in the previous video, i'm sure it wasn't the case on the first video on youtube (haven't watched all of them, so I can't tell when it happened).
A few questions/suggestions:
- could you start & end your videos by showing us your character sheet ? That way, we can follow the progress of your monk (I understand, from your base thac0 & +2 fists that you're lvl12 right now, which is at least 900k XP)
- I was impressed seeing the Stunning Blow landing on the Demon Knight ! Do you (or anyone else here) know if he needs +1 or higher weapons to be hit (I'm wondering if a "normal" monk without XP cap removed could hope to take him on that way) ? Looking at the Demon Knight's page on the wiki did not give an answer to that (although it indicated that he uses a non-magical weapon, which would make the fight trivial for a poverty Totemic Druid's special summons I guess... and makes me want to roll one again and do exactly that haha)
- In the final fight against Aec'Letec (which I haven't taken on in ages), you made clever use of hit&run tactics (although you could also have avoided aggroing Aec'Letec by luring him on one corner of the room before going back upstairs, and with your stealth could have just come back and taken on the cult guards without the Demon joining the fight). What surprises me though, is that the demon seems to never have used his Death Gaze on you (which I don't think you can protect from as a poverty monk), except maybe on the first round of the fight when you managed to save against his hold (which, if I understood the wiki correctly, comes hand in hand with his death gaze ability). Or am I missing something ?
On defense ... AC -2, saves 5/7/6/5/8. 85% resistance to magic and to each element, 10% resistance to physical damage. He's hard to immobilize; my last run dropped seven Webs on him and counted themselves lucky he was held in the second round. On the other hand ... stunning fist ignores magic resistance. Once a monk reaches level 9 for magic fists, it's a full 35% chance of stunning with each hit.
Without the XP cap removed, a monk can only reach level 8 in BGEE (before SoD), and thus can't even think about taking on a lot of these challenges alone.
About the non-magical fists of lvl8 monks, I feel that it might be a slight oversight implementing the monk into BG1EE (well, it is just the way it is, given that original BG2 made monk's fists magical weapon at lvl9, and in original BG1, there were no monks anyway). Regardless, it feels wrong (to me) that a monk cannot have magical fists in BG1.
That's also why the wolf cape is so useful for monks in BG1.
Since the main storyline does not have any enemy that must be killed with magical weapons, it is not such a problem, and only poverty monks are barred from having access to magical attacks (but who in their right minds play poverty ^^), obviously, that's not a really big deal.
I guess if I was seriously considering making a relatively complete poverty playthrough of BG1 with a monk, I'd allow myself to either reach lvl9+, or use Relair's mistake (or any other magical weapon).
EDIT : about elemental summons from the druid: unless you raise the lvl cap or import from the Black Pits, you don't get lvl6 spells and the (awesome) Fire Elementals as a druid in BG:EE
With Holy Power (base THAC0 of 11), Sanctuary or stealth (-4), Aid (-1), Chant (-1), Bless (-1), and the Slay Living item itself (-3), your effective THAC0 would be 1 on Core difficulty, -5 on the easiest difficulty, -2 if you had SCS v32 or IWDification and therefore access to Prayer and Recitation, or -8 if you had IWD spells and were also on the easiest difficulty. That would make the hit chance range from about 50% to 80%, or 10% to 16% if you factor in Belhifet's saving throws, per casting of Slay Living. That's about a 19% to 29% total chance of success without reloads, or even higher if you're a cleric of Lathander or Tyr.
I believe you still have to kill Hephernaan, but Caelar can clean up for you.
As for the death gaze with Aec'latec, I did not appear to be given a save at all (judging by the lack of saving rolls in the chat) and, if held, could be considered immediately dead. The way I avoided it was running up the stairs right after he triggered the ability, but before it activated. That caused it to miss since I was upstairs, and he never tried it again after that. Was it dumb luck? Absolutely.
In the meantime, enjoy the Demon Knight fight highlight vid:
Now, the Aec'Letec fight. If you kill the demon while any guards are still alive, a guard sacrifices himself to bring the demon back. You can win by killing the demon repeatedly, but it's easier and more experience to just kill the guards first.
Aec'Letec has several spells, all of which are innate and uninterruptible. One spell per round, except the script sometimes has it use the gaze and another spell at the same time.
One instance of Silence 15', irrelevant to your monk.
One instance of Hold Person - save vs spell at +1 or be held for 6 rounds. Certain death to a solo player, and your naked level 12 monk needs to roll a 7 to beat it.
At-will Vampiric Touch - some magic damage to you, some HP back for the demon.
