[Midget Gems]

Lots of spoilers again.


Well I went ahead and created a Level 1 Bard to fill my empty 6th slot and I used Dalekeeper to change her into a Gnome so that I could keep the all Gnome theme intact. If you like she could be considered as an illusion created by my Mages to help in their time of need. I issued instructions that on no account should she do anything other than play her battlesong throughout the fight.

We started the fight and followed much the same tactics as before – distract the big guy, then trick the Golems into standing still while we bashed them, then turn our attention to the main event. I always summon a Fire Elemental who is extremely durable and lasts the whole battle. Also I heal him if he gets damaged because he really has a vital role to play I taking the heat out of the situation. My team then get fully buffed and, while my two strongest characters play hit & run around the room, my archer shoots off his stock of arrows (~130) at Belhifet. At difficulty setting of ‘Very Easy’ I suppose a Tanari has about 250HP so I do enough damage to remove just over half of his HP with my archer, who by now has a Thaco of 2. All I need now is for my Fighters to score about 4 critical hits (~30HP each time) and that ought to do it. So we piled on the pressure (more hitting; less running) and eventually those long awaited words appear on the screen “Critical Hit ……Belhifet Death”. I pause the game, take the screenshot and the job is done.

When I set out many weeks ago (in February), I envisaged a short mini-adventure through the first Chapter or two, so to reach the finale was something of an over-achievement. If nothing else it goes to show that equipment and magical resources are more important than HP and Thaco, but most important was to keep a very low AC at all times. In any fight if I could stay alive long enough, then I could find a way to do the damage necessary to win. Also healing was never a problem, with so few HP it was easy to regain full health after a blow and the unexpected benefit from the ‘Beginners Luck’ feature gave me the chance to do this every time. I suppose above all this feature made the impossible into a reality.

So this really is the end for the Suicidal Gnomes
Thanks for staying with me throughout, we created one of the longest threads on the Forum. Also the sreenshots may be coming to a web-page near you, in the very near future.