[REVISED] Durlag's Tower straight outta Candlekeep at 0 EXP & NO GEAR. Can it be done?
Ballad
Member Posts: 205
EDIT: I've revised and clarified the challenge rules as per @chimaera 's suggestion.
Tackling high level areas with a low level party is one of my favourite pastimes in CRPGs. Some years ago, I did a Watcher's-Keep-straight-out-of-Chateau-Irenicus challenge, on SCS/Insane, naturally. It was challenging but immensely rewarding. In order to survive, I had to come up with creative ways of using my skills and items and build my characters around available, rather than ideal equipment. Because my characters were so weak in comparison to the enemies encountered, the challenge had a survival horror feel to it, which I enjoyed immensely. I really felt like an adventurer, risking my life for riches and glory, rather than a bio-bulldozer, plowing through mobs for loot and exp.
I've done Watcher's Keep in Ch2 many times since, but never has it occured me to replicate the challenge in BG1 - to do Durlag's Tower in Chapter 1, with a first level party, no less.
Anyway, my interest is now piqued and I think I'm going to give this a try. The rules are as follows:
What do you think? Can it be done?
Tackling high level areas with a low level party is one of my favourite pastimes in CRPGs. Some years ago, I did a Watcher's-Keep-straight-out-of-Chateau-Irenicus challenge, on SCS/Insane, naturally. It was challenging but immensely rewarding. In order to survive, I had to come up with creative ways of using my skills and items and build my characters around available, rather than ideal equipment. Because my characters were so weak in comparison to the enemies encountered, the challenge had a survival horror feel to it, which I enjoyed immensely. I really felt like an adventurer, risking my life for riches and glory, rather than a bio-bulldozer, plowing through mobs for loot and exp.
I've done Watcher's Keep in Ch2 many times since, but never has it occured me to replicate the challenge in BG1 - to do Durlag's Tower in Chapter 1, with a first level party, no less.
Anyway, my interest is now piqued and I think I'm going to give this a try. The rules are as follows:
- Players are not allowed to collect a single point of experience before reaching Durlag's. My Charname and his followers must all be level 1 at 0 EXP when entering the area, no exceptions. The improved NPC customization component (SCS) must be installed to ensure 0 starting XP. On the bright side, you get full control over your NPCs' proficiencies and thieving skills.
NOTE: the component comes with an option to edit your NPCs class/kit as well as their attribute scores. Using this option is NOT OK! - Challenge must be played with SCS on maximum difficulty (Insane, not LoB). Reloading is allowed on party death, savescumming is not.
- The challenge must be completed in CH1 with CH1 NPCs. This means no entering Nashkel/The Carnival for Minsc/Branwen/ others as this would prompt Chapter 2.
- NPC relocations from BG1 NPC project are ok. Ie. Picking up Tiax in Beregost, Eldoth in the Coast Way etc. Technically, getting Coran and Faldorn from Cloakwood is also OK under NPC project rules. However, you cannot complete Coran's quest as this would make your party gain XP.
- The challenge can be undertaken with any party of any size. However, once you start the challenge, you cannot leave the zone in order to swap NPCs (booting NPCs is OK)
[*] I am allowed to loot/pickpocket items on the way, as long as doing so will not make me gain any XP (ie. no killing monsters for loot) I am also allowed to buy and sell items at shops with whatever meager means I have available. RULE CHANGE: The party must enter Durlag's BUTT-NAKED - all equipment, including starting equipment, potions etc must be dropped before entering the area. Equipment cannot be sold on the way and no extra gold looted! No scribing scrolls except those found in Durlag's! You need to contend with the equipment you find in the zone, no exceptions! - Once you enter Durlag's, you're not allowed to leave the zone until you've completed the challenge. You can use Erdane for trading purposes.
What do you think? Can it be done?
Post edited by Ballad on
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Comments
Probably though you'll have to get some levels for your thief first as the traps will be deadly against a low level party on insane difficulty.
It would be best to buy a potion of mirrored eyes/protection from petrification scroll so you can kill the basilisks on the roof for an easy 22400 XP.
Killing the ghouls just below and above the starting level + XP from helping Kirinhale and killing Riggilo (assuming you're not RPing a good party) should mean you have about 30000 XP total, meaning your thief should be level 4 with 5000 XP (if it's a 6 man party).
