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Strange, the GB walkthrough for NWN has a section on the road to Helm's Hold, but doesn't have a section on Helm's Hold!

How do I beat Desther? Seems nothing can hurt him.

Well, when I beat him I was using an archer, my henchman was Tomi. I really had very little trouble killing him. I started by nailing all the summoning creatures with arrows, they usually fell with one shot, then when they were gone I just began to hit Desther, he seemed to go down pretty quick.

Depending on what class you are and what henchman you have, it can be pretty rough. Your best bet is to ignore desther and his silly ritual and lure out the various undeads out of the room and take them out. Once you're through with those, rush in and kill the ritual zombies, and the rest is a cinch.

I killed all his henchmen and summoners, I can't even seem to damage him. Do i need magical weapons or something?

Denther is invulnerable as long as the ritual zombies are alive. However Denther seems to have a huge sum of hit points (maybe because the game does not want you to accidentally kill him) and he will surrender to you while he is still at the "barely injured" state.

Or maybe his is under some protection spells like stoneskin. Check your dialog box for feedback as of what is keeping you from damaging him.

I managed to wack him...it was weird though I would always do a whole junkload of damage to him and he wouldn't be damaged for awhile. That whole uninjured/ injured damage system isn't very accurate I guess especially for higher HP chars. Few lightning bolts and potion of bless helped me own him though. What is the green glowing circle around him? At first I thought it was some sort of weapon protect spell.

I think the green glow is a Freedom spell. Not 100% sure though since I've a limited experience with magic users.

Originally posted by Skeelo
I managed to wack him...it was weird though I would always do a whole junkload of damage to him and he wouldn't be damaged for awhile. That whole uninjured/ injured damage system isn't very accurate I guess especially for higher HP chars. Few lightning bolts and potion of bless helped me own him though. What is the green glowing circle around him? At first I thought it was some sort of weapon protect spell.

Sounds to me like he had stoneskin on. Stoneskin kinda acts like a damage barrier that you have to break through before you can do any real damage to the target. You'll be seeing a lot more of it next few chapters.

agreed, couldnt hurt him as long as his cronnies were alive and restoring his health.

Finished that battle in about 30 seconds. Just kill those 5 guys like crazy and then start hacking desther. Shouldn´t be any problem

I was a mean sucker to this guy. I made a few called shots, giving him a total of -16 to hit to-hit modifier. Every few turns, I would redo it. I enjoyed toying with him, and killed him reletivly easily.

Hey, I know this is a rather old thread, but I'm hoping someone still reads it. I just fought and killed Desther, but in the battle my henchman died. Now I've moved to Chapter 2, but of course, no Tomi. He's not in the Chapter 2 area where the stone of recall takes you.

How do I get him back?? Thanks!

Thanatos wrote:Depending on what class you are and what henchman you have, it can be pretty rough. Your best bet is to ignore desther and his silly ritual and lure out the various undeads out of the room and take them out. Once you're through with those, rush in and kill the ritual zombies, and the rest is a cinch.

You probably won't read this, but I want to thank you anyways. Thank you.

Sorry to necro, but I had to add my experiences. Desther is NOT the problem in that room.

Desther himself is not hard to defeat: take out his ritual creatures first; Desther dishes out a lot of punishment but gives up fairly quickly before he's seriously injured (bit of a letdown, actually). The real problem is the other undead in the room. Depending on your level, you may find up to a dozen Greater Shadows at level 11 on even Normal difficulty. If so, expect your henchman to die almost instantly (no matter which one). The Shadows rarely miss, steal 2 points of Strength with each hit, and quickly reduce you to STR 1, at which point you cannot move and can't hit anything with a melee weapon. Greater Shadows have the intelligence to open the door, and apparently can attack THROUGH EACH OTHER (benefit of being incorporeal?), meaning you can't use the door as a choke point. The only workaround is to reduce the difficulty slider to Easy, at which point the room is filled instead with Skeletons, Zombies, and Lesser Shadows, which are significantly easier to kill and don't debuff as strongly. I've done this with a Fighter/Rogue and with a pure Fighter, and it was the same each time. Even Protection from Evil gear seems to have minimal effect in that room if Greater Shadows are present, and as I said the henchman drops fast, canceling any protection spell they may have cast on themselves. It's an encounter clearly not designed to be done solo.

Not sure what varodrig's problem was. Killed henchmen respawn next to the return portal in the ritual chambers, down the hall from the study/library where you appear when you use the Stone of Recall. The Helm's Hold epilogue is the end of Chapter One, you don't keep your henchman contract into Chapter Two. ALL of the henchmen are in the room next to the bedroom where you spawn in Chapter Two, including whomever you had with you in Helm's Hold, but you will have to speak to them to get their contracts again.