Problem with the Lorne duel

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I'm really angry! After the NW tribunal, and wanting to fight Lorne, I used my character. The duel started, and scared as I was (I'm a rogue/shadowdancer/duelist), I managed to get the upper hand. Sure enough, I beat him. Only, as I was going to give him the death blow, it says "A frenzied character cannot be killed" (or something to that effect). Since I cannot kill him, and I cannot run or hide, he kills me. What gives??

The only thing I see is the Deathless Frenzy ability for the Frenzied Berserker prestige class. But as it says in my game manual, that ability only applies for *death spells*! But it makes no sense to apply to physical damage!

Anyone know something about this?

 

Yuppers, Lorne cannot be killed while he's a-raging. Think of it as a boss equivalent of the f-berserkers feat. Basically, hammer away on him until he frenzies, then, since i doubt you have enough hitpoints to survive a blow-for-blow confrontation, run around the arena until you see the icon over his head indicating the rage has worn off. Then bomp 'im!

 

That is definitely a lame aspect of the duel. It's a preposterous feat, and it means you can't really fight him in a normal "duel" fashion.

 

It's a standard ability of the frenzied berserker. The berserk only lasts 3 rounds + his con mod, so it's not at all long lasting. I would've suggested you just run, reducing his number of attacks on your per round to 1 instead of 3 or 4 when you stand up face to face in melee combat, as soon as his frenzy runs out, he dies.


FYI the frenzied berserker description in the actual game is different from the manual. In fact isntead of taking 2 points of nonlethal damage per round, you take 12 points of lethal damage per round in a frenzy. The class was made useless with that one adjustment, Lorne basically kills himself that fight.

 

Regarding deathless frenzy, the manual says:

It says nothing about being immune to death itself, which Lorne is during his frenzy. No matter how much damage he sustains, he can't be killed during his frenzy. In my opinion, that's ridiculous.

 

Read the - IN-GAME - description. It's far different. In-game frenzy also stacks with rage. It's not rediculous in the least, there are far better abilities. It just so happens frenzy gives you godmode for like 6-8 rounds, and in all honesty... if you can kill a berserker in 6 rounds, you're amazing - that's around 200 damage in 6 rounds considering the d12's a barb/frenzied is rolling every level until deathless frenzy.

If the ability were unbalanced, it would have been nerfed in the last 6 years of it's existence like other classes. You only have to survive a minute, beinga duellist/rogue your tumble has to be very good, so just run in circles once it's saying he can't die, and when his frenzy is out, you'll just watch him drop dead on his own.


EDIT - when I had fought him I just stood there and drink a potion or two until he dropped dead. Of course I was playing a high armor paladin (34-36 AC), but you should be able to get that much with a rogue/duellist if you go full defensive.

 

Yeah, the problem is I'm dualist with little armor. I took levels in shadowdancer, so I can hide in plain sight. Only he always sees me. And I can't run either, because he catches up to me and hits me in the back...

I agree with Bombur that it's a ridiculous feat. My friend even checked with the D&D rules (i think) and not only it says that the feat is against death *spells*, it specifically mentions that is does *not* protect the user against physical attacks.

As for the "in-game" rules, it's also wierd, because his health bar doesn't increase. It stays at 1 hit point or something. It's not that it takes more damage to hurt him, it's that the feat prevents him from dying. Which is ridiculous. If your a barbarian, you could turn the feat on and kill an entire village or something (granted, it doesn't last that long, but an army of beserkers would be indefeatable)

 

Complete Warrior - Page 35:

Deathless Frenzy: At 4th level and higher, a frenzied berserker can scorn death and unconsciousness while in a fernzy. As long as her frenzy continues, she is not treated as disabled at 0 hit points, nor is she treated as dying at -1 to -9 hit points. Even if reduced to -10 hit points or less, she continues to fight normally until her frenzy ends. At that point, the effects of her wounds apply normally if they have not been healed. This ability does not prevent death from massive damage or from spell effects such as slay living or disintigrate.

I guess in the game they decided to include death spells as well... meh, you take 12 damge instead of 2 non-lethal every round in the frenzy anyway.

Running away reduces the # of attacks you suffer from him to 1 from however many attacks he has per round, which is probably 4, minimum. As many people as you could kill with an army of berserkers, they would all instantly die at the end of the frenzy since they'd probably take enough damage to die and not regen it before the frenzy ran out (you can't use potions, abilities requiring concentration or shoot a bow while in a rage/frenzy). Not to mention using tactics such as long range works quite well against them too.

Trust me, the class isn't overpowered... You just have to figure out how to beat it with your specific character. FYI, if you have that item of haste (any one of the 20 you can get before that point), use that while running away and he won't be able to catch you, since you'll be able to run as fast as he can. Drink a potion of haste, or keep a stock pile of heal pots, (if you have a cleric have him/her cast heal into an empty potion bottle with the brew potion feat).

I was about to use both of those tactics but as soon as I clicked on the second potion (only had cure serious, not heals), he died... It really is a "live for 1 minute and win" type of thing. Except it's more like 42 seconds.

 

One thing you can do, as a fighter is when he goes unkillable, keep using your knockdown attack and keep him on his back till his buff drops. It worked for me and the fight was no sweat

 

My sorcerer hit him with a Flesh to Stone, which he failed his save for, yet it had no effect. It seems this guy is immune to the spell (lame!) but Obsidian just couldn't let you defeat him without the usual cut-scene death-speech. Statues can't talk, afterall. Bigby's Forceful worked on him though and I just let him lie there at 0 hps til his rage turned off.

 

I don't know if you can have Neeshka fight him in your stead, (I had Khelgar, Qara and Bishop say they'd fight him), but I was playing my rogue/assassin hybrid, and simply used darkness when Lorne Raged, then went stealth mode till the rage went off. It doesn't last too long anyway...

Another trick I used when fighting him with Qara was to cast haste on Qara, and then slow on him and just keep running, surpirsingly that worked for me...