Hedrack battle questions

SPOILERS BELOW!!!
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I have a few questions below from two potential outcomes in the Hedrack battle.


I have a party of 5 characters: 4 10th level characters (bard, barbarian, cleric, fighter) and 1 9th level wizard.

Scenario 1: During the battle with Hedrack, I encountered a broken dialog issue. Iuz appears, kills my barbarian, but my fighter has Fragrarch and eventually kills him. St. Cuthbert appears but gets stuck in dialog saying, "IUZ!... [Continue]" but never continues.
Expereience after the battle:
10th level fighter: 56523 exp
9th level wizard: 44770 exp
10th level barbarian: 18000 exp (after I raise her - still says 10th level)

I save the game from Scenario 1, and try from an earlier re-load which creates the alternate outcome in Scenario 2 below...

Scenario 2: This time, I don't kill Iuz, and my barbarian doesn't die either. St. Cuthbert appears and the dialog proceeds to banter with Iuz - they both disappear, and the battle completes.
10th level fighter: 50007 exp
9th level wizard: 38774 exp
10th level barbarian: 50007 exp

You can see that Scenario 1 garnered more experience (except for the raised character with the experience penalty).

My questions...
1. Any issues with my 10th level barbarian having only 18000 experience?
a. Is she still 10th level?
b. Will that have any adverse game affects?

2. Any other issues with scenario 1?
a. Does St. Cuthbert make appearances later in the game? (since it appears St. Cuthbert will remain stuck in dialog forever).
b. Does Iuz make appearances later in the game (so I shouldn't have killed Iuz)?
c. Will this result in a broken end game?

3. Opinions... if you had a choice, which scenario would you load to continue the game on (1 or 2)?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Joe

 

Hi JoeyG9
Forgive me for asking, but are you sure about the experience points ?? If I remember correctly, when a character is "Raised", their experience points drop to the minimum required for their CURRENT level, which for 10th Level is 45,001. If your Barbarian only has 18,000 Experience Points she should be 6th Level not 10th. If the the Experience Points are showing as 18,000, I would delete the "Iuz Killed" save (because I would assume it's corrupted), reload the "before the battle" save and go back and kick bathrobeboys ass.
The Royal Canadian

 

Was your Barbarian killed, then resurrected by Cuthbert, during the battle?

 

Hi Joey
The more I think about your situation, the more I am inclined to recommend the "reload the before-the-battle-save-and-kill-Iuz-properly" solution. The fact that you had a broken dialogue issue, tells me that something went haywire, which means that both afterbattle saves might be corrupt. In all my years of playing ToEE, I have never had a broken dialogue issue with Hedrack and Iuz. That's not to say that I'm happy when Cuthbert shows up while I'm cutting out Iuz's heart (or whatever ichor filled device is in the center of his chest) without anesthetics, but that's a result of my fighter taking to long to get the job done.
The Royal Canadian

 

Damn, you know I killed Hedrack so quickly (Combat Reflexes FTW) Iuz never appeared. I'd forgotten about that. Big XP miss.

 

Hi Thorsson
Keep in mind that in Co8 5.6, you have exactly 2 melee rounds to kill Iuz before Cuthbert arrives and ends the battle. I've heard of people using "Enlarge Person" on a Fighter who knows "Improved Trip" to Trip Iuz, and then kill Iuz while Cuthbert stands there watching. I've always used Scather and several (about 10 or 11) "Stoneskin" spells on a CG Fighter using "Power Attack" set to maximum damage.
The Royal Canadian

 

I used a Raise Dead spell to raise the Barbarian.

18,000 assuredly. The low experience points did raise a red flag (hence this thread). I am obviously afraid of a corrupt savee.

I took your advice and went back to slay Iuz without any broken dialogue. [And Sitra's advice to go with the Dead Iuz scenario].

Thanks to everyone for the educated feedback. I am now in the elemental nodes (which is the furthest I've ever got in this game), and haven't seen any other strange issues.

 

Did you use the Cleric lvl 5 spell, or Druid level 4 spell? IIRC, Reincarnation can make you lose XP below current level.

Also, did you try using Greater Restoration on that character? Does that solve the XP problem?

 

I used the Cleric lvl 5 Raise Dead spell. I didn't think to try Restoration (though I probably won't go back to that save since I'm making progress on my characters' alternate fate, I'll keep that suggestion in mind for the future - thanks for the idea).

 

^ How is that an exploit? Greater Restoration in the spell description has that it restores lost XP.

 

That you can kill the powered up Iuz is impressive. Stoneskin shouldn't stack though. (Not that I'm surprised that it does.)

 

From the SRD (emphasis mine):

Restoration, Greater
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 7
Components: V, S, XP
Casting Time: 10 minutes

This spell functions like lesser restoration, except that it dispels all negative levels afflicting the healed creature. This effect also reverses level drains by a force or creature, restoring the creature to the highest level it had previously attained. The drained levels are restored only if the time since the creature lost the level is no more than one week per caster level.

Greater restoration also dispels all magical effects penalizing the creature’s abilities, cures all temporary ability damage, and restores all points permanently drained from all ability scores. It also eliminates fatigue and exhaustion, and removes all forms of insanity, confusion, and similar mental effects. Greater restoration does not restore levels or Constitution points lost due to death.
XP Cost
500 XP.