Guards? Bronze, tarnished etc... ??!?!?!

[Jason]

How are they killed. My fairly high level characters barely did any damage to one and there seems to be several of them in lower dorns deep.

I had trouble with these dongs as well. They are tough but here is how I kill them- First I would send out a shadowed party member to see where they are, then have my druid cast entangle from a distance far away enough so that the guards are entangled but my druid isn't seen. After they are trapped and can't move, I would attack the immobile buttholes with my archers and use spells like Magic Missile, Magic Stone, and any other type of projectile that can be hurled at the enemy. If they escape then have the person being attacked run around while the rest of the party deals damage. For the tarnished, I think that's the one which can throw projectiles. Cast the spell Protection from Missiles on your party members and do the same thing. Hope that might help a bit

Hey i just found an awesome way to kill the Tarnished Sentries! Have your party member with the highest hitpoints lure the Sentry and then cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the person thats being attacked! That way the Sentry will keep attacking but can't deal any damage, so he's basically tied up! Use Magic Missiles, they work the best, and any other magic projectile you can on him while he's busy! None of my party members took any damage and I killed him with my priest, druid, and mage! All that crap I said before, use that on the regualr sentries who can't hit you from far away. woot

[Jason]

Haa!! I killed them all! For some reason they are able to see my theif even when hidden in shadows so I just had to run in and brute force them to death. Apparently they can be damaged by my swords, just not my ranged weapons or staves.

Hah, wooot

[dragonslayer]

I just let my Dwarven fighter (lvl 12, 5 prof with Axes) use the throwing axe +2.

[Erekose]

Gang bashing them is often a useful tactic or go for the "Benny Hill" tactic (See who they chase then have that character run and everyone else attack them). Cheers

[NobleNick]

(Chapter 6 possible pre-RBP spoilers below)

Jason,

I had same problem as you, and almost lost some party members to these guys before I figured out one more method that hasn't been mentioned (which I discovered quite by accident):

My party had just been badly beaten up after engaging TWO of these tarnished toughies, and was healing up to my bard's song while I scouted with my uninjured ranger/cleric. He, unfortunately, immediately stumbled upon a third (ugh!!) tarnished sentry. My Fighter/thief and cleric/fighter were almost dead, the rest of the party hurting, and I had no effective magic left up my sleeve; so I planned to retreat the main party to heal while Ranger Rick took old Tarno on laps, in a Dorn's Deep version of the Indy 500.

Then I thought, "Wait a minute! The rest of my front line is almost DEAD, and Rick doesn't even have a scratch on him!" Hmm.... maybe it was the -12 AC that did the trick? I had to find out. So the rest of the party retreated, per plan; but Rick did an about face and went toe-to-toe with the sentry. Sure enough, it was like Rick was wearing a poor man's version of Otiluke's: the sentry just couldn't seem to hit Rick, at least not very often. Rick (a 7th level cleric who hasn't regained his ranger skills) dropped him after suffering only about 40 HP damage himself (about 3 hits by the sentry, out of about 50 attempts). I kept the rest of my party back far enough that Rick didn't even have the benefit of buffers from the bard's song.

So, put all the best equipment on your best melee artist and keep the rest of the party back! (Wish I'd known all this before I used up my spells!)

But, that is not the reason I dredged up this ancient post. I just got done cleaning out the main area of Lower Dorn's, (culminating in the battle mentioned above) and then saved game. I want to know if the rest of the level is this hard. Also (and more importantly): Are the Tarnished sentries and fire salamanders on a script? I want to go back outside and rest to restock spells; but don't want to generate more of these guys, especially the sentries (though, I guess it is not a big deal, now that I know the "Rick Trick").

What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party on!!

[Ar-Cunin]

Eh... Noblenick

Did you see the date on the other posts?

If so why did you resurrect a nearly three year old thread??

[Midget Gems]

I always find those sentries to be tough opponents, they can be a real headache if you go about it the wrong way. The good news is that as far as I know they never respawn, so it is safe to leave and return as you please.

The thing about Sentries is they are best killed with Blunt weapons - but you need a very low AC, or magic protection, to stand toe to toe with them like Rick did. I found that it is best to stun or web them, so that they can't fight back and it goes without saying that it's best to fight them one at a time. Oh, and another thing, they can see through hide in shadows and the like. Is this where Non-Detection can be put to use?