Orb of Golden Death, Destroy? Keep?

Should I bother destroying the orb of golden death? Is it possible to win without it? is it really an "evil" artifact or just magical item?

I noticed that I can keep the elemental gems separate from it as long as the person who picks the gems up isn't the one carrying the orb. Is there any benefit to putting the gems in the orb aside from taking less inventory space? because as far as I can tell its just adding the individual powers of the gems to the orb, but no new powers.

 

Meh, if you ask me, the player shouldn't be able to use the elemental gems' power without the orb. IIRC, you need all of them in the orb to destroy it, though. The picking up part should be considered a glitch, I guessl

I won't spoil anything, but the presence of the orb and how you handle it has to do with the final battle and game resolution. Without spoiling, I can only say that I usually go for the hardest way possible to have more fun with it.

 

No, I can destroy it without any gems.
As for using their powers without the orb... why not? they are powerful magical items in their own right. The orb is an artifact though (which you can sell for a bunch of gold, HAH!)..

It has been a while since I last finished TOEE. But I don't think I ever fully explored the possibilities that the skull presents.

 

well... I decided to keep it, and slew zuggmoty or whatever her name is anyways. Wasn't too difficult of a fight.

Interestingly, I didn't encounter Iuz and cuthbert.

EDIT:
Ok, I just won the game 4th time in a row. Neither Iuz nor Cuthbert show up.
Destroying the orb says it weakens zuggmoty, but as far as I can tell nothing changed about her. I have destroyed the orb while keeping the elemental gems AND attacking her within 4 days of the orb destruction (actually within minutes of it thanks to teleportation)

As far as I can tell it just makes a slight difference in the end credits.

EDIT2:
I noticed some differences between the skull with gems vs gems alone.
If you put the gems in the skull you can summon earth elementals an infinite amount of times, 1 per round, as many as you want. (well, since they last only 10 rounds each you are limited to 10 at once). The earth gem limits you to 1 earth elemental a week for 10 rounds.
Both the skull and the gem correctly follows the summon limit on every other creature.
However the demon's AI is awful for summons. They go around slinging AoE spells that affect you and do not harm your enemies. If they don't just break and just stand there... as a result its better to not use them and limit yourself to elementals.

also, the gems let you teleport to their respective nodes, the skull does not.

 

The Orb should only let you cast each spell 1 time per day. Last time I played (5.6.0) it did exactly that. Did that get broken again, or are there some issues with your install?

Also, you SHOULDN'T be able to destroy the skull w/o gems. I wonder if that'll get fixed...

If you destroy the thing, Zuggy loses some HP (1/3 or so). For extra fun, don't destroy it, give it to the character with low will, and use that character to talk to the old lady in Zuggy's room :chainsaw:

Iuz doesn't show up if you kill Hedrack in battle too quickly. You need to beat him down to low HP and let him take a turn. Cuthbert SHOULD show up a turn or two after IUZ, but doesn't always do so. Pray that he does.

 

Nothing is wrong with my install...
the orb is NOT supposed to let you cast each spell once per day. It is supposed to let you cast SOME spells once per day. The summoning spells are once per WEEK...

there are 8 summoning spells, 4 demons/devils, and 4 elementals. 7 of the 8 work correctly (summon once per week), the earth elemental summon is broken and lets you summon an infinite amount. (but since the summon only lasts 10 rounds you are limited to 10 summons simultanously).

What makes you think that?

I didn't notice an HP value change... but maybe I just didn't notice it.
As for low will ... ha, I will have to intentionally reduce to my will to have any chance of failing that... also to make sure the character carrying it is the one speaking to her... thanks for the heads up, this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

take a turn?
I let hadrack do some talking to heal herself then killed her again, without destroying the skull... i guess i am just too efficient. I think I have been killing hadrack at 6 rounds or so.

my first time playing vanilla cuthbert didn't show up
i replayed it a couple of times and odd and differing things occurred. Sometimes cuthbert showed up, sometimes he didn't, same for iuz... and then there was the time where their AI broke and I got to kill them

 

... Intuition? Kinda makes sense though. You get to nerf the final boss AND keep most of all the special powers from the evil item? Where's the fun it that?

The infinite summon bugs need to be fixed for similar reasons...

Also, Hedrack. The Greater Temple head priest on level for. The red guy who drops cool armor. He's the one who summons Iuz.

 

oh... I killed him while he was flat footed in one round... and he wasn't scary at all, he was just a humanoid.

 

What if:
1. The demon guardians did not CARRY their gems, instead they could carry a sealed pouch.
2. Upon pickup (whether via pickpocket or defeat in combat) said pouch will be destroyed and the gem will be awarded to the player carrying the orb; also set a global variable for that gem being picked up.
3. when all 4 global variables are set (one for each gem), delete the skull (and for book keeping, look for and destroy any gems) and replace it with a new item called "completed skull" (it can also have a proper description of the powers it has when completed).
4. Have pishala check for the existence of "completed skull" before she performs the destruction ceremony, not the regular skull.

 

He seemed a bit more badass in vanilla... Somehow, not so much anymore. Or maybe that's cause I was fighting him with party level 5-6 the first time I was beating the game, so it really burnt into my memory.

 

did you skip half the game to reach him at level 5-6?

 

Is it possible to block access to the nodes w/o the skull, just like it's done for Zuggy's room? That'd take care of it.