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It has been a long time since I last finished ToB and I forgot. What type of damage does Melissan deal? Is it blunt damage (since she uses some kind of staff) or piercing or slashing?

Also, if I remember correctly she dispels magic on virtually every hit, correct?

I'm talking about vanilla Melissan here, not Ascension.

It's a spear, and it's piercing, and is the nastiest weapon in the game, apart from anything else it's got a death effect, no save, so make sure you have death wards all round.

She also has a cheat items which makes her immune to all sorts of stuff, including Sarevok's death bringer assault.

I couldn't find any item evidence for auto dispel-magic, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was scripted in somewhere. This game has no compunction when it comes to cheating.

I recently had a run in with Desreta, the lass in the Low Lantern who has the Gauntlets of Ogre Power (which should be usable by Fighters, Clerics and Thieves by the way) and threw a Chromatic Orb at her. Her saving throw was 26, not bad on a D20 when she has nothing that boosts her saving throws (I checked)! In short there are built in cheats all through this game, so nothing is beyond possibility. Still, despite all that and other issues, it's still the best CRPG I've come across.

PS Bear in mind that being immune to a weapon doesn't make you immune to its effects, but you probably already know that.

Thanks, now I'll know not to wear Roranach's horn when I next encounter her Not that I ever did, but I was always wondering about it. Still wondering about the dispel, guess I'll have to try out. Unfortunately that may take a while. On my current playthrough I just finished all of vanilla BG1 and am about to start TotSC.

And you are right about the game cheating a lot...

Quote by Galraen:
I couldn't find any item evidence for auto dispel-magic, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was scripted in somewhere. This game has no compunction when it comes to cheating.

I wondered about the "auto dispel", seems like she was constantly doing that without so much as blinking an eye. I believe she also has some sort of auto-summoning (and not a spell becuase she is doing other stuff when the new set of summons appear). They seem to automatically appear the round after my party finishes the last of the previous set, regardless of anything else she is doing, without her casting anything. As an extra assault to fairness (IMHO) Death Spell and the other spells that are supposed to automatically dismiss them did not work on them.

To play Devil's advocate, not being able to dispel demons in this context is kosher. They are after all on their home plane, difficult to send them home when they're already in the Abyss. However the auto summons bit is definitely not honest DMing!

It is a typical end-of-game super boss encounter though, and again not something you'd expect to encounter in quite this way with a PnP adventure, as no encounter, even the last in a quest line is likely to be 'End of Game'.

galraen wrote:To play Devil's advocate, not being able to dispel demons in this context is kosher. They are after all on their home plane, difficult to send them home when they're already in the Abyss. However the auto summons bit is definitely not honest DMing!

It is a typical end-of-game super boss encounter though, and again not something you'd expect to encounter in quite this way with a PnP adventure, as no encounter, even the last in a quest line is likely to be 'End of Game'.

Funny, as I was slugging my way through the fight I did think of it in exactly those terms (typical end of game super boss encounter). I realized my or any other player's PC would become so powerful by the end of the game that the designers would have to "ramp it up" in order to make it challenging. But still would have hoped for a little less "cheese".

Very true about the demons but (and it has been a while since I fought this fight) weren't some of the summons Ice and Fire Salamanders, and perhaps Ogre berserkers?

Don't get me started on Salamanders, the built in protection cheats for them are ridiculous! However, by the end-game they are cannon odder.

galraen wrote:Don't get me started on Salamanders, the built in protection cheats for them are ridiculous! However, by the end-game they are cannon odder.

LOL! Yes, They "are" annoying. Hate those skuts. Usually everyone in my parties carries a missle weapon of some type. So they receive a hailstorm of magical bullets, bolts and arrows "on sight" and soon become a pin cushion.