Demon Knights - ouch!

nephtu · Post by **nephtu** » Mon Mar 11, 2002 9:16 pm

I'm at the fight with the five demon knights in the Underdark, and they're kicking our butts. Am I just being lame, or is it a pretty nasty fight? Getting feared a lot, and the pets don't seem to really help too much - I've tried various combinations, including summon fiend (Nalia is the only one who can cast that) - that Glabrezu was pretty bloody useless, as was the Djinn and the Air elemental. So far, only the fire elementals seem to do much damage, although the invisible stalkers are putting up a pretty solid fight.

For what it's worth, the party is a Wizard slayer / Minsc / Jaheira / Nalia / Aerie / Imoen - so, a bit of a funky makeup. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

samcu · Post by **samcu** » Mon Mar 11, 2002 9:47 pm

Have you got the wand of cloudkill, I think that works.

Also don't stay in that room, stay outside use a pet to walk in and then lure them out one by one.

I would suggest a thief in your next party, their traps kicks serious butt!

nael · Post by **nael** » Mon Mar 11, 2002 9:48 pm

I always send in as many mordenkain's swords as possible as well as a limited wish of a horde of bunnies. i close the door and wait outside while the carnage takes place. the demon knights stay fairly busy runnign around killing rabbits while the swords hack them to pieces. my solo sorcerer has neverhad a problem with them.
but you are not being lame, it is a very tough battle, but VERY worth it.
another strategy is to try and lure one out at a time.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 2:14 am

good idea, swords!!

i usually send in a bunch of skellies, with haste and mass inv, but never thought of swords!!! skellies keep getting butchered but inflict enough damage to soften them up...

sicko sicko question, what happens if you instead of sending in summon, send in a party member on th altar of demogorgon? they die, and you resurrect, of course, but do you get any extra loot???

I am sick, sick, sick...

Eerhardt · Post by **Eerhardt** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 2:28 am

@UserUnfriendly: I don't believe anything happens when you place a party member in front of the altar. You really have to send in a summon (I even think Spider Spawn doesn't count).

lompo · Post by **lompo** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 3:05 am

I used skeletons warriors to help me in that fight and they were very effective: I summoned 3 and sent two against a demon, one against another, Minsc and Jaheira against two and the last for me (Inquisitor with Carsomir), all were hasted and strenghtened;
I killed mine very quickly and same did the two skeletons (one dead), while the single skeleton was slayed; I sent the remained skeleton to help Jaheira and I took the other demon (already weakened); Minsc finished his, same Jaheira and the skeleton and I slayed the last; at the end I still got a skeleton left; Imoen and Aerie were upset because we did it so fast they couldn't finish their card game!!

PDF · Post by **PDF** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:38 am

I agree, these things are *hard*, best way to go is to summon Skel Warriors (best, I had even one surviving te fight !) and fire elems (for my part I got there pretty late in the game and with ToB installed, so I had Anomen with Deva summoning ...

).

Fight at the room entrance, not in the middle, protect your guys vs fear (Chaotic command, items ...), and bash the Knights while they are busy with your critters ! Haste and other combat-increasing spells come handy too.
Good luck !

schept · Post by **schept** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 5:40 am

You should stay at the entrance. They won't come all at the same time. You beat the first three and after that (after you healed yourself a little) do the last two. Have a couple af range fighters prepared, they did a lot of damage when i played it

Timekeeper · Post by **Timekeeper** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 11:58 am

Am I the only one who stays in the room while fighting the Knights?

My strat: I usually summon four Skels and a Spider. Spider for sacrifice, Skels to wail on the Knights. Buffing begins by Prot Evil 15' (just common sense

, followed with every buffing spell: Strength of One, Barkskin, Stoneskin/Ironskins, Chant, Bless, Remove Fear, Haste, Def. Harmony, etc. Send the Spider on the altar, commence battle. Result: 5 dead Knights, minimal damage to party. Maybe 2 or 3 Skels end up dead, but no chars killed.

Granted, that's usual tactics, and Anomen will usually be a high of a level to get the Skels. Of course, this time I'm running Aerie through, so it'll be much more of a challenge to get all the Skels.

Who I'm planning to take on the Knights with (soon as I'll be through Spellhold): main (Wild Mage), Minsc, Jahiera, Aerie, Imoen, Keldorn. MoD+2, Amulet of Power and NPP serve to protect my fighters. Casters stay back and assist with spells.

Leonardo · Post by **Leonardo** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 12:24 pm

No, you are not the only

. And I managed it without summons other than the one required for the Knights to appear.

