Showdown at the Den of Seven Vales

Incertainty · Post by **Incertainty** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:05 pm

I came, I saw, I conquered (or rather, I slaughtered); one problem though: among the spoils on this page is listed a ring of invisibilty... I'm supposing you loot this one of the thief (he seems like a thief to me). Thing is, every time I almost kill him, he says something to one of the guys ('I'm not gonna die for your arrogance',I believe it was) and just runs off. So I've tried surrounding him with all my guys and summons, but he just vanished. Anyone?

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:10 pm

Any of the following before he runs away:
A Hold Spell
A Charm Spell
A Confusion Spell
A Sleep Spell
Lots of Damage

If you are really desperate you can buy a scroll of "finger of death" and use it on him. Instant death is... pretty.

Incertainty · Post by **Incertainty** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:17 pm

In case it should come to that, any idea on where and at what price to buy one?

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:24 pm

Adventurer's Mart

If Ribald doesn't have one, check with the mage in the back of the store (not the bonus merchant, the other one)

also, another suggestion: casting a slow spell on the thief after he gets hasted (he gets hasted after he says he'll doesn't want to die, right?) should buy you more than enough time to slash him into pieces.

Incertainty · Post by **Incertainty** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:25 pm

Is the ring worth it?

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:27 pm

That depends on whether you have a backstabbing thief. If you don't, the ring is mainly useful for scouting, and an invisibility spell is just as good for that job. If you do have a thief, then I'd say yes. A ring of invisibility provides you with one extra backstab, which can translate to a lot of damage.

Kaitsuburi · Post by **Kaitsuburi** » Mon May 10, 2004 8:32 pm

You can always wait till chapter 6 and have Kelsey/Tashia cast 3x Abi-Dalzims through Chain Contingency (at nearest enemy if see enemy). He'd be rather good if he can run away from that

-kaitsuburi

kopywrite · Post by **kopywrite** » Tue May 11, 2004 4:07 am

@ Kait: By which time, a ring of invisibility isn't going to be that useful, is it? Why not time stop, improved alacrity, 6 x flame arrow, 3 x cone of cold etc etc.

@Incertainy: I don't think there are any finger of death scrolls for sale round there (could be wrong) but any of the save or else spells mentioned by Vicsun mixed with doom and/or malison should work.

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Tue May 11, 2004 5:32 am

'Web' and 'Silence 15' in round 1 and 'Slow' and 'Invisibility Purge' in round 2 always did the trick for me.

If you can cast two webs in round one, do it, nobody escapes that and consentrate on him and the mage first.

BTW he also has a 'Cloak of Non-Detection' which i find useful for my thief in the early game. (and some nice potions if you're quick)

Luther · Post by **Luther** » Wed May 12, 2004 4:59 pm

Sweet. Actually, I had a fun battle with these guys too. It was late at night and I decided to roleplay a little in BGII (does anyone do this??) Basically, I spent all my money recklessly at the Adventurer's Mart, when to the Den to drink the last of my gold away and after getting nice and drunk I realized I had no gold for a room! Not even peasant class. Naturally Viconia, Jaheira and Tashia (Multi-romance--hee hee!) were mortified. I decided to gather my faithful (and drunk) pals Minsc and Haer dalis to go look for some late night spoils to appease the women folk. Haer dalis pickpocketed a few meager gold pieces from the patrons at the bar but my blood was hot with drink so I decided to pick a fight. The three blokes snuck out and next door and took on the dwarf and his cohorts. The thief ran off but the rest fell in bloody heaps, even poor little Pooky. A few minutes later, the merchant upstairs had some fine items to sell and I had a cozy Noble class bed. Damn this game is cool.

Kaitsuburi · Post by **Kaitsuburi** » Wed May 12, 2004 5:23 pm

Originally posted by kopywrite
@ Kait: By which time, a ring of invisibility isn't going to be that useful, is it? Why not time stop, improved alacrity, 6 x flame arrow, 3 x cone of cold etc etc.

That's too much work

With 3 Abi's you will pretty much insta-kill them.

Not that I actually find their loot useful. Just the feeling of power, being able to destroy them in an instant like that

-kaitsuburi

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Wed May 12, 2004 5:35 pm

Uhm...

@Kait - @kopy
Does any of you actually wait this long before you take'em down ?

3 Abidalz seem a bit owerpowered for this gang, and their loot is only useful in the early game.

Have i missed a point here or sumtin..

Have Fun dudes..

Kaitsuburi · Post by **Kaitsuburi** » Wed May 12, 2004 6:15 pm

Originally posted by Mulligan
Uhm...

@Kait - @kopy
Does any of you actually wait this long before you take'em down ?

3 Abidalz seem a bit owerpowered for this gang, and their loot is only useful in the early game.

Have i missed a point here or sumtin..

Have Fun dudes..

Well, we are just fooling around

I have never left them for later actually. Pure speculaiton on the cheesy possibilities

Cheers,

-kaitsuburi

Incertainty · Post by **Incertainty** » Thu May 13, 2004 2:04 am

Originally posted by Luther
Sweet. Actually, I had a fun battle with these guys too. It was late at night and I decided to roleplay a little in BGII (does anyone do this??) Basically, I spent all my money recklessly at the Adventurer's Mart, when to the Den to drink the last of my gold away and after getting nice and drunk I realized I had no gold for a room! Not even peasant class. Naturally Viconia, Jaheira and Tashia (Multi-romance--hee hee!) were mortified. I decided to gather my faithful (and drunk) pals Minsc and Haer dalis to go look for some late night spoils to appease the women folk. Haer dalis pickpocketed a few meager gold pieces from the patrons at the bar but my blood was hot with drink so I decided to pick a fight. The three blokes snuck out and next door and took on the dwarf and his cohorts. The thief ran off but the rest fell in bloody heaps, even poor little Pooky. A few minutes later, the merchant upstairs had some fine items to sell and I had a cozy Noble class bed. Damn this game is cool.