Get your thief's find traps ability to at least 75 (+20 from potions of perception for 95 total) and put the rest of the points in open locks. This combined with the various skill enhancing potions you find will mean your party is safe from traps and can access all the locked items and treasure.
I'm hoping then it should be fairly smooth sailing - get the Practical defence armour from the second basement level for your warrior so they can reliably tank monsters and you should be good to go.
Though I think the latest SCS customisation component overrides starting XP.
E: a Forbidden companions list would help, now that I think about it. Lots of companions would be blocked normally due to either the Chapter 1 Rule or the No EXP Rule.
- Minsc (Chapter 2)
- Branwen (Chapter 2)
- Edwin (Chapter 2)
- Rasaad (Chapter 2)
- Xan (Chapter 2)
- Yeslick (Chapter 4)
- Viconia (EXP Rule)
- Neera (EXP Rule)
- Garrick (EXP Rule)
- Dorn (EXP Rule)
- Dynaheir (Resources Rule - I don't remember if rescuing her without Minsc grants EXP but you'd need no less than three sources of Invisibility to pull this particular heist off, one of which would need to be transferable)
- Baeloth (EXP Rule - his event normally doesn't fire if you're below a certain level, but other than that there's nothing stopping you from leaving the tower and coming back for him...)
...I'm looking at this list and 90% of my usual teams are already on here.Otherwise you've only got Imoen, Ajantis, Safana, Xzar, Montaron, and Shar-Teel to choose from. Not a bad group by any means but Anomen sticks out like a sore thumb in this group. If you don't want to torture him by forcing his LG ass to wander with you, you're left tankless with a lot of thieves!
Sorry, meant Ajantis. I've been mostly playing BG2 lately so made a Freudian slip...
There are several ways the battle horrors could be done easily enough, e.g.
- using wands available without gaining XP, e.g. frost from Nashkel Mine area (can circle round Nashkel to avoid chapter trigger) and fire from the ankheg nest.
- using invisibility from potion or scroll to set up an invisible blocker allowing battle horrors to be safely attacked with a 2-handed weapon. For the one on the wall invisibility is not required as you can attack from the bottom of the wall where it can't reach you (with SCS though you will probably need to spend a while first persuading the skeletons to use up all their arrows on the best defended character).
- there are enough scrolls / potions available to kill the first two battle horrors.
A thief attacking from the shadows, or blinding the battle horrors, would be good options in the basic game, but become a pain with SCS due to the battle horrors' tendency to wander round whenever an enemy is not visible.
Folks, sorry for leaving this hanging in the air! I'm moving houses IRL and have had very little time to play. However, I did start the challenge and successfully made it through the tower interior.
Given the nature of the challenge, I thought a Dwarven CHARNAME would be appropriate. While I normally stick to legal race/class combinations, I couldn't resist making him an Inquisitor. A magic hating Dwarven Paladin is just the perfect character for this challenge!
In hindsight, I should've taken a little more time to spell out the rules for this challenge. For starters, the 0 EXP rule proved almost impossible to maintain. Obviously I couldn't kill anyone, even in self-defence. This meant running from every diseased gibberling, having the Friendly Arm guards kill Tarnesh, casting 'Command' on Akhegs on the way to Ulgoth's and so on. The Marl encounter in Beregost proved particularly challenging, as I could neither kill him NOR resolve the quest peacefully. Also, no scroll case from Firebeard either (you only get it on turning in the book, and no, it can't be pickpocketed.)
After a lot of toiling and spinning, I finally made it to Durlag's, only to realize my characters were all at 30-some EXP instead of 0. After some headscrathing I realized I had completely overlooked the EXP from picking locks.
Suffice to say, I did not start over. It was a stupid, metagamey rule to begin with. Let's just agree that you need to be level 1 with under 1000 EXP on all companions upon entering Durlag's, be in Chapter 1, and that's it.
As for my companions, I opted for a 4-man party consisting of Charname, Kivan, Tiax and Imoen ( to be dualed to a mage at level 5). I reckoned faster leveling is worth the loss in manpower. Time will tell whether this was the right choice.
Anyway, the tower exterior was fairly straightforward. I knew my priority was to get out of the level 1 deathzone ASAP, so I had Tiax cast sanctuary and go straight for the basilisks. Courtesy of the BG1 NPC project customisation component, I was able to pump Tiax's FT to 65 on level 1 and thus disarm the floor trap on the way to the roof. Taking out the basilisks was easy: Tiax's ghast chew them to bits in a matter of seconds.
