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Curt,
Your problem is that Belhifet has amazing HP regeneration rate: Evidently he was regenerating as fast as your Pally could dish out the damage. You need more firepower when you finally turn your attention to Big B: more melee fighters and/or use Haste.
Here is a reprint from how I did it....
For Belhifet, after two unsuccessful attempts, I took him down in a 45 minute fight by:
1.) Using Haste, Recitation, Improved Invisibility, AND Remembering where the dispell traps were! (I searched for them in the previous lost attempt; and the locations of these six [6] traps are easy to remember, since they are a symmetrical part of the floor design.)
2.) Ganging up 3 to 4 of my best fighters on one iron golem, then the next, then Belhifet.
3.) Using whomever Belhifet attacked to run him around in circles. Ditto for the second iron golem, before we took the first one down.
4.) Watching/Timing very carefully for Big B's spell casting (he was fairly predictable), and running my melee guys out of harm's way just before Infernal Conveyance (IC) (or his other "Flame-Strike-like" fire spell) hit.
This fight was the most challenging and satisfying of the game. It was fun orchestrating my party in a ballet of "attack, buff and avoidance:" attacking the designated target while avoiding all other monsters, buffing the party without getting them all toasted with a flame spell AND avoiding the disspell traps with my buffed characters. I used the whole floor, almost as effortlessly as Big B. ... and never set off a trap!
I started the fight by spreading my party to roughly evenly spaced points on the outer circle (adjusted somewhat to avoid traps along the way), to avoid an expected fire spell (that didn't come); and had the Bard cast stoneskin and mirror image on herself before starting up on the War Chant. As soon as B. started one of his early IC spells, I started a Recitation and danced the other members to within range of the spell just as it finished. Both golems (one at a time) fell amazingly easily to the team effort of 3-4 well equipped bashers under the influence of recitation and war chant. And with one guy at about 90% HP, and everyone else at 100%, it was time for the main event...
Re-using the tactic from when I had cast Recitation (which spell was still active at the end of the fight), my mage Hasted the entire party; and I sent the front-line four after B. My mage cast Improved Invisibility on each of the four melee guys as they danced by (giving them an additional 4 point bonus to AC and 2(?) point bonus to saving throws, even though they were still attacking). Meanwhile, the Bard continued singing the War Chant. And...
Big B. started taking Big-Time damage: to the tune of 50-70 points/round (for those rounds that we were in full melee contact)! By watching closely, I could dance the melee guys away from Big B's IC, and only got scorched once or twice. I never needed to use a healing spell (though I had 3 TOTAL healing spells and other lesser ones available). When Big B. went down, one of my melee guys was at about 40% HP, another was about 60% and the rest were 100%. It felt so good to be chasing his sorry butt around instead of vice versa. After getting so outrageously crushed in the first two fights, this victory was exquisitely delightful.
What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party on!!
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