Nice...

kopywrite · Post by **kopywrite** » Thu May 13, 2004 2:05 am

In honour of Kevin Dorner's Elmonster, I always try and take them down as early on in the game as possible...would be be quite nice though to go back with 4 million xps and have Imoen nuke them in less than a round though. Except I'd really miss the cloak of non detection.

UncleScratchy · Post by **UncleScratchy** » Thu May 13, 2004 6:55 am

Originally posted by Mulligan
...Does any of you actually wait this long before you take'em down ?

3 Abidalz seem a bit owerpowered for this gang, and their loot is only useful in the early game.

Have i missed a point here or sumtin..

I like to test my small new party against the Pebblecrusher gang as soon as possible. If I'm going to pick up Jan I will make a beeline for the Slums, talk to Baylen Gayle, go to the Gov district to recruit Jan and head back to Waukeens. Then I do the Circus (I like the extra dialog between Jan and Quayle) and then the Seven Vales. You can pick up a good set of full plate armor there to upgrade someone in your party, war hammer +1, potion of fire giant strength (unless Pebblecrusher uses it first), the ring of invis, the cloak of non-detection, cursed two-handed berserker sword, wand of lightening, bracers of defense AC 5, etc. The one thief can be a bit of a trick to corner and kill. I like to haste my party and then just send one up the stairs to insult Pebblecrusher, maybe get off one offensive cleric or mage spell and then go back down the stairs. Usually one or two of the gang will follow (most often Pebblecrusher and maybe one a thug) and they can be easily pounded to dust by the party. Repeat the process and kill one or two more (usually the mage and Pooky the Imp). The invisible thief seldom follows you down. In fact he seems to be the last of the party to run if you do it this way. Now save the game and send the entire party (for me its usually only 2 or 3 party members at this stage of the game) and cast glitterdust or whatever else you have to make the last thief visible and pound him to death before he can escape. If he makes it downstairs just follow him but you have to kill him here or he escapes for good, in which case just reload and try again.

If you get the mage (Amon of the Purple Brotherhood ) and Pooky to come down the stairs together I suggest concentrating on Pooky first as he packs some pretty dangerous party disrupting spells like Slow, Confusion, Dire Charm and Charm Person. Use melee or magic missles on him because he will cast stoneskin and protection from missiles on himself. So one thing you can do is just wait awhile for these protections to wear off before heading back up the stairs after you've lured down the first group. Amon is pretty lame as a mage with a few magic missiles, agannazar's scorther, and cone of cold for offensive spells.

In the past I've noticed a bug where if you rest after killing Pebblecrusher (or whoever comes down the stairs first) they will respawn. This is actually good as you get double or triple the loot and experience. I haven't had it occur lately probably because I haven't rested or perhaps because I reloaded the game to clean out old mods. Also, if you can set traps down at the bottom of the stairs to inflict some instant damage but in an early game even Jan or Yoshi won't be any good at this skill yet.

Mr.Waesel · Post by **Mr.Waesel** » Thu May 13, 2004 7:01 am

@Luther: Why do you sleep in anything Noble rooms? Peasant rooms replenish your spells just as well...

@Uncle Scratchy: Waiting out Stone Skin takes a while...

UncleScratchy · Post by **UncleScratchy** » Thu May 13, 2004 7:55 am

Originally posted by Mr.Waesel
@Luther: Why do you sleep in anything Noble rooms? Peasant rooms replenish your spells just as well...

@Uncle Scratchy: Waiting out Stone Skin takes a while...

Good point, its not very practical advice (sorry about that). I don't think I've ever had to resort to anything that desperate as Pooky, even with stoneskins on, can be pounded to death pretty easily. He only has 32 hps and has no resistence to elemental damage. He should be vulnerable to a quick barrage of magic missiles, acid arrow spells, chrom orbs, glitterdust, insect plague, etc. to either incapacitate his spell casting or bypass his protections. Or you can have a druid park a fire elemental at the bottom of the stairs. I did that in my current game and the elemental made short work of both Amon & Pooky and helped out with Mencar and Orcslicer. When I went upstairs to nail the thief he retreated down the stairs where again the elemental was waiting and I was able to finish him off before he could escape.

Out of curiosity I looked up the rest of the Seven Vales gang with SK: Pebblecrusher (full plate, 155 hps, 18/56 strength and 19 constitution). Smaeluv Orcslicer with his cursed berserker sword, 20 strength/19 dex (big +3 armor bonus from the dex there even though he only wears lousy hide armor rated at AC6) and 113 hps. The sneaky thief who often escapes is Brennan Risling and besides the ring of invisibility has a shortsword+1, studded leather armor +1 and potion of speed and invisibility. My version of Amon is overridden (either by ToB or Unfinished Business mod) so I don't know what his original stats are but for me they're not very impressive (36 hps, no weapon, a few minor spells and his lightning wand).

Mr.Waesel · Post by **Mr.Waesel** » Thu May 13, 2004 8:17 am

Erm...doesn't 19 dex give 4 armor bonus?

This fight is also one I'd like to see beefed by tactics...

UncleScratchy · Post by **UncleScratchy** » Thu May 13, 2004 8:22 am

Originally posted by Mr.Waesel
Erm...doesn't 19 dex give 4 armor bonus?

This fight is also one I'd like to see beefed by tactics...

Yes, I had the -4 armor class bonus confused with the +3 missile attack adjustment bonus. I think that would give Orcslicer an overall AC2 rating.