Handling Joril

[Klorox]

What way of handling him is the most valuable (XP/treasure wise)?

[Thrasher91604]

With a decent charisma, you can talk him into giving you his badge. This gives you bonus XP, I believe.

Then you can talk to the slaves, and then with a Paladin talk to him again, about freeing them, and you get extra XP. Be prepared, because then he attacks.

[Aerich]

The treasure is always the same (assuming you kill him instead of just bluffing him out of his badge), but the way Thrasher described maximizes your XP.

If you decide to kill all the giants, that chapter is an XP goldmine. It's one of my favourite areas.

[Klorox]

I'm trying to think of how I'm going to handle killing him and all of his giants!. I plan on starting the fight with the converstation about freeing the slaves, but that's going to leave my Paladin in a world of hurt (she'll be surrounded by Frost Giants).

Another option is to position my party at the start of the cave, initiate the conversation, have my Paladin gulp a potion of invisibility (I have 1 left) and run back to the rest of the party. I'm mostly worried about being surrounded and taken down by a mob.

Are there any better spots to hole up in? I feel I need a "choke zone" to nail these guys.

Any other tactical advice is welcome. TIA

[Thrasher91604]

Excellent idea! That's nearly what I did. Kept most of the party at the entrance. Also, 6 summons in place as a meat shield.

The paladin tried casting sanctuary upon the moment of agro, but was disrupted. The thing is, those giants move pretty slowly. I had the boots of speed and I can't remember if the paladin wore them for this special event. But in any case he was successful in beating the giants back to the party without invisibility. He may have gotten beat up a little along the way. But the point is that it is entirely doable, without even resorting to invisibility! The giants are easy to take down with normal ranged weapons if you have summons in place as meat shields.

Undead, bombadier beetle, and elemental summons are good for this.

Make sure you clear out the dragonets first!

[Aerich]

I set up my party in the corridor near the pair of giants, then send in the paladin with speed boots. Pally gets the badge and XP, party takes out the two giants, pally runs back to join with party, party summons big fat elementals and other things to meet Joril and his bodyguards after they get through a spelltrap.

Fun fight.

[Klorox]

I beat them giants!

It was a fun, tough fight. Confusion rocks.

[Aerich]

Chaos is even better. Same spell, with a nastier saving throw modifier and I think a larger area.

[Thrasher91604]

If a confused enemy kills another enemy do you lose the XP?

That's how it works in NWN, I believe, but wasn't sure about IWD.

Thanks!

[Aerich]

Yes you do lose that XP. However, it doesn't matter how much total damage is caused, so if the enemy does 99% of the damage but you strike the final blow, you still get the XP. You can get around XP loss by keeping an eye on the HP totals of your enemies.