Dungeon Master Forum

the scoripon Layer is impossible? Help it's ruining my lifE!!!

try to dodge the scorpions attacks and to use spells to get rid of them. train your characters at the rat regeneration room, to harden them for the scorpions.
thats all i can say without knowing your problem better.

Best thing for them is standard procedure: Blast them with a few high power fireballs, keep moving away from their front side so you don't get stung with poison, have one or another antidot and healing potion at hand just in case AND:
Keep the gates shut. There is a large section of the level that can be seperated with 4 doors into 3 separate parts, so you can rest after you have first shut the gates (which are open at first) and cleared that part.
Also have a look upon the maps on this site and beware of the scorpion generator triggers: Do not step on them if you can avoid it.
If you still can't get through I agree with Amber: Go back to the level where the rat generator is in a room that you can close with a door and have some training for your characters.

The best spells to use are the poison bolt and poison cloud. If you get cornered by a scorpion, hit it with a high power poison cloud. This will cause it to back away maybe leaving you enough time to rally. The best weapon that you can use is something that thrusts, ie the delta or rapier. You should not have anything better at this stage... Also they can be calmed (or war cry, brandish etc) which is a useful tactic. In fact this works well against a lot of monsters especially couatls, ghosts, water elementals and even the dragon and chaos.

The poison bolt is the unsung hero in this game, I use it a lot against single targets. Go and find a monster, save the game and fireball it. Reload and use the poison bolt. They usually die quicker from the poison.

Oh and if you really hate the scorps, download Ambers game Imprisoned Again, and you'll find out how hard they can be!!!

"They usually die quicker from the poison."
Really? I have never ever seen a monster die from poison damage. Only from the contact damage itself. Is this really true? If it is then I'll have to start using Des Ven more often (and the poison darts in DM2, if I can ever get it to run).

Any creatures I run into in Dungeon Master that gives me trouble (which isn't any of them now that I'm adept at playing) I use a green Magic box. You could certainly use this to buy you some time to shut all the gates. Maybe even to get the hardcleaver in the area.

i do not ever use des-ven^^
i train at the screamer room at the end of lvl 4, and after that, i do close combat without any tactics :D
monsters tend to walk out of the poison cloud most times...and scorps have some poison resistance afaik (hmmm...are monster resistances listed somewhere? they ARE present...)

They don't die from being poisoned, but from the bolt itself. As for monsters moving out of the clouds, well that's the point... if your cornered by something that can sting for 200 damage then you don't want it to be stood next to you. Rusters die exceptionally quickly from poison bolts (not that they cause THAT much of a problem anyway) as do, believe it or not Dragons. Have a go on CSB in the Ros area and poison bolt the suckers, they die with 2 or 3 (well some do). Also oitus and coautls do not like them. Wasps die instantly from poison clouds. In CSB there is a muncher (which is a redrawn wasp as we all know) generator in one of the levels which produces hundreds of them. I just cast one ven cloud at it, which is enough to kill probably 50 or 60. Much better than fireballs. All you can see is smoke as they die. I forgot to mention that you can cast both poison spells through iron gates. Very, very useful on many levels if you are a novice (or nearly dead) as you can kill things without even contacting them. They cannot get you, but you can get them. Fireballs do not go through any doors, though sometimes they will destroy the door.

Depending on whether I am going for a quick game, or a 4 man effort, the amount of magic I use varies. Watch my 1hr video of my record and it will show you how little you need. But when I play a NEW dungeon I use more poison than fire. However I do use fire against mummies, worms and demons. But we all have different tactics. Have an experiment with the poison, you may be suprised...

And a quick word on lightning... as far as I am aware the only spell to damage knights.

Almost ... lightning is the best spell against knights. But poison bolt and fireballs can damage them (fireball the worst). Poison clouds do NO damage against knights or mummies.

On the amiga version I recall casting des ven on monsters and watching them die moments later....

Also very useful if you're short of hit points or mana -although I detested using this spell for a long time- is invisibility. At least in Return to Chaos monsters do not attack you even if you're directly hitting them under their nose. Only problem: wears off very fast even with well-trained magicians.

Scorpions should be fine with fireballs - if you had some training and the doors in this area are closed as pointed out by Lunever above you should be fine - wait in front of doors of the infested areas for them to approach if you don't want to enter - 3 fireballs (Mon, o.c.) should do nicely. Still: scary buggers, I agree.

Knights always die best under doors in my opinion; everything else don't matter much, just a question of time ;)