The Ravager is the ultimate expression of the taint of Bhaal within the protagonist, and overcoming it is the final challenge of the Pocket Plane.
Like the Slayer, the Ravager used to be one of Bhaal's avatars, although this one isn't actually Bhaal, but the taint.
Gameplay[]
- After a brief chat, The Ravager will summon 6 bone blades to assist him. If one is killed, another will be summoned to take its place.
- The Ravager will erect a Blade Barrier for protection. This barrier is dispellable, but will be restored after a while.
- It will charm ("urge to kill") any demonic, undead or other creature of evil alignment to fight on its side; party members are affected.
- Its high magic resistance of 90% can't be lowered by the spell Lower Resistance, however it can be lowered by the spells Pierce Magic and Pierce Shield (the same is true for Melissan), and the longsword The Answerer. Thereafter magic can easily overcome it.
- The Ravager is a High Master with both weapons.
- Melee attacks
- do 1d10+2 slashing damage, with an extra +12 strength bonus;
- dispel magic at level 25 with no save;
- lower magic resistance by 5% for 10s with no save;
- have a 49%-chance that a wing buffet throws the target across the room while dealing an additional 1d8 crushing damage (each can be avoided with a save vs. breath at a penalty of 6) and knocking the character unconscious for half a round (save vs. breath at a penalty of 10);
- will destroy illusions.
- Ranged attacks
- are executed twice each round;
- do 1d4+4 missile damage;
- apply one of the following effects with almost equal chances:
- additional 2d4 cold damage;
- poison the target, with a save vs. poison allowed at a penalty of 2, that inflicts 2 points of damage per second over a duration of 5s; golems and undead aren't affected by this;
- stun the target for 5s, with a save vs. spell allowed at a penalty of 2 – the only effect that does not bypass magic resistance.
Strategy[]
- Make sure warriors apply Hardiness before entering the room.
- If possible, warriors should use gear that provides good protection against slashing damage and improves saving throws against spells and breath weapons.
- Have the warriors get in close before The Ravager erects the blade barrier, and they have a chance of avoiding the damage (save vs. spell).
- Don't bother with the bone blades since they will simply respawn. You can polymorph them to reduce their effectiveness, but they eventually succumb to damage caused by The Ravager and are replaced.
- Because of the Ravager's high number of hit points, combined with high damage resistances and regeneration, it can take a while to kill it; using a weapon like Soul Reaver can significantly reduce the damage the Ravager is able to inflict during this combat. The Archer's Called Shot ability will also do this, both by reducing thac0, and Strength.
- To make it easier to kill, The Answerer can be used to great effect, making it vulnerable to both weapons and spells (it has no resistance to magic damage, so Skull Trap and Horrid Wilting are ideal, whereas other elements are useless). 6 hits from this weapon will reduce its magic resistance to 0, and impose a +12 penalty to its AC. The Archer's Called Shot ability helps out again, by giving penalties to save versus spell.
- Archers can defeat this creature extremely easily with their Called Shot ability, since the Strength penalty will stack until it dies. This requires Firetooth the crossbow, the Shortbow of Gesen, or Darts +5 from the Cloak of Stars (which can be saved up in great quantity by dropping old stacks onto new stacks resetting their 24 hour timers or selling/buying to the inn in Amkethran to recharge it repeatedly) to bypass its +3 immunity. With the +5 Darts, 2 proficiency points into Darts for +0.5 APR, +0.5 APR from the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, and Simulacrum from Vhailor's Helm an Archer can duplicate himself and receive Improved Haste from a party member, an Improved Cloak of Protection, or the Amulet of Cheetah Speed to achieve 10 APR on both himself and the Simulacrum. With Called Shot's incredible THAC0 bonuses this will kill The Ravager by depleting its Strength score of 24 in 7 seconds. While this grants no experience points (any stat drain kill results in no XP), this is the penultimate fight before the end of the game, so if the player isn't at level cap or near it there is very little to be gained from attempting to kill this creature for experience.
- If all else fails, once the player has finished using Cespenar to craft every item he can, the player can use a Control Circlet (if they still have one from the Captured By Mindflayers quest) to take control of Cespenar and send him into the battle first. The Ravager and all six Bone Blades will attack him and since he is invincible the player can casually walk behind The Ravager and attack him repeatedly, preferably wielding The Answerer to apply AC penalties to speed the process up. The only downside to this is that resting in the Pocket Plane requires Cespenar to be out of sight since the charm effect wearing off will turn him hostile (he will have a red circle around himself, but will not attack the player, and cannot be spoken to ever again). Since this battle takes place right before Throne of Bhaal's final chapter point-of-no-return this may be desirable if the player is having trouble, especially on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty where The Ravager will have over 1600 hitpoints.
Notes[]
- The Ravager that Enegar transforms into has somewhat different characteristics, since the taint differs from person to person.
Bugs[]
- Regeneration does not work.
External Links[]
- Bhaal#Avatars on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms.