57 replies to this topic

[ronin]

I dont know if anyone else has this problem but when I get done with the Tanner murder stuff and come out of the building I get attaked by Rune assassins and True Sight/Detect Invisibility dont work and I get my ass kicked everytime and end up CTRL+Y'ing my way to safety.

My question is: How do you defeat them?

ronin

[berelinde]

By "Tanner murder stuff," where do the Rune Assassins start showing up? After solving Reijek's riddle or after dealing with the nasties in the house you need the rogue stone to enter?

[ronin]

After you talk to Rose and the merchant and then go to the tanners house and confront him and get the gaesen bow shaft. When you leave that place.

ronin

[berelinde]

Wow, that's different. I usually have the 2 rune assassins in the basement, with assorted undead and livestock (bone golems, sometimes), and that's it.

Sorry, I've never had to deal with that many at one time! I'd probably get gacked, too.

[Anomaly]

These Rune Assassin are painful. Especially those outside : you can't be sure you really defeated all of them.

- Try to exit the tanner basement by the way behind (near the water), the passage lead to five flagoon inn and is safe so you can try later to attack the rune assassins one at a time.

- True sight work on them but they can become invisible at will IIRC. But this may help avoid some backstabs.

- Protect group members with Stoneskin or Ironskin when applicable so backstab won't work on them.

- Conjure fire elementals (or something else) and try to let the assassin to target them (they will survive one backstab).

- Try to let your group members invisible (not sure if this works against rune assassins).

- Lay lots of traps. Special snares with "hold" effect are very effective.

- Quaff extra healing potions when hit.

- Target assassin with fast-casting spells while they are visible (magic missile comes to mind).

- Try to have a "bait" with three fighters around so they can attack effectively the assassin as soon as he backstabs the bait and becomes visible.

[Miraz]

Anomaly gave good advice. Something else I found useful was to use area effect spells. That can be tricky outside because of the chance of hitting innocents, but IIRC there aren't many around that area. A swarm of Fireball or Chaos spells into the area you know they're at can greatly increase your chances.

Edited by Miraz, 28 December 2006 - 03:52 PM.

[Gort]

well, right after getting out of building, I set a couple of traps (hate metagaming, but still). Second - my stoneskinned sorcerer went ahead and as soon as he received 1st strike he hit asasssin with Aganazzar's scorcher from wand and started walking around, hitting all of them with it. Repeated until they all were dead. The rest of the party used true sight and killed 1 or 2 who was close to them.

Edited by Gort, 28 December 2006 - 09:41 PM.

[ronin]

Thanks for all the comments maybe you all can come up with a tactic for my current party.

charname - Kensai
amber - thief/fighter
yasraena - fighter
auren aseph - fighter
kivan - archer

I dont have a mage and at almost the beginning of the game still (will get tashia later). When I go out the back way from the tanners place up and around to the 5 flaggons I cant go any farther because there is a group of rune assassins that are close to where the merchant is. I dont have any spells and almost no potions.

ronin

[Gort]

wow, it's a incredibly tough fight then=). What's level of difficulty? On insane asassins usually kill party members with 1 backstab. I'd try to send main tank (max hp, lowest AC) ahead and let him walk around, without stop. And all others use missile weapons. The thief with invisibilty potions should backstab them as much as he can. I see no better way. I always have at least 1 mage in party

[GeN1e]

I dont have a mage and at almost the beginning of the game still (will get tashia later). When I go out the back way from the tanners place up and around to the 5 flaggons I cant go any farther because there is a group of rune assassins that are close to where the merchant is. I dont have any spells and almost no potions.

I think you really should teleport away with ctrl-J and come back later. Or ctrl-Y them. I always do so in similar situations. Because I believe that Tactics-like mods (or such elements of other mods) are the worst things you can ever come across; especially if they are done in the same cheating way.

Edited by GeN1e, 29 December 2006 - 03:22 AM.

[ronin]

When the rune assassins backstab someone then that someone completely disappears (no chance of resurrection). I play on the hard diffuculty level.

I dont want to use the cheats cause there has to be a way to beat them normally.

[erebusant]

When the rune assassins backstab someone then that someone completely disappears (no chance of resurrection). I play on the hard diffuculty level.

I dont want to use the cheats cause there has to be a way to beat them normally.

Faerie Fire isn't available to you, is it?

[Gort]

your thief may sneak to the temple of Helm and see if there some useful potions. Or you can just run away from area and return later.

[Miraz]

With a party that weak, you really have no option but to flee, I believe. Some battles can't be won.

[seanas]

traps, summons (from items if you've got no spells), any buffs/scrolls you can cast, anything you've got that has an area effect, and try and separate them.

try attacking them individually - either have someone go out and attract their attention, then run back into the tanner's place and hit them as they enter; or send a summons out into the open, and use archers to hit them from a distance. it's actually easy to block up the alley outside the tanner's exit, as it gets quite narrow - so set traps here, and either use a tank who will hopefully get lucky, or summons to block up the passage and stop the rune assassins getting past, and let the rest of the party attacks with missile weapons. if you've got boots of speed and luck, then a thief can make some headway with hide-backstab-run away rinse-n-repeat routines.

but really, it's a very difficult fight for a low level party, as those backstabs are going to do enough damage to chunk pretty much anyone in one hit, should they hit. i generally leave it till later, when i'm capable of taking on kangaxx, to do the tanner's quest.

(but i have to add: they're hardly cheating. they're just doing what any party thief would do in the same situation, if they access to a (not unlimited) supply of invisiblity potions (which they drop if they haven't used them all when they die) - swig potion, backstab, swig potion again, backstab again. the only difference is the hardcoded one that lets red-circled creatures backstab from the front).

Edited by seanas, 29 December 2006 - 09:44 AM.

[ronin]

I was not saying that they were cheating, I am just looking for a non cheese way to beat them with my current party. The best I have done so far is killing 3 of them and "only" getting Yasraena, Amber and Kivan chunked, Auren was killed and I was killed finally by the 4th one.

This is IMHO one of the worst fights there is because of the fact that the rune assassins are spread out pretty good and have archer support. I have tried it with Keldorn but his true sights dont help hardly at all. A mage in the party gets chunked quicker than anything.

The AI is awesome and I am not complaining at all, just like I said before, looking for a non cheese way to beat them. The group in the sewers is easier than this because you can use magic and area effect spells without the cowled wizards messing with you ( I never pay the 5k to have the cowlies not show up).

Thanks so far for all the ideas.

ronin

[Azazello]

Can anyone confirm if Rune Assassins "see" thru invisibility? I got a suggestion to tackling them, but it requires stealth thru invisibility (and possibly Non-Detection).

[ronin]

They chunked Amber while she was successfully hidden in shadows while trying to sneak pass them.

ronin

[GeN1e]

No cheating from them then? Eh-heh-heh...
But AFAIR they didn't commit such things in my game. When I was playing BP several months ago and bumped into them I could quite safely use invisibility to sneak around tanner's house..

Though one can always check it by looking through their resource files.

Edited by GeN1e, 31 December 2006 - 04:05 AM.

[ronin]

Maybe she became unhidden for a second but I didnt see it in the console window.