What about some chat about The Ritual? (Absolutely spoilerish)

serjeLeBlade · Post by **serjeLeBlade** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 6:45 am

Has never been a thread about that mini-quest here at Gamebanshee? If there has been one already, please link me to it, I can't find it!

I'm under the impression that many people have finished the Ritual quest, but most of them didn't do it "in the correct way".
I mean "the correct way" Weimer's always talking about... the one (I wonder) no one knows...
The way that's not in the hints and faqs of the readme...
The way that *should* (I guess) be hinted for in the "unfinished" dialogues of Pontifex... (but obviously is not there because the dialogues are, as said... "unfinished"

... (and likely to stay pretty like so forever, I fear ...)

I'm curious... is there anyone that finished the ritual "correctly"?
Or someone who knows what "correctly" should mean, at least... ?

START REAL SPOILERS....

Here's my experience...
We reached the location of the ritual (heh... this is not a walkthrough... still)

and entered the final area using maximum care not to attack anyone just to be sure, unleash some major high-level (unharmful) powers, and managed to control the priestess (Mind Flayers' Control Collar).
Good news: we got the "ritual disrupted" message.
Bad news: the Units attacked the priestess and killed her before we could stop them

I was expecting Pontifex to kill us for that, but he gave us his uber-powerful (cursed) amulets instead

I read about people being attacked by Pontifex... how does it happen if not when you get the priestess killed?

Now, I'm going to try again taking special care to disable the units before controlling the priestess.
But I'm sure in advance that *this* is not the "correct way" the author was thinking about.

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas?

Leonardo · Post by **Leonardo** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 6:59 am

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What I did the only time I managed to "do things right" was cast Imprisonment in the priestess, deal with the units and them head out for the nearest exit point. Before moving away, cast Freedom.

serjeLeBlade · Post by **serjeLeBlade** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 7:52 am

Originally posted by Leonardo
What I did the only time I managed to "do things right" was cast Imprisonment in the priestess, deal with the units and them head out for the nearest exit point. Before moving away, cast Freedom.

Actually I thought about it

But does it produce any different results if you do so instead of, say, cast two power word stun on her? (I've read about that at FWs... )
Or just disable her in some other way? (Like with a mind flayer collar...) and then manage to keep her alive?
Do you get a different "final"? Some more reward? (Did Pontifex attack you in the end, or not?)

Leonardo · Post by **Leonardo** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 8:12 am

I tried Power Word Silence, Stun, Hold Person and similars and none prevented her from turning into a jelly-thing and dying by herself (without taking any damage).
Maybe Maze will work, but I at the time had no scroll and none memorized, but did have Imprisonment and a scroll of Freedom.
If you do manage to disrupt the ritual and don't kill her (and the only way it worked for me was the one above), the Pontifex gives great thanks, a very useful armor, one amulet for each character and loads of xp, much more than what's to be gained by battling him. This is all from memory, and I only faced the Ritual twice (once killing the priestess and once not killing), both when it was still on the Beta stages, so I don't know if something changed in the newest version or not.

serjeLeBlade · Post by **serjeLeBlade** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 8:21 am

Thanks for the info!
(Now that I know what to expect, I could go on trying with my tactic and know if "it's working" in the end or not...)

So far, I got no armor. Only the amulets.
But Pontifex didn't attack me either! Odd.

dmc · Post by **dmc** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 4:58 pm

I did it by taking out the units, then having a character remove weapons and slap her once. I got the "disrupted" message, got the armor and the necklaces and did not fight Pontifex.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:56 am

attack and engage units,,,,then send in mage and cast spook on countess...kill units....

the yellow dragon armor is best in game, period...50% resistance to slashing attacks????

combine with hardiness to make fighters really hard to damage...

pontifix can be killed...breach and hit with crom feyr or some other blunt or piercing weapon....he has armor, so he is very hard to hurt...

Baldursgate Fan · Post by **Baldursgate Fan** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 3:03 am

the yellow dragon armor is best in game, period...50% resistance to slashing attacks????

Indeed. It has -2 AC to it too. Cool.

For myself, I usually take out the mages first. A couple of lower resists usually do the trick. Power Stun/kill didn't work for me though.

serjeLeBlade · Post by **serjeLeBlade** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 5:40 am

Originally posted by UserUnfriendly
attack and engage units,,,,then send in mage and cast spook on countess

Uhm... do you mean "lower her magic resistance then lower her saving throws then cast spook"?
My spellcasters are not so high level... wouldn't it take too much time?
(Uh... How much time do we have anyway?)

She has magic resistance! Don't know how high, but that's the reason I decided to try the control collar. It works!
I managed to disrupt the ritual once (without killing her I mean) in this way so far (but I had to cheat a little because my saves were both buggy)

Things to remember:
- never save with simulacrums around...
- never save after the ritual has started...
Sylly Serje!

I will try harder: I like the idea to succeed using nothing else that my favourite nonviolent tactic... cloned Mind Flayers collars!

serjeLeBlade · Post by **serjeLeBlade** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 6:48 am

Ok, I tried it in all possible ways and managed to do it a couple times.

But my Yellow dragon scale is 50% vs. *piercing* (not slashing) and only -1 AC! Did I do something wrong?

(Anyway, Immy looks great in golden armor)

Also, I would like very much to hear comments about "what we did and why" from someone that's more than me into Neon Genesis Eva... I have to admit that I'm a little puzzled...

Baldursgate Fan · Post by **Baldursgate Fan** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:42 am

Yes you are right, it's -1 AC instead of 2 and 50 % piercing resistant.