The XP from the 3 Greater Basilisks was enough to pump my characters to level 3. However, I still needed to get past the Battle Horrors. I figured the time wasn't yet ripe for heroics, so I opted for good ol' invisibility cheese. Still took me a while, even with one pip in 2-handed style, to land all those required crits.
Fast forward to the tower interior. Ike does his spiel, Demon Knight is summoned, tourists die. I still had invisibility on Tiax, now at level 4, so I just had him detrap the whole tower. I had completely forgotten about all the ghasts on the upper floors, though. With 'Better Calls for Help' from SCS installed, they now behave quite intelligently. If it hadn't been for my Inquisitor's immunity to hold, I think I would've had to pop a Prot. from Undead scroll. Even now, fighting them took a few reloads and cost me most of my healing pots.
Everything else was quite unremarkable. I killed Kirinhale because of a bad dialogue choice thus missing out on some of the exp. Ah well. The ghost encounter I ended up skipping (for now.) It's too early to deal with Chaos and Spell Immunity.
Anyway, I am about to enter the dungeons. I will let you guys know how it goes!
I went to Ulgoth's for roleplaying reasons, mostly. B-lining for the dungeon felt a touch too, eh, Diablo-esque.
Your suggestion got me thinking, though... 0 exp and no gear should definitely be possible - it wouldn't even be that much harder actually (at least up to the point where I am now), just a lot more annoying and metagamey. With Tiax, you don't need any weapons to take care of the basilisks, and hitting level 3 gives most characters enough survivability to get past the battle horrors (they have a tendency to get stuck in corners, so you can actually pull them around the courtyard bend with a thief, hide, then let the rest of your party waltz in.)
Once inside, it is not too difficult to loot the tower without aggroing the enemies. The Bastard Sword +1, Halberd +1, Rashad's Talon should provide enough power to take out some of the enemies. The skeletons in the courtyard should provide bows and basic ammunition for your archers. Surplus equipment can be sold to Erdane and should afford you the wand of fire, which you can use to take out the horrors (if you're so inclined.)
EDIT: I hate you...
I also took Xzar and Montaron along. The rest of the party I kept the same.
Now, this made things a lot more interesting. Without an invisibility potion, I couldn't just send Tiax ahead and take on the basilisks. 2 casts of Sanctuary wouldn't be enough to get him inside the keep, on the roof and back in one piece. I would have to rest to recharge, and for that, I needed everyone inside the keep.
There was no way I could get a 6-man party around the Battle Horrors and the Doppelganger, so I had Montaron sneak past them and show them a full moon. Clink clink, into the courtyard they went. Unfortunately, it was also Montaron's last stand. The path now clear, the vile halfling had served his purpose.
I also had to be more strategic with the basilisks. I first took out the lone basilisk on the stairs, walked back in past the ghast, rested up, and went back up to take out the remaining 3.
And I must say, I really lucked out on those greater basilisks! Among their drops was a Laeral's Tear Necklace (worth 3000gp!) and scrolls of Skull Trap and Spell Thrust! Up until this point, I was uncertain whether I wanted to keep Xzar, deeming him a mere XP-sponge. I took the drop as a sign that I should hold on to the mad wizard, even as his side-kick lay dead in the courtyard.
Having gained a couple levels, I no longer ran the risk of getting one-shotted by just about everything. The tower, however, was far from safe. Having no weapons or armor, aggroing even a single ghast meant certain death. I precariously mapped out the chests I could safely loot, and behold, I had armor at last!
The weapon rack with the Halberd +1 on the 4th floor is in ghast zone. However, I was able to yoink it with sanctuary. In another chest, I found perhaps the most valuable item of them all: a Potion of Invisibility. With these two goodies, I could finally take on the Battle Horrors which I had parked in the courtyard.
I also sorted out Kirinhale and Riggolo. I kind of botched the quest, taking Kirinhale's offer but failing to convince Riggolo. So in the end, I had to kill them both. Not very paladinlike of me, but desperate times call for desperate measures. More importantly, I now had the Staff Spear, which I gave to Tiax, and leather armor from Riggolo (for Kivan.) I had my Inquisitor wield Rashad's Talon, even though he has no pips in scimitar. It was a tossup between that or bare fists.
I also took out the skeletons on the eastern ramparts. This was perhaps the most important move so far, for I had a launcher at last! Things were definitely looking up.
