BG2 - Den of Seven Vales

jolly_bb

Who else straight from Chateu Irenicus goes to Den of Seven Vales to kick some butt on 2nd floor? For me, doing this early, it was always one of the more interesting encounters.

What was your tactics for that?

Yesterday i tried doing it solo with Thief/Cleric gnome, tried a dozen time, killed half the mobs but could not get past that...

With few more NPCs in the party (not soloing) it's not THAT hard though...

Losgorn

Having Yoshimo stealthed behind the mage ready for a backstab before the dialogue starts. Once you take him out it's a piece of cake I find.

Candramelekh

Fear, Chaos, Mirror Images, Dire Charms, Potion of Speed, Potion of Firebreath, Polymorph Self into spider, all wands from Irenicus Dungeon and luck not to be Feared by mage. Solo mage Baldur's Gate Trilogy

ajwz

Assuming you are only low level and have access to at max lvl4 spells:

Pretend to capitualate, so you can wander into the room peacefully.
Then charm the berserker guy and the thief, wander them over to Mr Dwarfy mc-stupidface.
Stoneskin your casters, Haste party, Surround the wizard. Attack him to trigger the fight -he should go down in the first round. While the dwarf fights your 2 charm dudes, kill the familiar- when he casts chaos, use dispel magic. Should go down before the first of your charmed allies.
Next, everyone focus down the thief. If he begins to run, finish him off quickly by using magic missile, or hold him in place with chromatic orb.
If berserker dude turns yellow or back to hostile at any point, hold person. Once the thief is dead finish fim off.

Now you just have to take down the dwarf who is tough as nails, but mainly because he drinks a bunch of healing potions. Re-apply haste if necessary, and acid arrow spam certainly helps speed up the process, hopefully powering through his health pot chugging to finish him off nice and early.

Shin

I usually wait awhile with this encounter, for two main reasons:

- I don't like to metagame too much, so I don't want to position a thief ahead of starting the fight, and I don't want to open up with a bunch of casts, etc. Essentially I have to talk to Mencar and tell him he can piss off, and then the battle will commence with both sides fairly unprepared.

- My party, just out of Irenicus's dungeon, will be fairly battered and looking to lay low for a couple of days, heal their wounds and get their bearings. Picking a fight with another group of adventurers definitely isn't on their agenda at this point.

Candramelekh

ajwz said:

Now you just have to take down the dwarf who is tough as nails

The same reason why i kill him the last. He is just a warrior without specific abilities and you can kill him with sling

ajwz

As an aside:
I know a lot of people still enjoy roleplaying in baldurs gate, or playing "as intended".
One of the ways I do this is that for non-story line encounters, I always have in my head my personal idea of at what level the designers intended them to be tackled, and I try to do these fights when I am at the appropriate level range.
For me, the seven veils fight is designed and balanced to be done straight after Irenicus' dungeon, and therefore I consider it a bit meta-gamey to avoid it and come back when you are higher level.

DJKajuru

Candramelekh said:

Fear, Chaos, Mirror Images, Dire Charms, Potion of Speed, Potion of Firebreath, Polymorph Self into spider, all wands from Irenicus Dungeon ...

Disabling spells such as charm , hold or dominate person . Greater malison, web, stinking cloud... they all work really well against the fighters and the thief - the mages aren't much of a challenge, as their spells can't cause much damage to the party.

sandmanCCL

ajwz said:

As an aside:
I know a lot of people still enjoy roleplaying in baldurs gate, or playing "as intended".
One of the ways I do this is that for non-story line encounters, I always have in my head my personal idea of at what level the designers intended them to be tackled, and I try to do these fights when I am at the appropriate level range.
For me, the seven veils fight is designed and balanced to be done straight after Irenicus' dungeon, and therefore I consider it a bit meta-gamey to avoid it and come back when you are higher level.

I usually do the Copper Coronet first, then the de'Arnisse hold. The game seems to guide you in that direction so I comply. Once I finally set foot in the Temple District, then I make my way to the Den and run through it.

CaptRory

I usually go around and get my party together first thing, in any game. Usually getting Viconia and Jan Jansen and Aerie and kicking butt for goodness.

Suiboon

Well I get a few npcs and a few levels somewhere first, but I abuse chaos (the spell) in that fight a lot.

