wow! what a Rune fight!!! :)

My hands kinda sweat after reading some many comments about the Rune fight being the toughest and all that(I'm playing on normal). Just took my level 16-12 party thru the door and cast all the customary preparatory spells and i thought i'll win the first time but Shalagar that jerk made himself invisible I don't have any dispel illusion so i got whacked. Second time still the same. However the third time my main cloak of mirroring paladin charged at the beholder. and of course you know how beholders like to reflect petrification back to themselves from you..but to cut a long story short, the vampire, Re..fellow, the beholder and Lynene all concentrated on my paladin while the rest of my party dealt with Shalagar. His simulacrum was always killed instantly and the dispel, breach, sunfire caused him to miscast time after time. Now lynene, being the smart she-lich, cast the horrid hand of wilting->while her entire party was surounding the paladin. needless to say, all of them got serious injuries while the paladin was busy trying vainly to hack Lynene. Actually by now, I totally ignored what the paladin was doing to fight Shalagar. Then Lynene upped herself another by casting pit fiend, which fought furiously with the rest of the members. My paladin, under some unobserved circumstances, actually did damage Lynene only once, but that was 52 damage..so goodbye to Lynene, and with Shalagar left I pulled my whole party out to one corner, saved and then rested until all his invisiblity spells are exhausted, then the whole party chopped him up!

where is this?? (I seem to have missed it)

b

The Rune is located in the Bridge District, at a house just besides Delosor inn. It's got 2 doors, the first leads to a lich guarding Kangaxx's torso and the second door leads to the Rune, however you need a rogue stone to go through(the colorful stone)..the best treasure is a MAGI STAFF..superb stuff!

I know what you mean about this fight being a royal pain. I FINALLY won last night, after about 30 attempts. I went in at first before I went to Spellhold, got whacked so fast I just kinda stared at the screen in a daze. Now I am just about to head into chap 7, I went back to this nasty fight and used thier own tactics against them. I had Imoen cast Time Stop (scroll) dropped all of Shalawhatever's defenses, and Minsc got lucky with Vorpal sword and killed him on the first strike!!!! I then cast horrid wilting into the main room where the rest of the baddies were... everyone mobbed the beholder which dropped pretty fast, that other guy in there rev somthing died at some point but I am not sure who did it. Then that mage witch had summoned a pit fiend that was trying to eat Areie... she had stone skin up, with a contengency so that as soon as she took damage another one went up... Minsc did it again and got the Kill shot on Layne while everyone else jumped the pit fiend. When I had finally won the battle I actually jumped up out of my chair and danced around the house. You should have seen the look on my wife's face... she is still making fun of me over that.

[Memnoch]

I warned you all about this fight, IMO the toughest in the game. Facing two mages who can BOTH cast Gate and Time Stop (Shangalar is 27th level, Lynne 25th), a level 23 vampire (Shyressa), a rune assassin and an Elder Orb is definitely not easy. Try it at Insane level, it will drive you insane for a few hours.

It also took me few hours on insane level to beat this fights but it's worth it.

sheesh, well didn't I get my ass whipped .. didn't find this room during my first play.. bogs down my computer something horibble with all those spells flying around... any good tactics availible ?? If theres good eq availible I want it asap (not when you return from the asylum since then the game is almost over)..

also I noticed the appearance of the room in the final movie.. any forgotten realms fan who know any more about the organization??

b

An easier way to fight the Twisted Rune is one at a time. Retreat everyone without good HP into that non-stairwell behind the opening wall, trigger the lich, then fall back and fight him the same way you would any other lich. The assassin will follow, but he's worthless. Next put a fireball outside the doorway so that it hits the beholder, which will come running (floating) around the corner. Take care of him in hand to hand. After that, sidle around the room and lure the vampire over. Take him down, then the only remaining challenge is the mage. An easy way to kill the mage is to wander up until she sees you and let her timestop. She'll cast meteor swarm and gate. Once the timestop ends, run back and let the pit fiend kill her. Then just kill the pit fiend, and voila.
I don't think the end movie was inside the Twisted Rune hall. My little theory (and someone else's too, I seem to recall) is that they were a council of old Bhaal worshippers. The purpose of Bhaal's children was simply to die and fuel the god's rebirth by manifesting their divine souls. I'd say the old blokes are getting a bit upset at the fact that you don't seem to want to die, meaning that their mate Bhaal won't be reborn. Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

now that you mention it I'd say that you are right about the room in the final movie.. I recall it had the old baldurs gate skull on the table.. somthing the rune table doesn't .. I guess I jumped the conclusions..

b

[Zoratorak]

heh... that group really drove me nuts for a hr or so... i finally got lucky and killed them all but not without casualty... sniff... i kid you not but out of 6 there was only two people left alive... my cleric/mage (lucky me) and my main character (which was a necro) and the only thing left standing was a gate fiend... with my last two men around 10-20 htpts left... and i ran out of spells as well as summoning spells, i nealy gave up hope that i was gonna win because of the stupid fiend chasing me around the table...untillll... it got unsummoned (whee what an ending)

anyway, the tactic i used was to scout ahead with only one character, and then when the lighted thingies start to light... head back to your main characters and cast some worthless summoning creatures...then send them out to the front... the stupid mage will cast all his strongest spells and blah blah protections while he creamed my creatures, sooo... after making him consume his spells, and waited for a while so the protection will ran out of duration, i summoned my strongest creatures this time and at the same time with my fighter/thief, cloaked with mirroring, i sent them (lets see, an air elemental, skeleton warriors and thats that) out to the front... when all the others appeared... i sent the all 5 men charging at the lich that will teleport out of the table... while my fighter as well as the monsters distracted the other fellows there... i casted spell sequencer of magic missles as well as the ram ring (no save! hehe) to the pesky lich, who had no protection spells and creamed him but not without his final deathwish...he imprisoned one of my npc and casted the abi-dazwhatever spell on my men which killed arie (she always had weak hp)instanly, my fighter/thief killed the beholder but died against the combined might of the rune assasin (backstabber) as well as the vampire (in which she died because of level drained)... i was able to kill them by casting my own abi-dazhim and summoned more skeleton warriors (since all my other creatures was dead by then)... the pesky soceress, casted the gate in which by luck, killed the assasin while i killed the vampire... after killing of the soceress with my vampire touch as well as being whacked by my skeleton warriors... but in the end... only 2 survived the battle since the soceress casted another abi-dazhim against me... that leaves me and my cleric/mage ( in a weakened condition) against the demon... Boy what a fight for me...