Kolokh on Torment (spoilers)

[Student of Trinity]

Nothing very earthshattering to report, but this was a fun battle. I went in buffed up well, including Mindshield and Prismatic Shield (which I had just learned from X). I was holding my own and whittling him down, to a small fraction of his hit points in fact, until my Prismatic Shield wore off, and he suddenly KO'd my fighter and priest in quick succession.

 

My hasted mage saw how things were going, fired an Acid Spray at Kolokh, and then abandoned my frozen archer to his fate. She just left and closed the door. The demon's mighty powers do not extend to doorknobs, so she was safe. She popped back in to lob a few Lightning scrolls, to help the acid in its work. A few rounds later, she was walking out with the flaming sword.

 

This tactic born of desperation would in retrospect have made the whole thing a lot easier if used from the start.

[Inthrall]

I have noticed that. On many occasions. the almighty dragon Khoth, who snorts fireballs of doom at me, is confounded by the door which he must have made himself...

 

Makes me wonder how he got there...

[*i]

That is one thing that has always annoyed me. In Exile, monsters were okay with doors and handled them very well. In Avernum, monsters could never figure out how to use them. This is due to the whole scripting and monsters not activating script things, but still.

[Kelandon]

I've been trying to remember when that problem came in. I distinctly remember monsters opening doors in A2, and I think I remember them doing so in A3, too, but definitely not in BoA or A4.

[Synergy]

Kolokh doesn't ever move, he's so conceited. You don't have to walk out the door or close it to escape his attacks. Just get your PC's out of his line of sight, and the worst he will do is summon something up in the meantime...or do nothing at all.

[Student of Trinity]

I suspected that would be true, too. My singleton mage is still languishing back in the Formello of an alternate universe, but I should get back to him. People have murmured darkly about Kolokh as the inevitable nemesis of singletons, but I bet that the hit-and-hit-'F' tactic familiar to all Geneforge Agents would make short work of Kolokh for a singleton mage, as long as they had good Quick Action and/or Gymnastics.

[Synergy]

If you go check out the Singleton thread, I elaborated in there how I recently beat Kolokh with surprisingly little difficulty, and using no Invulnerability Potions, with my singleton. It was as simple as darting (hasted) from the doorway into his line of sight, dousing him with acid, darting back out of sight many times, then bombing him with some Repel Spirit. Timber!

[Aoslare]

This reminds me of one of the things that really annoys me about the combat engine in all these games. If you end up with 5 or more AP after doing something, you still get to take actions; if you end up with less than 5, you don't. So starting with 8 AP, you can use an item and then shoot a bow, but you CAN'T shoot a bow and then use an item. It makes no sense, and sometimes it's a big tactical nuisance.