The western rampart proved a bit more problematic. The battle horror doesn't follow you down, disappointingly, and there was no way I could take on both him and the skeletons. It eventually occured to me to send Tiax up with sanctuary and drive the skeletons away with turn undead. This left the battle horror standing alone, and I could invis cheese him the regular way.
The last thing left to do was to deal with those pesky ghasts. Luckily, they are pretty easy to separate between floors. I then had Kivan kite them around the tables with his newfound Composite Longbow.
And that's it for the top of the tower! It definitely took me a few reloads for everything to click, but oh boy was it rewarding. I honestly haven't been this excited about a BG playthrough in a long while. I would definitely encourage people to try this challenge. It's a riot, really is.
For starters, I jogged back to Erdane and sold all my gems and surplus equipment. Consequently, I was able to buy his Wand of Fire as well as some magical ammunition.
After some deliberation, I decided to dual Imoen to a mage. A pure class thief at 9 strength, she didn't really have much use in combat aside from being an invisibility dummy. I reckoned I could make up for the loss in lockpicking with Tiax and pots of master thievery, as well as with Xzar, who had acquired 'Knock' from a random drop. Dualing to a mage is cool, because you get to choose your level 1 spells. I picked 'Grease' and 'Protection from Petrification', deeming them the most useful for this challenge.
The first dungeon level is when the game really starts to shower you with potions and magical ammunition. It felt downright opulent to loot stacks of Arrows +2 after the scavenge hunt on the upper levels. I also finally found a crossbow for my Inquisitor and a sling +1 for Tiax, as well as multiple stacks of magical darts for Imoen and Xzar.
Clearing out the first rooms was fairly straightforward. I got fried by traps a few times, totally due to my impatience. There were a few spawns of minor undead - ghouls and zombies - definitely a step down in difficulty from the ghasts above. Kivan took them out in a jiffy.
I also encountered a few Phase spiders. These things are annoying even in early SoA; in BG1 at level 4, they're lethal. Kiting was the name of the game.
The western part of the level was considerably more challenging. The Mustard Jellies hit for 20's and are completely immune to magic and highly resistant to physical damage. I had Xzar use a Wand of Monster Summoning (acquired moments before) to create a meat shield between me and my archers. The poor creatures got chunked so fast, I ran out of charges before the fight was over.
The Skeleton Warriors were a real headache. I devised a plan to funnel them in a hallway, have Imoen cast Grease and then blast them with Wand of Fire - only to realize they're completely immune to magic. Tanking them was not an option and kiting a no-go due to SCS's better calls for help. Out of options, I had to resort to good ol door blocking cheese. 4 casts of Sanctuary held them at bay while my party took them out at range. I used the same strategy on the Flesh Golems, likewise magic resistant.
Having cleared the western rooms, I helped my Inquisitor to some well earned goodies: The Practical Defense (platemail +3) and a Two Handed Sword +1 (from the skeleton warriors.) I was starting to look like a paladin at last.
Better yet, I found a scroll of Invisibility on one of the respawning undead. Imoen was more than happy to scribe it to her barren spellbook.
There were several high level scrolls lying about. Confusion, Chaos, Feeblemind, Cloudkill. This was great and all, but at this point, I would take a level 2 spell instead. Web, for instance, would've been great.
Speaking of mages, I got to witness a hilarious piece of dialogue from Xzar, courtesy of the NPC project mod. I had never seen it before - apparently it triggers if you keep a dead Montaron in your party for long enough.
Anyway, onto the last room before the final challenge: the one on the right hand corner with the 3 greater doppelgangers. These guys are nasty. Even with their haste and mirror image dispelled, they hit like a truck. I took inventory of my resources and realized I had a potion of insulation, a potion of absorption and a scroll of Protection from Electricity. Xzar was also carrying a wand of lightning from the upper levels. A plan was starting to take form in my head...
It took me a few tries to get the positioning right, but the result was oh so satisfying.
The final showdown with the 4 wardens was my hardest fight yet - by a long shot. Luckily they spawn well apart of each other, meaning I could fight them individually. Realizing that conventional strategies were off the table, I decided to try the Wand of Lighting trick again. I had my Inquisitor quaff an Oil of Speed and pull Fear and Avarice to the Doppelganger room, with Xzar lying in wait in the corner. They both have high MR, but nothing a few extra charges couldn't fix.