At-will Death Gaze - save vs death at +0 or be held for 5 rounds and then die.
Now, why didn't the demon ever use its death gaze ... that's down to the script. It has lots of possibilities, but as far as I can tell it will never use the death gaze on a solo male PC. And yes, there are gender checks in there for no good reason. A female solo PC could face the gaze at any time.
Summary:
-Paid to be smuggled in to the city. I don't think I've ever done this before, so it was a novelty.
-Got arrested by the guards immediately and escaped shortly thereafter, thanks to chaotic evil gnome Neb.
-Spoke to Tamoko twice.
-Killed Cythandria. Easy. No deaths.
-Killed the guards on the way to save Duke Eltan. Very irritating. 5+ guys spamming hold person required some running in and out of the building. Three or four deaths here.
-Killed Slythe and Krystin. Shockingly easy. I had to reload once because Krystin never appeared or cast spells at all during or after my slaughter of Slythe.
-Stopped the assassination of Duke Belt. Twice. The first time we had to reload after Sarevok killed us post-doppleganger fight. The second time we crushed the dopplegangers and Sarevok fled after leaving us with some nasty wounds. This makes me very concerned about the Sarevok fight next time, but oh well. Liia died both attempts and I didn't feel like trying to save her at the cost of my own sanity. Could we have saved both dukes? Maybe, but it's exceedingly unlikely. We just don't have enough manpower to distract all the dopplegangers.
Next time? The Thief Warrens. Or is it the Thieves' Maze? I dunno, but either way we'll try to finish the run next time. I'm worried about the Sarevok fight, but hopefully it'll go well.
Here's our character right after the fight at the palace:
Or was it for the XP ?
About the coronation fight: yeah, that's quite difficult when playing solo, the dukes fall too easily and they are hard to protect.
EDIT : oh, after re-reading your post, I see you mean the flaming fists guards inside the building, not the patrols. You could still avoid that, but that makes also sense to just fight them too.
I'll be on in 5-15 minutes.
Progressing through the Thieves' Maze after a short nap at the Elfsong Tavern, we found ourselves fairly unscathed. Now certainly we had to rest in the middle after traps and skeleton warriors had left us bruised, but overall it wasn't a challenge. After exchanging words with Winski, we chose to let him live. Pushing forward, we...
Arrived in the Undercity. After an unfortunate death at the hands of Rahvin and Co., we restrategized. The initial plan was to crush Shaldrissa and then disappear, but Shaldrissa's Mirror Image copies were too numerous and Wudei hit us with a Hold Person that spelled our doom. On a second attempt, we tried a similar strategy, this time darting into the shadows of the ruins nearby before Shaldrissa fell. Diving in and out of the shadows, staying one step ahead with our improved monk speed, we separated and murdered the Sembian Iron Throne mercenaries, much as we had done with Rieltar and Sarevok's mercs throughout the game. From there we simply cleaned up the rest of the undead monstrosities plaguing the place. An unfortunate death came at the hand of a ghast who got a lucky hold on us, but overall it was easy pickings. In front of the Temple of Bhaal we came across...
Tamoko. I debated whether or not to allow her to live, but decided against it in the end, slaying her where she stood. Remorseful or not, she is evil and had a distinct hand in slaying Gorion. Truthfully I just wanted the 5000 experience. The fight against her was brief and pitiful. She tried to cast two spells, but with three attacks a round at level 12, she couldn't stand up to Tugul's onslaught. With apprehension in our heart, we stepped into...
The Temple of Bhaal. We initially tried to trigger the Battle Horror traps, as we could still leave the area, meaning a potential boost in experience could raise us to level 13 with no downsides. Unfortunately the traps are inactive until Sarevok speaks to you. He initiated the conversation as I came into view, unaware he could ignore stealth so long as it was for a dramatic monologue. Immediately the traps I had stepped on exploded into activity and I was held in a Web, dropping in and out of consciousness from the Stinking Cloud. My stealth ran out before the Web did, and Sarevok and Tazok descended upon me, hacking me to pieces. One death...
Our second attempt involved triggering the dialogue and dashing away under cover of stealth. Semaj made the poor decision to follow, which resulted in his death. Tugul landed a couple of powerful blows before a Contingency (or pair of Contingencies?) blasted Tugul with a Magic Missile and Greater Malison. He then failed to best us via Domination, and resorted to a Dimension Door, followed by a release of his "magic staff" and then his "tattoo of power". This caused a Chaos and a Mirror Image to fire. The Chaos sent Tugul into the lower left corner of the temple where he triggered nothing and was left alone to recover from the effects, but not before he landed a near-useless critical hit that removed one of Semaj's new Mirror Images. After recovering, Tugul snuck back up to Semaj and crushed his head with a few more blows. Semaj's only attempt to defend was a Dimension Door that came too late. One down...