After usual hard battle procedure (Resist Fear, Haste, Bless etc.), I kept my party just left of the altar, and summoned a monster from the wand. The closest Knight (the one with the girdle of strength and mean sword) is pounded from the start by my Paladin, Minsc, Valgyar and Jaheira. He´s dead before any other Knight comes within striking distance. Meanwhile, Aerie hurls Bolts of Glory at the one on the right of the altar, and Imoen Ring of the Ram´ed him. Then I gather my 4 tanks and gang them up to cleave each of the remaining Knights one at a time; with supporting healing and re-buffing from the 2 mages.

It took some reloads to do it without NPC deaths, but it´s not impossible.

speedball · Post by **speedball** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 12:52 pm

Am I the only one who doesn't find that fight terribly hard (with the right buffs, of course

)? Haste + any other buffs makes most hard fights easy.

The more tanks you have, the easier the fight should be. With nephtu's party, protecting three weak mages can be tough. Stoneskin should help them survive until your tanks can even the odds a little.

Leonardo · Post by **Leonardo** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 1:05 pm

Minor spoilers

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Some battles are more difficult for some players, some were easier.
Example:
I reloaded more than 15 times against the Shadow Dragon (which some people consider the easiest of SoA dragons), but whacked Nalmissara and Co. (which others consider the hardest fight on the series) without traps, summons or buffs other than Chaotic Commands on the second try (I reloaded after Minsc panicked for unknown reasons)

frogus · Post by **frogus** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 2:06 pm

Minor spoilers

since when has 'some fights are harder for different parties' been a spoiler? anyway...I killed the Demon Knights with a summoned Glabrezu. My whole party in the room (near the altar) and the Glabrzu occupied a couple of the Knights long enough for Aerie to get a few Holy Smites off, and my mage was just breaching and dispelling. My tanks took out the one with G of FGS and then casually disposed of the three injured survivors.

Leonardo · Post by **Leonardo** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 2:08 pm

The existance of a Shadow Dragon or of a very powerful party involving an enemy named Nalmissara could be a spoiler, couldn´t?

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 2:40 pm

From my last time I remember trapping the room with some Delayed Blast Fireballs, then sending the spider from the spider figurine to the altar (turned out to be quite difficult to avoid my own fireballs). After the blast I summoned some skeleton warriors to reinforce the front lines and bashed the bad guys with Korgan and my PC. Protection from level drain is a good idea before entering the fight.

nephtu · Post by **nephtu** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:24 pm

Lame!

Well, sadly enougj, the answer was that I was just being lame. I should have thought to pull the room, rather than fighting them all at once (Doh!). I did it without having to pull the room, though - two stalkers, one Djinn, one Fire elemental, plus the party. Zero casualties, though Jaheira was level drained down to 4 (!)

Also: Samcu - should have a thief, certainly. In fact, I did, but complications ensued and now I'm just lugging his heart around *sigh*

The Glabrezu comment from Frogus was particularly interesting - when I summoned one, it ran like a little girl, and the Demon Knights pretty much ignored it

- I was somewhat annoyed.

Anyway, thanks for all the great input.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Wed Mar 13, 2002 12:24 am

this should work,,,,,,,send in 3-6 inc clouds via improved acuity, and sending in fire elemental to sacrifice...close door, wait until knights are broiled using farsight.....

samcu · Post by **samcu** » Wed Mar 13, 2002 1:30 am

Even more cheesy method:

I accidentally stumbled onto this in WK last night, very powerful. What you do is you need a bounty hunter, make sure he have stats to dual class(but you don't dual at all). Anyway, put special snare next to four of these dudes plus normal traps next to one of the special trap. When they turn up, four of them would have been mazed, no save, with one getting a lot of hurt from the traps.

The one remaining will have to fight all of you. Kill him quickly and lay more special snares to maze the other ones. If you have time, set more traps like skull traps and such... I killed Saralex like that without any spells left in a party consists of 5 spell casters and 2 fighters.

You might want to ask, "my traps are depleted, I need to sleep." Well, that's where the dual class button come into it! Once you hit dual class button, cancel it and voila, all you special and normal traps are back! Pity they don't have the super traps like that...

I think the bounty hunter might be a better solo than an assassin due to this.

Ode to a Grasshopper · Wed Mar 13, 2002 7:52 am

Actually, the infinite-traps exploit has been floating aroung for some time now.

Time to bump The Cheese Guild.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Wed Mar 13, 2002 8:45 am

Originally posted by UserUnfriendly
this should work,,,,,,,send in 3-6 inc clouds via improved acuity, and sending in fire elemental to sacrifice...close door, wait until knights are broiled using farsight.....

Well UU, if we're talking about using HLAs to solve this little problem I'd say: Spiketrap the place like there's no tommorow, send in a panetar plus elemental prince patrol, trigger the statue and whack any demon knight who dares to leave the room in terrror with Greater Whirlwinds and Assasinations.

Seriously: Don't do WK in SoA, it renders the game pretty much dull. In one game I had HLA in Underdark and firestormed, earthquaked and i-clouded the demon knights and pretty much anything else. B-o-r-i-n-g.