OK - I have made it through to what looks to be the final showdown. I have taken out his Balors et al and battled down 3 slayer incarnations till I just have Irenicus.

At this stage he started to run towards the stairs at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. I have been wailing on him with all my party until well and truly tired. I have dealt what must be about 5000 damage to him and drained about 50 levels (with Blackrazor) and he remains "nearly dead". I can walk away and he won't attack. I can wander back and he is uninjured. In 3 secs flat I can get him back to "nearly dead" but that is all.

What gives - surely this is a bug in my game and not intended by the programmers.

This may sound a tad odd... but... have you tried talking to him?

He's scripted not to die right away but to say something like: "Oh my god I'm dying" :D first. If you break this script (e.g. by fake-talk) he'll never die. Your only chance is to reload and find out what caused the bug then battle him again. If he's in the state you described you can't even cheat him to death and even if you could (Shapeshift->MIndFlayer) you'd probably miss the trigger that takes you back to the ending sequence.

Yeah - I trued talking to him - I just get the "no, he's in combat and has nothing to say to you" message. He wasn;t even hitting back, he was like a punching bag taking blow after blow without complaint. In the end I had to quit.

Oh well - I know I beat him last time. The next time should be even easier with some different spell selections [img]smile.gif[/img] .

OK - that time was certainly easier (although it took me a while to remember that the ole moondog can cure fear - so Anomen, Crom Feyr and MOD+2 were out of action for most of the fight). John boy died smoothly this time, and I got transfered on to TOB. One hitch - my off hand sword Celestial Fury got swiped - is there a problem with it not transferring or something?

I think you got another bug. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Was this standard Jon Boy or improved?

I think you got another bug. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Was this standard Jon Boy or improved? </font>[/QUOTE]It was standard John boy - this is (was) my first time through the game. Arrrrrgh - so I take it that CF should have transferred - how many times do I gotta do this battle to have things come out right (sigh).

Did you patch and fixpack your game beforehand?

Yup and yup.

I replayed the fight again and this time I had Celestial Fury at the end of it. I am thinking that the loss of CF was probably due to swapping between a bow and my dual wield swords. I was using CF in the off-hand slot, and that is kinda close to the slots for dropping things on the ground. A tad embarrassing, but I am guessing that is what happened.

Us for unkillable Irenicus, well that only happened on the first of the 3 occasions I fought the battle. That one will remain an odditity to me [img]smile.gif[/img] .