Bone Golem Kicks My Ass

Zosimus

Here's the situation. I'm running a level 13 Kensai (inactive) dualed to level 10 mage with Aerie, Minsc, Nalia, Jaheira, and Yoshimo. I've finished killing the trolls, have the flail of ages, and I've been running around town doing a few quests to try to up my experience before taking on the vampires.

So I figured I'd solve the murders in the bridge district. I talked to the whore (Rose?), then the merchant, then back to Rose, then up to the beggar, got the elephant hide, and went to confront the tanner. He admitted to the foul deeds, refused to go to the authorities, and ran down the first set of stairs. So I had Yoshi resolve the three traps, and then I dashed down after him.

The game autopaused as soon as I went down the stairs, and I targeted him with two salvos of magic missiles and tried to have Aerie hold person him. He took the magic missiles full tilt, and dropped very low in health (but didn't die...maybe the game cheats) and Aerie couldn't complete the hold person before he went down the stairs.

I followed him down, and I got into the room with a pair of undead (ghasts I think), and two rune assassins. The game autopaused, and I lit the speaker up with a fireball, sent Yoshi after one rune assassin (in the west corner), had Aerie and Nalia magic missile the other one while instructing Jaheira and Minsc to rush the ghasts. Then I unpaused.

The fireball went off fine, killing a ghast, and the speaker teleported away. Suddenly, however, I was in trouble. The bone golem, which I've never seen on previous run-throughs, hit Jaheira hard enough to hack off 70 percent of her health, and I had to chug a pair of potions to keep her alive. Then the rune assassins kept disappearing and backstabbing, and I could never target them with spells because they vanish faster than I can get the spell off.

I really don't remember this quest being so hard! Where did the bone golem come from? I sent Minsc and Lilarcor to off him while I tried to clean up the rune assassins, but in the heat of battle Aerie died and everybody was pretty hurt even with potions. Minsc was holding his own, but progress was slow (apparently bone golems take half damage from slashing, so that might have been the problem).

Any tips?

joluv

The Bone Golem only spawns if your level is high enough. I don't remember what the cutoff is.

If no one in the party has super low AC, then try to get the Bone Golem and Rune Assassins to attack one or more of your Mages with Stoneskin/Mirror Image up, or Jaheira with Iron Skins.

Grum

Also true vision for those assassins. If they stay ok give you trouble set traps on the floor above and 'retreat.' I remember them following.

JuliusBorisov

The Bone Golem in the Bridge District Murders quest...

We should get used to such things with SoD on the horizon and possible higher level charnames imported from SoD to BG2EE.

elminster

Bone Golems are pretty tough. My best advice is load up on weapons that do crushing damage. Also don't bother with offensive magic or backstabbing. It'll be immune to that. Instead focus on spells like Haste that will make your characters do more damage in a shorter amount of time. Summons are also helpful because while they are unlikely to hurt it much themselves they are at least a possible distraction that may save a party members life.

abacus

Have Nalia drop MordySwords in front of the golem... They might not kill it, but it won't be able to hurt them so you can smash it at your leisure.

Crowd control the assassins... Greater Malison and Chaos should do the trick.

Ghasts are easy.

dunbar

If you stay in a crowd, shoulder to shoulder on the stairs with your tank in front the rest can use ranged weapons/spells. Assassins might be invisible but they still need room to move so they just have to join the queue of enemies taking on your tank one at a time.

lunar

Those rune assasins are monstrous, they can see invisible and have some magical resistances and immunities. And they get a very high damage bonus for their backstabs, they hit any ac. Their only weakness is they wear crude leather jerkin and are vulnerable to piercing and missile attacks. Ideally, a stoneskin/mirror imaged character should tank them while everyone else pelts them with ranged arrows/darts/bullets. Only cast magic missile at them since they turn invisible fairly often and are immune to panic, fear, charm, hold etc. And IIRC they even have ice and fire resistance.

Bone golem is a huge damage dealer but is easy to kill if you have any nice magical crushing weapons. Staff mace from the Ribald store works well on it, Jaheira can iron skin and bash it with any magical staff. Minsc can also dual wield magical maces. Aerie can take a lot of hits with stoneskin and mirror image and can haste and bless/chant to increase damage output of the party.

sarevok57

there are quite a few "spawn" areas in the game were certain monsters will spawn at certain times, for example, in firkraag's dungeon there are a couple of "golem" spawns, and if you have less than 1 000 000 xp I believe it will only summon 1 stone golem, if you have 1 000 000+ xp it will summon 2 stone golems, 1 clay golem, and one iron golem, if you have 2 000 000 xp it will summon 2 stone golems and one adamantine golem, so the cut off for the harder spawns in SoA is the 1 000 000 xp mark and the 2 000 000 xp mark, I have seen the bone golem in that room many times, but that was when I went to spell hold first and came back with over 2 000 000 xp, so the cut off for that bone golem is probably 1 000 000 xp

Zosimus

Well, I tried again, ran back upstairs, and the ghasts and bone golem followed. So I took out the ghasts and then ran further. I finally evaded the bone golem when I went to the slums, but I talked to the constable first and got my experience. I rested up at the inn, and came back with new spells. Jaheira summoned a fire elemental on top of him, and that worked much better.