Question for you all knowledgeable people: I just finished clearing level 4 of the Temple. Basically cleaned up everything in the areas to the right and left at the start, then rolled in, talked to Hedrack, and started fighting. As usual, when Hedrack took enough damage, he summoned Iuz's Avatar. Here's where things get different from when I remember playing a LONG time ago - Iuz mind controlled my party leader and forced him to hand over the Golden Skull, then the fight was on. The manhandling proceeded as usual (though my mind-controlled bard didn't do anything besides cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter every turn, FAR more times than he has the capability to actually cast), Cuthbert beamed down to intervene, dead cultists all come back as zombies, my slaughtered party members all pop back up good as new, and then I finished off the fight. After it was over, I regained control of my bard/party leader, but noticed that the mind control still seems to be in effect. He'll go where I tell him to out of combat, and I can access his inventory by right-clicking his portrait, but he no longer "says" anything when I tell him to go here or there. I also cannot right click on the screen to bring up his radial menu, and when we go back into combat, he's still mind controlled and doing whatever he feels like doing (sometimes that's attacking monsters, sometimes that's attacking me). I guess my questions are: 1) Is Iuz SUPPOSED to jack the skull from me? I seem to recall doing the elemental node runs the last time around and having the skull, though I suppose there couldn't be a "war of the golden skull" later in the game if I destroy the thing. 2) Is my party leader supposed to stay mind controlled after the fight? Is there a timer that causes it to wear off? Greater Dispel Magic isn't doing anything to make it go away. I'd rather not reload from before the fight and go through all that again, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to if this isn't how it's supposed to work.
I may try to see Jaroo on that file - I had forgotten that the mod team built in some "talk to Jaroo about X" workarounds for several issues. For what it's worth, I ran the fight two more times as I did before, and the mind control persisted after each time, so I reloaded the pre-fight save a last time, chucked the skull into a random chest elsewhere on the floor, then went back and did the fight and everything proceeded with no problems. I may just keep going with that save simply because it's less headache.
Ok, so it only happens when the skull is involved, good to know, i never give hedrack a chance to call for help as i hate to see my character get slaughtered.
Yeah, Iuz didn't mention the skull at all in that case, and I collected it after the fight with no issues. I hate seeing my characters die too, but if you take out everyone else before really laying into Hedrack, then whoever gets mowed down by Iuz only lags a couple hundred XP behind everyone else after Cuthbert rezzes and restores the party. I like the story flavor that Iuz appearing gives to it, and it's a pleasant thought to get in at least a few licks on him before he murderdeaths half the party.
With sufficient hastes, Scather, and holy axiomatic weapons, you can even kill him before Cuthbert shows up. It isn't easy by any stretch.
You don't even need haste or scather. Bard + wand of chain lightning, wizard + Fireball, druid + icestorm, cleric + holy smite. Most are dead or near death before my fighter takes his first swing.
Yes I was... I think killing Iuz here is even more challenging than the final fight. The time limit is tough to beat!