Also picking up Korgan first will give you a bit of extra dialogue with them.

ajwz

sandmanCCL said:

ajwz said:

As an aside:
I know a lot of people still enjoy roleplaying in baldurs gate, or playing "as intended".
One of the ways I do this is that for non-story line encounters, I always have in my head my personal idea of at what level the designers intended them to be tackled, and I try to do these fights when I am at the appropriate level range.
For me, the seven veils fight is designed and balanced to be done straight after Irenicus' dungeon, and therefore I consider it a bit meta-gamey to avoid it and come back when you are higher level.

I usually do the Copper Coronet first, then the de'Arnisse hold. The game seems to guide you in that direction so I comply. Once I finally set foot in the Temple District, then I make my way to the Den and run through it.

I used to do that too.
Judging from your previous posts on this forum, I assume you are a pretty experienced player?
My recommendation is try the games more difficult encounters at levels that will stretch your abilities.
Most people who have tried will tell you that the black and red dragon fights, for example, are much more fun if you do them while completing the dungeon, rather than going back to fight them after the underdark or something. Same with the liches guarding kangaxx's body parts.

Then, funnily enough, I consider doing kangaxx himself or the twisted rune *before* you get imoen back to be a bit of a cheap tactic (it's strange how my mind works) since the magic items they grant are too powerful for low level characters.

Well, thats my suggestion for a run through anyway.I find playing like this resets all my nasty habits on how to "beat" encounters, when infact I am just doing the same thing everytime I play through the game, and relying on the same spell combinations over and over.
I've got an instruction list somewhere on my old hard-drive with a complete list of notable encounters in bg1 and 2 and what levels I considered suitable for tackling them.

ramagons

i have had a lot of fun playing the game with 3 characters and needing to use every possible ability, without going as far as soloing and cheesing unlimited traps or other exploits.

bbear

Pre cast these area effect spells (the ai still wont turn hostile): web, stinking cloud, entangle, silence 15 radius. Then grease, fireballs and arrows.

I usually have a problem with the thief running away. I usually go for the thief first, then mage, his familiar then the 2 warriors.

sandmanCCL

@ajwz: I actually used to do that battle right away because the gear you get from it (Celestial Fury in particular) make most those other encounters way too easy! It's because I'm good at the game I put that battle off til later.

The Celestial Fury is seriously the most OP weapon in the game. It's worth using over better enchanted weapons because that stun on hit effect it has goes through hold immunity many creatures have, like say Golems.

The battle I do way before you should do it is the one with the Rogue Stone. I forgot what that place is called. With the lich and the beholder and vampires and stuff? That place is a blast.

Dee

@sandmanCCL That's the Twisted Rune.

sandmanCCL

Ah, right. That's probably my favorite encounter in the entire saga. It's either super difficult or a total and complete breeze. I've never just kind of succeeded at it.

Permidion_Stark

I hate those guys. The first time I played SoA I strolled in with a character who had made it through BG1 without dying and I thought I'll take these guys out without breaking sweat. Two minutes later my whole party was dead.

bbear

they are quite tough. In fact, it's easier to solo them then use a party. I got very frustrated when edwin or aerie dies from the horrid wilting spell and I have to restart the battle.

The trick is to rush the beholder, then fight vampire, all other melee, then the mage and lich. It helps a lot if you still have the 2 mindflayer control circlet from the underdark (you only need 2 out of 4 to solve that quest). Also, timestop cast from a scroll cannot be interrupted even if you take damage.

Xanthul

What a mess... Some people are talking about the guarded compound (the temple district house where you get Celestial Fury) and others about the Twisted Rune (the secret area with the lich, beholder, vampire, mage and thief). The thread is about the inn near Irenicus' dungeon exit, the one with a dwarf, a thief, a warrior and a mage and his familiar.

As for the thread question, I always do these guys asap. Go for the mage and familiar first, thief next, human warrior and leave Mencar for the last, he is tough as nails but does not hit too hard. Emotion is really awesome in this fight, along with a few summons it will make it a lot easier.

elminster

Xanthul said:

What a mess... Some people are talking about the guarded compound (the temple district house where you get Celestial Fury) and others about the Twisted Rune (the secret area with the lich, beholder, vampire, mage and thief). The thread is about the inn near Irenicus' dungeon exit, the one with a dwarf, a thief, a warrior and a mage and his familiar.

As for the thread question, I always do these guys asap. Go for the mage and familiar first, thief next, human warrior and leave Mencar for the last, he is tough as nails but does not hit too hard. Emotion is really awesome in this fight, along with a few summons it will make it a lot easier.

To be fair it still is in keeping with the spirit of the thread. Starting a difficult encounter much sooner to make it more challenging.

sandmanCCL

All those little encounters without official quests associated with them bleed together in my brain, sorry about that. Always get them confused.