Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga

We’re still at that early stage of the game where a combination of Web and Stinking Cloud is pretty lethal. With a Greater Malison thrown into the mix, this group of slavers doesn’t stand a chance; if they’re not ensnared by sticky filaments then they’re knocked out cold by noxious fumes. I think Korgan and Keldorn maybe got hit once, but that was it.

Now we just have to deal with the trolls in the adjoining room.

You know what I hate about trolls? They’re bugged. Seriously. Whenever you knock them down to one hit point, they’re supposed to collapse so that you can finish them off with acid or fire…which seriously tries one’s patience in and of itself. It just means you have to keep stopping to switch someone’s ammunition to the fire arrows that are always conveniently strewn around when there are trolls in the area, then switch it back so that you don’t waste them on other enemies.

What’s really a problem, though, is that trolls seem to forget the “collapse at one hit point” behaviour all too easily. It takes the troll a while to actually realise that it’s supposed to fall down, and if you happen to hit it during that short space of time, it’ll forget to do so again. And again. And again. Therefore, unless you intentionally let up for a while or just miss a lot of blows in a row, you will be pounding on them FOREVER.

The thing is, I didn’t realise this at first, which made trolls into absurdly difficult enemies for the measly amount of experience you get for killing them. Normally they’d be “glass cannon” monsters; hard-hitting, but easy to take down. With this bug effectively making them invincible, though, the “glass” part rather gets omitted, and they just become unstoppable Game Over dispensers. You have no idea how much I hated going through the de’Arnise keep until I figured this out.

A question, though; what were a pair of trolls doing in here with a little girl?

Actually, scratch that. I don’t care what they were doing; I just want to know why the hell they hadn’t eaten her yet. I mean, they completely ignore this easy meal in favour of some well-equipped adventurers by whom they are outnumbered three-to-one. Why? I know trolls aren’t exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they’re not THAT stupid.

Well, whatever. Here, we rescue the girl and…

…*sigh*. And give her 100 gold coins out of the goodness of our hearts.

Keldorn made us do it. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Once Korgan is done complaining about it (I know how he feels, but we need the reputation boost), we head on up to clean this place out.