Moving to the northeast corner, I stepped out of the shadows, waiting for Tazok to appear. Tazok obliged, but the scuffle was far too much of a battle of attrition. This was made worse by Angelo appearing and joining in, although he didn't do much. After Tazok fell, Angelo used Shadow Door and I fled south, bleeding out as I did. Unfortuitously, Sarevok noticed us, and chased us to the doors of the temple, cleaving us to pieces. Angelo's arrows aided him in our swift demise. Two deaths...
Continuing from Semaj's defeat, we tried again, casting a DUHM and traveling to the northwest side of the room. There we hid from Sarevok's line of sight, hoping to draw out Tazok. Tazok didn't bother to show up, but Angelo dispelled our DUHM, prompting a reload from me (Oops. RIP my 6th rule for the run). Following that error, we tried the same strategy as before, this time not casting DUHM in the first place. Angelo still cast a Dispel (I assume because of our permanent Mind Shield and Poison Immunity), but all he did was dispel the Greater Malison. He then made the foolish mistake of charging us, and while his arrows of detonation hurt, Shadow Doors and exploding arrows could not overwhelm Tugul's fists. Two down...
Tazok cried out, though I'm certain it was not out of concern for his fallen comrade. Tugul paced a moment, anticipating a sudden attack, which came shortly thereafter. A bloody fight between the two bruisers ensued, with Tazok coming out the weaker of the two. Perhaps it was the Lay on Hands that determined the fight, however. Regardless, whether you think he's a half-ogre or full ogre, Tazok's ogre blood could not match the might of a half-orc. Three down...
At this point I expected our two Cure Light Wounds to be insufficient to recover from Tazok's blade. I used them despite my gloomy prognosis and cast a DUHM, assuming a vain attempt could be made at defeating Sarevok. I made a save in case this was a good point to press on from, but I assumed Sarevok would hew me apart with only 45 HP. I suppose I could have simply waited for several minutes to pass, giving my 20 CON a chance to heal me, but I pushed ahead. What followed next was something that left my jaw on the floor...
Throwing the first blow from the shadows, Tugul hit Sarevok for 25 damage in the kidneys. Sarevok responded with 12 of his own across Tugul's chest. Reeling but not cowed, Tugul answered with a kick into Sarevok's gut for another 25 damage, denting his breastplate. Sarevok was unphased, however, carving out another 11 damage from Tugul's shoulder. Tugul growled, baring his rather small tusks, launching a powerful kick into Sarevok's right jaw, dealing another 25. Sarevok felt that one, and brought down his massive blade, peeling back Tugul's flesh across the same leg with another 12 damage. Tugul was near death now at only 10 hit points, while Sarevok was only injured. Trying to stand on the wounded leg, Tugul threw another kick into Sarevok's side, dealing a respectable but reduced 22 damage. It winded Sarevok, though, as his next swing slowed just enough for Tugul to duck under it before throwing out another kick, this time catching Sarevok in the stomach for another 24 damage. These repeated blows took their toll, and even the fortress that was Sarevok felt his sword arm growing weak. His next blow was a fiersome one, however, as it cleaved through Tugul from his left shoulder down to his right hip, dealing 9 more damage as the blood sprayed across the altar. Somewhere within them, both combatants felt a malevolent force smile at the first offering of blood this temple had witnessed in many years. Had the wound been any deeper, Tugul would have perished, but as it stood, he was still standing, just barely, with 1 hit point. Blood gushing from Tugul's lips, he looked through Sarevok's helmet, misshapen after Tugul's kick. Staring into Sarevok's left eye, as his right was closed to prevent blood from pouring into it, Tugul simply scowled, narrowing his eyes and summoning the last of his strength. With one powerful left hook he tore the fanged jaw of Sarevok's helmet clean off, taking Sarevok's own jaw with it. 23 damage and a broken left hand was all that Tugul had needed to finish off his father's killer and bring him to justice...
Spitting a gob of blood out of his mouth, Tugul slumped against one of the pillars and watched as Sarevok's limp form turned into sand and flowed down a hole in the corner of the temple. Tugul looked up at the ceiling, his head swimming and his eyes blurry, muttering to himself,
"May Ilmater soothe your suffering in the afterlife, Sarevok. And more importantly, may he soothe the suffering of every poor soul you've hurt in your bloodsoaked life."