Okay, last night while I had some time to play I decided to go for the Celestial Fury by taking out the slave lords in the temple district. I had heard from numerous different sources that this was a battle of mammoth proportions, somewhat easier but approaching the Twisted Rune in Difficulty. Anyway, to make a long story short I walked into the compound...wiped the floor with the 1st story guards that teleport in...buffed up and went up to the second level. It was all over in about 40 seconds...Sion went down in under 5 Koshi soon after then the cleric and fighter...the thief only lasted as long as she did because she kept quaffing invisibility potions...and the minitaur was last to die only because I had him encased in an Otilukes' Resiliant Sphere and had to wait for the thing to drop before I flayed him alive...

Now I'm not posting this to brag(well maybe a little, I mean it was a pretty good ass-whupin' I laid on those guyshttp://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif) but just to ask if this battle really IS close to the difficulty of Twisted Rune. My party consists of an Assassin, Korgan, Jahiera, Anomen, Haer'Daelis, and Edwin and ranges from lvl 10-13 (only my Assassin is 13th lvl) Do I have a chance of beating the Twisted Rune? ANy tips on doing this battle? I'd like to try as I am finding this party to be quite deadly and would like to get the Twisted Rune loot before heading into chap 3 if it's at all possible...

I too found this easier than I expected. I suspect it could have something to do with the levels of my characters:
Kensai - 13
Minsc - 12
Keldorn - 12
Jaheira, Aerie, Jan - 10 to 12 depending on class.

Probably by this time your party has gleaned a lot of cool weapons and armour so the fight is easier.

I found the fight with the summoned creatures on the first level tougher than the one upstairs!

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"Butt-kicking for goodness!" - Minsc
"Cities always teem with evil and decay. Let's give it a good shake and SEE WHAT FALLS OUT!!" - Minsc
http://www.dabros.net/images/tcampbell/hadb6copy.jpg

I didn't find that fight overly difficult. You should try Twisted Rune if you like, but I don't think your levels are quite sufficient to win (not easily anyway).

I got lucky when I fought the Twisted Rune and one of the enemies spellcasters cast Meteor Swarm and totally wasted a bunch of her own allies. If that wouldn't have happened, it would have been fairly difficult for my lvl 15-18 party.

Oh, btw, get the shield of balduran and/or the cloak of mirroring before you tackle the Twisted Rune, it can make things a wee bit easier.

So is the general consensus that I should wait into chap 6 to do Twisted Rune?

The Guarded Compound fight is a piece of cake. Twisted Rune is not so easy. I'd wait to do it in Chapter 6 like you said. As a side-note, the Twisted Rune was the only fight in the game that I lost the first time doing it. Underestimated them I guess, but like any other fight if you find the right strategy it's no problem.

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trux

Trux can you give me any pointers for when I do go and do Twisted Rune? What's the best strategy for the party I listed? There seem to be an awful lot of different opinions on how to tackle this particular battle.