Pride, on the other hand, was completely unfazed by my electricity shenanigans. This dude comes at you fully hasted with infinite, instant casts of Righteous Magic, Holy Power, Champion's Strength and DuHM. He also seems to regenerate his HP at a fast rate. Even at -3 AC and 75HP, my Inquisitor had no staying power against him. Had he a ranged attack, this would have probably marked the end of my run. Luckily he hasn't, so door blocking was still on the table. Even then, I had to go all out on potions - Cloud Giant Strength, Speed, Heroism, Invulnerability - to counter his HP regen. Talk about a wounded Pride.
Despite being a caster, Love turned out to be a complete pushover. I didn't even have to strategize - tanking him was effective enough.
And that's it for Durlag's Level 1. I'm moving houses tomorrow so I don't think I'll have time to play for the next week or two, but I'll definitely come back and continue the challenge as soon as I'm able.
Level 3 is when it got interesting again. The Greater Ghouls were a significant step up from Ghasts, so my first thought was to simply pull them through the fireball room...
...only to realize this yielded no XP, a commodity too valuable to give up for a low level party. So I decided to take them out the regular way. Using the goblet of blood in conjunction with Kiel's Helmet, my Inquisitor was able to tank as many as 3 at a time. Annoyingly, their disease attack drains your THAC0, so most of the damage was coming from Kivan's arrows.
The Ashikurukururuku (sp?) were a real headache. Their pulsing invisibility + low AC makes them really, really hard to hit, and I quickly ran out of True Sights. Tiax's Ghast was the one to save the day.
After clearing the Hedge Maze, I decided to take on the Wyverns to the north. These guys were much tougher than I'd remembered. I wasn't too keen on using the stone adventurers against them (I wanted to kill them individually for EXP) - and I don't think they would've made a dent on the Wyverns anyway.
After some headscratching, I realized I had a Protection from Fire (mage spell) in my inventory which I had previously overlooked. I had Imoen memorize and cast it, then pull the Wyverns one by one to the fireball room. They can't fit in the room, but take some damage from the doorway. Once softened, I had Kivan (stealthed) come from behind, pull them back and kite them around the statues. Even at Near Death, it took them a good while to die, being so resistant to missile damage.
Once the 3 were dead, I took out the adventurers the same way. Good thing I did - they were worth 1-4k XP each. Tarnor had a Full Plate on him, a perk I had forgotten about altogether.
The elemental rooms took some strategizing. The fission slime was probably the easiest as I could just blast it with the Wand of Fire out of its LOS. The Polar Bear and the Winter Wolves took me a few reloads before I realized I still had one statue I hadn't clicked on - Hack the Ogre Berserker. He provided the much needed meat shield while the rest of my party peppered the animals with missiles.
I had no chance against the Air Aspect, so I just had Imoen (hasted, PfF) take it on a tour to the fireball room.
The Invisible Stalkers hit hard, are hard to hit but have no MR. I was happy to let Xzar make full use of his 3 casts of Skull Trap, a neat neat find from the basilisks above.
And this is when things got really, really difficult. I knew that killing the Phoenix Guards would teleport me straight to the Chess board, which I expected to a real bottleneck for a party of my level. My suspicions were confirmed - the Chess board seemed impossible. I don't know whether its an SCS feature or simply something I had forgotten about, but the chesspieces now come at you immediately as you appear, many of them fully hasted. The fight was over before I could even get my wits together. Winning this match would take some serious metagaming...
I have to say, getting that random Invisibility scroll drop on level 1 was a real jackpot. The spell variety has a duration of 24 hours, meaning I could rest in between casts and still retain its effect. Making use of this, I had Imoen turn everyone invisible, then take out the Phoenix guards out with a wand of lightning...
...then, immediately upon being teleported, have her cast invisibility on herself, giving me some much needed breathing room.
Remember those level 4 spell scrolls I found on level 1? Now was the time to use them, if any. I was also delighted to find out that Grease, unlike most hostile AoE spells, does not aggro enemies if cast outside their LOS. With this in mind, I came up with the following strategy: plaster Grease all over the board, use a scroll of Monster Summoning III to summon meat shields...
...then throw every high level Enchantment scroll I got - Greater Malison, Confusion, Chaos, Emotion - at the back row, followed by fervent barrage of Skull Trap/Wand of Fire/Arrows of Detonation.
The high point was landing 'Feeblemind' on the King, then blasting his ass to oblivion.
