Fiends are evil.

Remove all ads!

Two questions, both refering to the third level of Watcher's Keep.

You know that room with all the baaezu? Well, first they ask me to find the local tanar'ri leader and kill it, but once i agree to the mission, they start a new dialogue, say something obscurely rhimed about betrayal not being unexpected among fiends made of naught but lies {don't recall the exact wording}, and instantly attack.
Are they doing it because they realize i'm CG? If so, why propose me the deal in the first place? Is the deal just a ruse to win innitiative or something, in the first place? Or are there some circumstances, in which you'd actually be able to make a deal with them?
Kinda makes you ponder whether that rhyme referred to the tanar'ri, meaning they conclude you are already working for the latter.
In the first dialogue, they say "there is no bloodwar on you" before proposing you the deal, and when you later find the tanar'ri, they say you bear the taint of the bloodwar, and conclude that you work for the baatezu. Would i be able to get a working deal, if i were to find the tanar'ri first, since they are closer to my allignment? Or is there really no other way around those two groups but to slay them all in straightforward battle?
Also, these two groups have one of the other two gems each, right? :=/

The second question is about the cambion.
Is that just me, or are the card game's results fixed? Whenever i gamble for a given item, i always get the same result, for both my card and his. Do the wish scroll and spectral brand {wtf is this latter, btw?} even exist? They aren't on his body, when you kill him. And is there no way to pass without battling him?

 

You need to be of an evil alignment to get the deal with either the tan'nari or the baatezu. Working for one negates working for the other.

I thought the Deck of Many Things was random.

 

If you are good aligned, you can't get a deal neither from tana'ri, neither from baatezu. I don't know about CG, never play it until now When I was paladin, they went straight for the attack. When I was NG bouny hunter, they considered it a little, and attacked on the end. Maybe your chaotic nature poses a problem to them Maybe tana'ri would ended be better for you, althought no good character would work willingly with demons OR devils. You'll probably have to fight with both of them.

About the cambion: yes, you can win Wish scroll and spectral brand(which is a scimitar btw), with a wee bith of luck You can just try playing save/load tactics, that should get you somewhere. And to win, bet your way out, and loose, he will left, and you won't have to fight him.

 

I've been load-scumming for like half an hour. Whenever i bet for the Brand, it's Guile for me {bunch of assasins with potions of invisibility attack} and Construct for him {adamantite golem attacks}, the latter being a higher card. When i bet for the scroll, it's always Plague for me {something happens, possibly a desease i save against} and Empress for him {True Seeing on himself}, again his being higher. Donlt recall what the gem does, as i only tried it twice or thrice, but it also seems set, my card being pretty inconsequential but higher than his.

 

You have a low chance of winning in the gamble, so it is likely that you draw the same crappy cards most of the time. Keep reloading if you desperately want the wish scroll or spectral brand, althoght I must admit it is not that great in the way of role-playing, if you care.

 

Regarding the demons, I always work for the second group for three reasons:

1. They're less picky on your alignment.
2. They're on the way out, so you don't have to backtrack.
3. They will bargain even with an LG (I think) if you already have what they want.

Just kill the first set on your way, and give the heart to the second group when you get there.

On the Deck, I've found the RNG (random number generator) in the game depends on events. If you do things in exactly the same order, the exact same thing will happen. Try moving a character around a bit before talking to Aesgareth, and you'll get a different result.

 

I used differnt characters to approach him - shouldn't that count?

 

Possibly. But if it's not working yet, try other combinations. And don't rush. For all I know it may be time-based rather than event-based; I only know that doing things different results in a different outcome.

 

Deck Of Many Things has fixed paths, if I'm not mistaken. There are random choices, and the choice you get gives a new path that has also random choices, but not the same you would get with the another choice. So it's fixed.

I seem to recall SP having a list of the choices. I think you can find it in the (not in the forums) Game section, BG2, Tips, Tricks and Hints. Or then it was some of the other places in BG2 section...

 

The "fixed" paths are related to how many bets you've made. Within each, there are two choices for your card, determined randomly, and two choices for your opponent's card, again determined randomly. So even with a RNG 'reset' or however you want to call trying to get a different outcome, you still have a 1 in 4 chance of getting the same exact outcome.

That's for after you get the deck away from Aesgareth, using it in a quick-item slot. I don't believe anyone's written up anything about the before part when you're betting on it with the cambion. (Though I have a vague recollection of kuemper talking about doing something on the Deck... )

 

I find the subject of this thread offensive!! Generalizing that fiends are evil, when perhaps many are merely just misunderstood.

/runs off and hides

 

Deck of Many Things guide by Kitrax, near the bottom of the page, is the only guide I've seen written about the DoMT. It has been updated, but it only deals with the Deck after you get it from the cambion.

 

As I recall, I've at least ones "dealt" with the baatezu as a good character (CG, I think) - I believe the crucial factor was that I'd already killed the tanar'ri and was carrying its heart. I didn't actually agree to anything, when the rhymey fellow noticed the heart he took it, gave me my reward and that was the end of that. Well actually, I killed him and his minions to end up with both hearts - how dare he presume that I'd go along with his grisly barter?