Seeking cheese: How can I kill Drizzt?

Remove all ads!

Is it possibly to kill this drow with a solo cleric/ranger?

 

Oh, indeed!

You'll need some kit though; and a lot of bullets! I'll take you through it, step-by step:
</font>

1. In BGConfig, set your "Path Nodes" to minimum (2000, IIRC)
2. Procure a potion of invisibility (Jaheira has one, and several can be found/bought - try High Hedge)
3. Clear the map of Half-Ogres, and scout out the rightmost island in the lake (the one with the more experienced fisherman).
4. Head round to Drizzt, dealing with any Gnolls on the way. Ideally, we'd like a clear escape route.
5. Activate Drizzt's Gnoll-killing spree (preferably while stealthed) and let him kill all the nearest Gnolls (be patient).
6. SAVE
7. Go up to Drizzt and punch him on the nose / sass him / throw rocks at him to make him hostile, and lead him to the spot on the lake's edge due south of the island we scouted earlier.
8. Hopefully, you're not dead yet.
9. Chug the Potion of Invisibility.
10. Scoot round to the island.
11. Throw rocks at Drizzt with impunity!

There you go; hope that helps! I've tested this method with a 4-strong party as "firing squad", but 1 will work, if you're patient (the sling +3 would help). Note that Drizzt can only be hit on a natural 20, so THAC0 is irrelevant. To make it go quicker you need 2 things: damage and luck. Fortunately, the nature of computer random-number generators means getting a succession of twenties is much more likely than in real life. You might also like to save just before starting slinging, in case you need to retry for any reason. I'd use a different slot, though.

Happy Drizzt-hunting!

 

Yep, that is the best tactic. You may run out of sling bullets, so you could save every time you hit. If you miss five or ten times in a row, just load.

 

Wait until he has killed all the gnolls, then summon some skeletons, and form a circle around him with them. Walk som steps away, and let the skeletons attack him (He won't attack the skeletons)

Cheese? Yes, indeed

 

That's odd that he won't attack the skeletons, when I tried a "summons will keep him busy while I pelt him with missiles" tactic once before, he kept on killing all of them.

I don't like going in and changing him path modes. That's just cheating to me.

 

And standing on an island shooting sling bullets at him when he can swin across that lake in five seconds isn't cheating for you?

 

Hi Elwin. I wanted to know if there were ways without cheating, not with cheating.

The only time I was successful in killing him was by drinking a potion to increase my STR to 24 and hitting him with a lot of +2 bullets. I can't do that with a solo character.

 

I did it once with just Algernon's Cloak. I snuck up on and charmed a hobgoblin, then sent him after Drizzt. You have to get out of sight range of Drizzt for him to not attack (and it took over half an hour real time ), but Drizzt eventually fell to the hob's critical hits.

 

Use the wand of summoning and your own summoning spells to spawn a sh!tload of monsters. Fire away with your arrows of piercing, flame arrows, arrows of biting or with whatever magical arrows/bullets/bolts you have, while Drizzt is busy killing all your summons. Worked everytime for me. I wouldn't even call it cheating, since you only use items/spells the game provides.

 

@Heerscher: it's going to be difficult to use the wand of summoning with a solo Ranger/Cleric. Not to mention firing arrows.

 

---"Note that Drizzt can only be hit on a natural 20, so THAC0 is irrelevant. To make it go quicker you need 2 things: damage and luck. Fortunately, the nature of computer random-number generators means getting a succession of twenties is much more likely than in real life."---


How? Surely it's always a 1 in 20 chance?

 

@ angryguy:

The precise mechanics of this are beyond my (meagre) programming skills. Suffice to say that discussing this with my programmer mates, it's the case that random number generators (RNGs) aren't truly random, but a simulation of a random number distribution (e.g. Poissonian, Gaussian or Binomial). The intention is to give a perfect set of results after many (i.e. almost infinite) tries. On the way there, however, the generator is often far from random. Usually this is because of memory; true probability has none, whereas RNGs (almost) always will. So, if after a few dozen runs of a model of a d20, say, the RNG notices a lower-than-average number of twenties, it'll often chuck in a sequence of 3-4 to make a better-looking distribution. If you're wondering how RNGs start generating, it's done by a process called seeding, where random data from another source are input into the RNG, to give it something to work with. You can use just about any random process for this (I even heard of someone pointing a webcam at a lava lamp and using the colour data).

