Is charname really able to beat the boss in watcher's keep? (Spoiler)
Arthas
Member Posts: 1,091
Or was this added just to appeal the player per se?
Because I don't really understand how a bhaalspawn, no matter how powerful, can actually beat the prince of demons..
Because I don't really understand how a bhaalspawn, no matter how powerful, can actually beat the prince of demons..
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Same thing with NWN Klauth , if he's anything like the books suggest a 13th level character and his henchman can't possibily have killed him.
I haven't fought Demogorgon in maybe 10 years, and I'm not sure I've ever tried him in SCS+Ascension. All I remember is beating him a long time ago and then reloading so I could do the nonviolent method, which is both more appropriate for a good-aligned character and also yields more XP.
Incidentally, the highest experience you can get for the whole thing does involve killing Demogorgon. If you completely refuse to trust him, read the scroll, and then fight him rather than accept his aid in escaping, that outdoes leaving and then imprisoning him.
Lore-wise, how much of his power can Demogorgon bring to bear, while still at least somewhat contained by what's left of the seals? This isn't necessarily the full god-fighting strength of the demon prince.
I played with Ascension once, and the fight was horribly difficult and took several reloads. Not as much as the improved Abazigal, though. And I've never used SCS.
Klauth in NWN was worse than the unmodded Demogorgon, in my opinion, especially if you don't use the baby dragon essence to weaken him.
A fair point, but even an avatar of Demogorgon IS still Demogorgon.
Oh, and back on the original topic, I remember way back when I was playing vanilla ToB all those years ago, the way I beat Demogorgon was to get a Wand of Cloudkill and then dump all of its charges on the center area while staying out of sight on the upper ledges. Demogorgon just stood in the poisonous vapors until he choked to death. XD (I think Demogorgon has immunity to poison damage now? So this tactic probably doesn't work anymore.)
Probably the party composition matter, like the play style, but once i even tanked him killing his ever spawning helpers to farm xp for RL hours. Hitting the xp cap with a couple of newly recruited and low level party members.
Imo the plot outcome make clear that the imprisoned prince is the real one, but as a manifestation of himself in the prime material plane.
Killing him you only send him back to his plane and sealing again his prison you keep him confined there. It is not clear to me if you avoid that he sends a new avatar in the plane, as one, sealed into the keep is already present, or if being imprisoned prevents him to be active also in his or other planes.
Also i lack of a precise knowledge about what avatar mean in the fr lore, it is a very specific word that is used in a particular religion, but is used also in many game situations with different meanings and implications.
Anyway i would say that charname can win a battle against the demon prince, actually quite easily with the right party and tactics.
But charname can not really kill him, like he can not kill a deva, demon or elemental prince.
So it seems to me that somehow demogorgon gated himself into the prime material plane more then sending an avatar. If avatar is the way gods was present in the material plane during the time of chaos. There if i am not wrong they could be really killed killing their manifestation in the plane.
Given that back in 2nd Ed, the world of Greyhawk was the "default" D&D setting (the mega-popularity of the Forgotten Realms notwithstanding), I'm more inclined to think that the Demogorgon we face in Watcher's Keep was not the prime manifestation of the Prince of Demons, but it WAS a very powerful aspect of him. Killing him would have freed the power/energy contained in this aspect and released it back to the main manifestation back in the Abyss, which was why Helm was keen for the aspect to continue to be imprisoned, rather than destroyed.
Just want to do a quest or two in the sewers first.
If its just an avatar, releasing it into the Abyss shouldn't be an issue then. As the actual Demogorgon would already be free and presumably, able to create other avatars. But the issue of killing him vs. keeping him locked up, is that it prevents someone else from summoning him, or from leaving the abyss. An avatar wouldn't come with that restrisction.
I know, but it might have been an avatar with a considerable chunk of Demogorgon's power. If Helm can keep it locked up in Watcher's Keep, it would deprive the main Demogorgon who's still in the Abyss of that power, and hence hinder his plans. (For some background, creating an avatar actually requires the deity/outsider to split their essence into multiple forms, kinda like if you had a 20th level character, and decided to create a 5th level version of yourself to go and clean out some goblin caves while the main you, who's now just 15th level, continued on to fight some vampires in a crypt.)
Klauth from the Neverwinter Nights 1 OC deserves a thread like this even more than Demogorgon. Klauth is described in the game as one of the oldest dragons in the world, perhaps older than a great wyrm (he sacrifices other dragons to extend his lifespan). Yet my level 8 fighter/7 weapon master character was able to beat Klauth from full health without a henchman.
Nothing in the game indicates that its just an avatar, while EVERYTHING in the game says its the real Demogorgon.
Unless you're an elf. After about the 10th time you put him down it would start to get real old...
It's nothing personal, but I think that the "but you're a potential lord of murder" card has been pulled whenever someone wants to validate some sort of powergame, lack of balance or absurdness in the game.
I do agree that a group of characters above level 20 can indeed face and possibly defeat Demogorgon because at such high levels you can do anything *period*, but I think that this discussion is actually quite positive to speculate how Watcher's Keep could have been written had they had more time and opportunity to do so.
He got some very minor powers from being a spawn, and he did lost them to gain the slayer form, that is a suicidal and imo not so strond power. This in SoA.
In ToB he has some more bonuses from the hell trials, but those dont make him some sort of demi god.
Is the ToB boss, that by the way is not a spawn, that has the control of the ToB, that can adsorb the essence of the dead spawns and become powerful.
Until charname win the last battle and takes control of the ToB he is a mere mortal with some minor bonuses and the ability to turn himself in something that kill him.
For now. Edwin already's revealing the mysteries of Mouse Magic after all.
Not for the rest of the realms.