Jumped In Ulgoth

[Fryman]

Just finished Durlag's Tower. It was an awesome adventure. Challenging, long, and had all the neat stuff exploring a dungeon should have. After disposing of the Demonknight (without using the mirror) I retrieved the Soultaker. Upon returning to Ulgoth's Beard with it I get jumped by a bunch of cultists as soon as I enter the town.

Any strategies that work best to get through them? I get bum rushed by a bunch of them and I assume they have assassins or something because my characters get poisoned.

How best to tackle these creeps? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[SixOfSpades]

One Tank will not be enough, since they attack from at least three directions. Nominate a couple of backup Tanks, and have them distract the enemies away from attacking your Thieves & Mages.

Also, hardly anyone can see through Invisibility.

[Mahokenshi]

*Spoilers Ahoy!*


The attackers from the immediate north of your position include thieves that will stealth and try to backstab your back lines. So a Detect Invisibility wouldn't go astray. And have any of your fragile spellcasters cast Mirror Image if possible.

Then off to the left are the Really Annoying Archers. I believe it's their arrows that poison (like Hobgoblin arrows). One solution is to get a front line fither close enough to them that they switch to a melee weapon (and they have lighter armour, so they should go down pretty easily after that.)

Then there are the Whimpy Sounding But Actually Pretty Tough Knights. The WSBAPTK's spawn in front of the RAA's, and I think maybe a pair lower down from your party's entry position. I find that magic works well against them. A Greater Malaison plus Horror or Emotion or Chaos can turn their well oiled attack machine into a duck shoot.

Is there a spellcaster in that fight? I think he just runs away. But if there is one, have your best archer concentrate fire, and have one of your mages Magic Missle away his/her mirror image. But I don't remember that fight having a mage.

Oh, and don't enter the fight exhausted. Rest up maybe at the zombie farm, select your spells, save, and enter The Beard fully healed and unfatigued. If this feels like metagaming, remember that silly Dwarf going around shooting his mouth off about his grandma's soultaker dagger - the high Wisdom characters in your party would suspect that his tales may have inspired unfavorable attention anyway.

Oh, have ALL of your characters have an antidote or two in their quickslots. Go buy some from a temple in Naskel or Beregost before returning if you don't have enough. Poison kills comically fast in this game, and it'll save you some trouble.

One last tip: Haste. AS SOON AS the screen loads, pause the game and have your mage start casting. I think you can get in the first bit of the spell before the dialogue.

Okay one more: Charm related spells. Dire Charming a couple of the WSBAPTK's can make the fight a little easier.

Aw, heck. When the enemies finally appear; pause and study their position. Who is where and how many. You would have been able to see most of these guys coming from a few miles away anyway (a la the Sir Lancelot charge in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). ;D

[Fryman]

As always, thank you both for the advice. These boards are very helpful.

I probably was a bit too quick to post looking for help. After beating the Demonknight in the bowels of Durlag's Tower (somewhat easily to my surprise) I went to return the Soultaker back in Ulgoth's Beard.

The same thing that allowed me to easily defeat the demon must've turned the gods against me, because after trying 5 times those cult creeps wiped me out every time -- easily. I kept saying "I just beat a demon and these cultist can whoop me?!?!" I am a big fan of keeping my party intact. So if someone bites the dust and I'm too lazy to journey to a temple to raise them, I will reload the game from save and try again. Six is better than not and I am out of NPCs to add to my party at this point. (My party is: PC, Imoen, Jaheira, Kivan, Coran, Xan)

A Haste spell did the trick as did my spell-casters mirror-imaging themselves. Also, the "dice" must've rolled my way as I was able to whoop those culties fairly easy with minimal wounds this time. The antidotes worked well but I was down on using them. I've tried them before and sometimes they don't work. I assume certain toxins/poisons are more potent -- a la the Sword Spider?

Again thanks!