So, yes, while after many tries it will look as though there is precisely a 0.05 chance of a natural 20, during the intermediate stages the probability of each number occuring varies according to how many times it has previously appeared. The upshot is that the more tries it has to work with, the more genuinely random the distribution, as one or two rogue results will make gradually less and less difference. If it were possible to perform infinitely many runs, the generator would effectively be totally random, with no bias from "memory".

 

So...this means that, in order to get a string of natural 20s, you could....

Load a game (I'm assuming that clears the 'memory' of the random generator, if not it might still work)

Attack party members with each other. If you notice a lot of bad rolls, then immediately go whack something. Or, if you get lots of criticals, then you could run through enemies and rely on them missing.

Am I crediting the system with too much intelligenc here?

 

It's hard to say, but depends upon how well BioWare coded the random number generator. I do know, however, that there've been times that I've been unable to kill Drizzt with about two inventories worth of arrows (I mean whole inventories, not just quivers!) and then reloaded and he's dropped after just 4-5 quivers. So it would seem possible, but difficult to engineer. Of course, it could just be luck, but I do feel that there are battles that go "with" me, and ones that go against me. Often, I reload those and I win, with no change of tactics. So it might be that the RNG persists for the time the game is running, through reloads. I really have no way of knowing for certain; I can only guess from what I see in the dialog window and my (sketchy) knowledge of RNGs.

Besides which, any RNG will be random enough that turning it to your advantage is nigh-in impossible, at least without knowing how it's coded. I certainly don't think it'd be as simple and deterministic as you suggest. You're probably better off relying upon sound tactics and if you get stiffed by a flurry of 1's turning to the most powerful spell in the game ... Power Word: Quickload!

 

The character's position seems to have something to do with this, I remember once I kept getting "1" (at least 10 in a row) until I moved this character, when he attacked again I started rolling other numbers.

 

I have always done this:

Created a fighter/thief. Waited until Cloakwood Mines, grabbed the Boots of Speed, and went back to the area with Drizzt.

Then I started to backstab Drizzt(a huge plus is you get a +4 bonus to your lousy THAC0). Seven or eight backstabs (PC is level 4-5) is usually enough. I highly recommend drinking a potion of Fire Giant Strength(at least!) here, otherwise, you'll have problems with damage.

 

Drizzt killing being my favourite past-time I can hardly wait for the boots of speed or potions of fire giant strength. My worn-out tactic is two oils of speed and Shar-Teel dualled as a thief with a x3 backstab modifier. Since hitting Drizzt needs that "natural" roll of 20 I can't see why you could't kill him with a ranger as well. Sure it'll take more time and you might even need 3 oils of speed, but it might be doable quite early in the game...just get Drizzt mad at you then run to the house near the lake and lead him there, hit and run behind a corner, then hit and run again. Yaay, Drizzt has died this borinole way umpteen times!

Try it with a ranger, Can't see why it wouldn't work...

 

After visitng Baldur's Gate and aquiring a few items, killing Drizzt isn't really that hard! Obviously a strategy would help as well! But all of the above strategies for killing Drizzt seem like they would work wonders.

All I would do to kill him was attack him WHILE he's attacking the gnolls (I didn't think of that river tactic) as well as adding some skeletons and monsters from MSII or a wand of MS. Then everyone switches to ranged weapons and pelts him.

Most of them obviously don't do very well, but a high level Coran, equipped with the bracers of archery, that powerful bow you get from the bandit camp (can't remember the name off hand) and plenty of piercing arrows always works for me and he seems to hit Drizzt a lot as well.

But compared to the above ideas, mine isn't really that good! Just thought I'd add mine!

 

I once made a F/T that took em down solo... (w/ backstab)

 

Another tactic I heard of but never tried is that you position party members around drizzt (box him in) and then remove those party members from your party. Then attack Drizzt with ranged weapon, since he is boxed in by the NPCs he can't hit you.