Having used up most of my resources, looting the World's Edge +3 provided for some welcome consolation.
While the World's Edge is not exactly Carsomyr, there's something majestetic about a Dwarven Paladin wielding a heavily enchanted 2-handed sword.
And that's it for today. Next up, the grand finale: Level 4 and the Demon Knight!
In terms of encounters, level 4 is pretty compact. You have a pack of spiders to the northwest, two helmet horrors guarding the treasure in the northeast and then the ghouls and crawlers in the slime pits to the south.
First it was to the horrors. They're tough, but I was pretty well geared up at this point, so there was no need for any roundabout tactics.
Then I took inventory of the spider room. In addition to sword spiders and ettercaps, I counted not one, but wo phase spiders, and an Astral Phase Spider which has permanent haste. SCS makes these guys a real pain in the arse; they teleport at your back row and inflict 5dmg/tick poison with every hit.
After some failed attempts, I decided to confront them on two fronts. I set up Imoen and Xzar in the NE alcove, cast Grease and then nuke the approximate area with Fireball/Skull Trap.
This took out most of the spiders, including 2 of the phase spiders. The Astral spider managed to teleport, but the rest of my party was poised and killed it without much trouble.
With this, Imoen finally reached level 6 and regained her 5 thief levels. Yay! No more casting knock on locks.
The slime pits were fun. I had no desire to go toe to toe with a dozen or so Greater Ghouls and Crypt Crawlers, so I had Tiax herd them together with the aid of haste and sanctuary, have Imoen pin them down with grease, then nuke the living undeath out of them with Skull Trap and Wand of Fire.
The glorious sight of burning ghoul flesh! The screenshot really doesn't do it justice. The few that escaped the artillery fire were easy enough to deal with.
I was surprised to find a scroll of Mirror Image on one of their corpses. This was the first and only protective spell I had come across in the entire tower.
I also found an additional wand of fire. Which was great, as Imoen was running out of charges.
No matter how many times I play Durlag's, I'll never get tired of this sight.
Moving on to the riddles. Truth be told, I never wholly understood the timeline of Durlag's demise. Who was the real mastermind behind the attack, the Illithids or Aec'letec?
Anyway, it was time to confront the final boss. Clair didn't seem confident it would go well. I wonder whether her party had also started at no EXP and equipment.
The moment of truth was upon me. I didn't want to run any reconnaissance runs, so I precariously buffed up with everything I got and headed down the strairs.
I was happy to discover the top of the room where you start is out of the Demon Knight's LOS. This enabled me to space out my party members and take the first draw. I had Imoen cast 4x Grease at the center platform. The Demon Knight has high MR, but not 100%, so I was confident at least one of the ticks would stick.
And I was right. The DK was now immobilized in the centre. I then had Imoen open the battle with a cast of Monster Summoning. Cast it straight on the DK, and he's more likely to go in melee than use fireballs.
The rest was simple enough. I had my Inquisitor and Kivan attack at a range. Tiax had a lucky strike and managed to land a Flame Strike.
Before I knew it, it was done. The DK was dead. I nailed it on my 1st try. What just happened? I had honestly expected a tougher fight with SCS and all. Never underestimate the power of missiles in BG1, I guess.
And that's it for Durlag's Tower, I guess. For reference, here's a reel of my party at the bottom of the tower. All XP and equipment you see is from Durlag's and Durlag's alone.
I guess it's time to go meet Khalid and Jaheira in the Friendly Arm Inn...
I was hoping someone would say that! Sure, I'll get it to tonight...
In general, I had forgotten how annoying these cultists are. It seems like each troop is optimised for maximal annoyance - the archers shoot poison arrows, the assassins have endless charges of invisibility, the mages cast slow and confusion... Luckily, the ones in the building are pretty easy to separate, and once I got rid of the assassins and archers, the rest could be managed with precision tactics.
There really wasn't much to the final fight. The named mage was probably the hardest of them all, but I could pull her upstairs. After that, it was smooth sailing: potions of freedom, mirrored eyes, protection from fire on Imoen, Kivan and Charname. I had Kivan focus fire on Aec while Imoen blasted the cultists with Wand of Fire. After they were all dead, I had Charname tank Aec, which was quite easy with 20 charges of Durlag's Goblet.
How's that for a finishing blow?
Durlag's goblet my favourite cheat item if used well with a fighter type.