I'm playing my first evil party (NE). Per the usual intro quest, I told Terjon off then ran for my life. Since then, I've hacked through Welkwood Bog and the moathouse and I'm up to 4th level. For giggles, I took on Terjon to see how it would go. Long story short, I found a way to kill Calmert and then run from Terjon, to give it another shot at a later level. I'm curious, though; he (Terjon) is TOUGH. Does anyone have an idea of what level he is? More to the point, what his AC is (he's *really* difficult to hit)? And, finally, what level were folks when they finally sent him off to see St. Cuthbert in person?
Are you fighting him in the standard game or the co8 mod? In the co8 version he has much better loot and is even harder to kill, but if you don't mind abusing the game's glitches you can take Terjon down in a single strike if you use the Lareth's staff of striking and cast magic weapon on it. It will give you a 99 to hit chance and do around ~400 damage.
From another thread I found out the following, For fighting Terjon, I usually wait till I have completed HB and with that kill off the Elder after I get that quest completed and awarded my xp for it. I also like to use parties of three. This way I can not only get higher levels and xp, but when I fight Terjon I can squeeze into his chamber without Calmert joining the battle. It is nice to kill off Terjon and then trade away with Calmert without him batting an eye even as I killed his Master almost in front of him. I also like to have some better protections available and a higher BAB, so I would say about level 8-11. Still get some cool treasures as well as lots of XP. Then the evil bastard that I am, I get accepted into the guild and then proceed to drive Rannos and Gremag off to the ambush in Nulb, so I can waste their butts and get THEIR treasures. Never said I was a loyal evil, did I.
Dang, Cezmail, you've got the evil approach figured out! Looks like I still have a little while until I'll have much of a shot at Terjon. I haven't had a chance to check out my game yet today, but I'm curious to see if Calmert stays dead since I took him out but left Terjon alive (I mean, he would raise Calmert, probably.)
Thanks The game is not that smart, so I do not think so. Never tried it myself. I like to leave Calmert alive myself as it is nice to use him as a vender as well as have access to healing potions if I am playing a group without a cleric/healer in it, plus he does not give a whole lot of XP when your a higher level and wasting Trejon.
So, an addendum: I was able to take Terjon out with a 7th-level party. I cast the usual buffs and had my fighters wail away on him while my wizard hit him with magic missiles and the cleric healed as necessary (my fighter/rogue danced a merry jig, missing every single attack.) Calmert did indeed stay dead from last time, so it was less work than it would have been fighting them both. That said, killing Terjon swiftly earned me the Butcher of Hommlet reputation. No surprises there, but it does mean that I'll have to reload my save and skip killing him until after I have access to Verbobonc, as *only* Brother Smyth can grant access to all of the NC content, and once you're the butcher of Hommlet, he too attacks on sight (and he goes down quick. Honestly, would anyone with even a modicum of common sense take on a frothing-at-the-mouth band of evil adventurers who were able to kill the high priest of St. Cuthbert?) I know that some folks have complained elsewhere on the forum that the game doesn't lend itself to playing in character as an evil party - I would just add that it might be nice to make it so that Brother Smyth will still deal with you even if you've cut a swatch through Hommlet (perhaps you can kidnap him / intimidate him, etc.)
Did anyone else thinking Terjon were evil or suspicious the very first time they played ToEE? Calmert seemed so greedy for money in the coffers and Terjon so uptight. I first suspected they were evil years ago and tried to find ways in the game to prove it. I at first thought none of the villagers knew what was going on but later realised they were just odd ducks. Course I thought Burne was suspicious and odd at first to, so maybe thats just me.
Actually Calmert, Terjon, and the whole Cuthbert religion is a perfect example of Roman Catholicism. I'd swear they were based on that when GG came up with the original adventure.
When I played the original table-top pencil-and-paper module, my Dungeon Master made up a Priest of Pelor kit for me to play where my character lost the ability to cast the Hold Person spell but gained the special ability to cast the ultra-high level spell Sunray once per day. Canon Terjon was my boss. He instructed me to destroy the Temple of Elemental Evil. Our adventuring party only consisted of 2 PCs and we nearly got wiped out by the giant snake in the moathouse, so we recruited Calmert and Kobort to adventure with us. The Dungeon Master kept rolling 9s and 10s for Kobort's HP so Kobort ended up being THE most amazing NPC that I have EVER roleplayed with! With a merchant in Nulb, my friend traded his share of the gold that we had looted for some gems that were much easier to carry. My friend found out later on that the gems were worthless fakes. When he returned to the swindling merchant's shop, he found out that the merchant had done a runner. When we were just southeast of Nulb, we were attacked by many monsters - the odds were insurmountable! But Valderesse and Artur Jakarti came to our rescue. Artur blew on his Horn of Valhalla(?) (Horn of the Valkyries?) and reinforcements descended from the sky to save us! One time when we were travelling at night between locations in the module, the Dungeon Master rolled a random encounter of 12 ghouls who came running at us from a nearby copse. I destroyed them with my Sunray spell. One of the NPCs in our party died instantly when Smigmal snuck up behind our party and backstabbed the rearmost character in our party. Canon Terjon is a level 6 cleric in the original PnP module. My Priest of Pelor reached level 7. Canon Terjon told me that it is time that I start thinking about founding my own church. Both my friend (who was my Dungeon Master for that module back then) and I were aghast when we saw how fat and Scottish-sounding Calmert is in this computer game! I was also surprised at how unfriendly and unhelpful Mother Screng and Terjon are in this computer game. I think Burne is WAY too young-looking and sounding in this computer game! He doesn't strike me as being the kind of person who has defeated a green dragon and an entire gang of bandits. Elmo is brilliant in this computer game! "Just give me some chainmail and a BIG axe!" I can't believe how sexy SO many of the recruitable female NPCs are in this computer game!
That's because they've all got that saucy 'perfect body' animation on-screen that all ToEE females have. (Okay, not dwarves.) The Terjon thing is a good example of the poor implementation of leveling (in D&D in general, I suppose). Terjon, whether level 6 or level 20, rose to his position/level over a period of years, no doubt. That's believable. In ToEE, the player does it over a period of months if not weeks, and overtakes nearly every NPC in the game along the way. That's plain hokey. And it's inconsistent. Verbobonc, for example, should not be filled with level 10+ NPCs*, but it has to be in order for it to be challenging. Likewise the slavers et al shouldn't be the most powerful living creatures known to man, but they have to be as well. I wish leveling was way slower in ToEE. *Where were all these guys when the Temple needed to be crushed? If every soldier in the watch is level 10, why is Thrommel considered such a big deal? etc., etc.
