Did anyone else have an easy time with Tarnesh?
State_Lemming
Member Posts: 375
He is usually the biggest pain at the start of the game for me, and I'm plenty of people here agree, but whether it was luck or Overhaul benevolence I beat him in one round this time. :P
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They die quickly when that mirror image fails.
But I am playing an assassin this time around, and a critical hit off a poisoned arrow does tend to ruin the day of most enemies.
I like the role playing implications of that. Before you even talked to the guy, your PC decided he was a shady enough character to merit (as of yet) unprovoked death. I hope you do that with other NPCs that look and act suspicious. Like Elminster.
And thank God this thread came up again, I was looking for it earlier and for the life of me couldn't find it. I found the Tarnesh fight to be remarkably changed, but it's interesting that a lot of us didn't see any difference.
To answer the post, i didn't notice as once I figured out the above tactic, Tarnesh became super easy to kill.
That said, there is a difference in using the BG2 engine. Now, instead of having to hit all mirror images before hitting a mirror imaged mage, you have a 1 in X chance of hitting the real mage (where X is the # of mirror images remaining). In BG1, you had to hit all mirror images first.
But in this case, Tarnesh gave his little talk and everything. Xzar got in Larloch's Minor Drain right off the bat, which managed to prevent Tarnesh from casting his first spell, and the arrow followed shortly. I think my PC is collecting all the various little speeches the bounty hunters and assassins give, intending to release them in a book titled "Last Words: Why Giving a Badass Speech Is No Substitute for an Arrow through the Neck".
Really, the Tarnesh battle is only hard for a first-timer who doesn't know what to expect. I remember him being my first "Omg, what have I gotten myself into? How is anybody supposed to beat a mage?" mage battle when I first played BG. He seems like a bit bigger big-bad than he really is because of the nostalgia effect.
I did start a first run with skald, and then decide to go back and redo it with a cleric-mage, when I got to the gates of the FAI with the skald and realized I had no fear protection. I probably could have beat him with Xzar's two spells and Imoen's arrows, and Monty throwing rocks in his face, but I didn't want to take the chance. (BTW - cool idea to give the halfling Montaron two pips in sling).
The first time I played BG, I had rejected Xzar and Monty because of the evil thing, and I came upon Tarnesh with only Imoen and me. He mopped the floor with us, and I got my first taste of getting owned by a Horror spell. (smile) Good times, those. You only get one first time.
I'm definitely not the most skilled player, but not a first timer. I started vanilla BG1 a couple weeks ago because I COULD NOT WAIT ANY LONGER FOR BG:EE AHHHH as a Fighter/Cleric, with awesome stats. My "trouble" with him, even then, was just a little bit of damage or if he smacked Imoen and took her out. The issue for me was always if he got Mirror Image off.