Keriax and the Stone Circle (Spoilers, I suppose?)

[Panda_Lord]

I recently have attempted to go for alternate endings. My question is, however, when do you guys normally go to the Stone Circle to confront Keriax? When I say when, I mean in both daywise and levelwise. What level is good to go to such a place, and what multiple of 30 in days do you arrive at the circle?

I recently had a level 20 Gray Elf Archer (precrowned with Protector!) get one-shotted by Keriax there, at the 60th day. I'm wondering if that's unreasonably early/late, or unreasonably low-level.

[Sulangatori]

It all depends on equipment, alertness, DV/PV etc, but lvl 20 is not an
unreasonable level to (try) to take him out. Day 30 or 60 are ok, but
day 90 seems a bit late. I always make sure to have 7LB equipped,
because I've had a couple of characters denied entrance, probably
because of the time factor. You only gain entrance in the 23rd hour
of Darknight and I guess it is possible to miss it with a stroke of unluck.

[Silfir]

You should arrive a bit early and test which actions take how long. Waiting in place, regardless of seven leagues or not, takes slightly more than one hour, so it's possible to miss it. With seven leagues, you should probably not 5 on the stone circle, but 46 on top and next to it. I think that only takes a couple of minutes each. It's best to test this out the next time you walk around in the wilderness.

Of course you want to kill Keriax as early as possible, but you need some way to kill him. In my two Keriax bouts that was my main problem. One time I basically went through my ammunition in a desperate struggle, the other I had to burn through my acid and magic missile wands. In both cases I had heavy support from poison potions and wand of para, and my character was a good deal above 20 and had access to on-demand teleportation and morgia Toughness. I would not recommend doing it with wands or limited stocks of dragon slaying missiles. Keep in mind demon slaying does not work. Only dragon works.

The rest? If you're going for an ULE, the corruption bolts don't really matter. Even if you go for UNE or UCG, you can still exploit the white unicorn for corruption removal, it just becomes all the more important to save as many SoCR as you can. He does decent damage in melee and you need to be quite resistant or immune to all four elements, and you need sources of immediate healing and a respectable HP score (I'd recommend 300 or above). You'll be confused a lot, I advise trying to use the Teleport spell in these cases (you want the teleport spell, I haven't done Keriax without it yet. Being able to teleport with a 50% chance during combat is very valuable and I would not like to imagine what it is like without). Keriax is immune to fire and ice.

Keep in mind that he can be delayed indefinitely. Once the 90 day threshold is crossed, you can kill him on day 90, day 120, day 180, it doesn't matter either way. Killing him on day 30 or day 60 is only required if you are dead-bent on finishing before day 90.

[JellySlayer]

I recently have attempted to go for alternate endings. My question is, however, when do you guys normally go to the Stone Circle to confront Keriax? When I say when, I mean in both daywise and levelwise. What level is good to go to such a place, and what multiple of 30 in days do you arrive at the circle?

I recently had a level 20 Gray Elf Archer (precrowned with Protector!) get one-shotted by Keriax there, at the 60th day. I'm wondering if that's unreasonably early/late, or unreasonably low-level.

My suggestion is not to attempt Keriax until after you are level 45. There is no particular reason to attempt him prior to this... he is a dangerous opponent with an extremely powerful confusion (not to mention melee + breath) attack, and can decimate unprepared PCs. He certainly can be killed before this (I've killed him as low as ~22, and it is, of course, possible to kill him at level 1), but it tends to be a harrowing battle for low level PCs. Have Wi >30 and two items with confusion resistance, plus a method to do massive damage to him (dragon slayers, Needle + Sting, etc.) Hit him with a cursed potion of invisibility or a potion of confusion as soon as you can to disable him. Once you have completed the ToEF, raising your level is rather quick and easy, and you will see some significant improvements in your gear due to the Casino, BDC, greater vaults, etc. Getting from level 20 to level 40 will take less than 3 days game-time for a non-troll, most likely. These days, I normally attempt Keriax right before the final CoC dive. With the ToTRR in hand, the battle is ridiculously easy.

For an ultra, being after day 90 is not an issue in the late game. For a ULE, you have more than enough corruption removal available (my ULEs often have ~6-8 unused SoCR); for neutrals and chaotics, you need to be extremely corrupted anyway. As long as you aren't wasting huge amounts of time wandering around in the lower CoC, day 90 is, IMHO, not really a problem.

[MrNiceguy]

The potion of confusion or cursed Invisibility was mentioned (Potion of blindness should work too), but once you've got him disabled, hit him with a Potion of Cure Corruption. It does a tremendous amount of damage, and also weakens him.

This works on all the orb guardians - presumably on other chaos beings too, but I can't imagine wasting a PoCC by using it to kill a Chaos Mutant.

[Baranor]

The best strategy I've found for early Keriax hunting is staying out of his line of sight. He has a horribly long line of sight, but if you can get him on one end of the room and you on the other end, you can be "invisible" to him and bolt his sorry butt.

[Jack the Ripper]

I think it's a matter of how much damage you can do to the critter in a short time. Dragon slayers while staying outside a direct line or diagonal seems to be the best way. Have as much -Conf and +Wi as you can. Water Orb is your friend here, as are oversized amulets of perseverance and perhaps the sword of nonnak as well, if you haven't fed it the rat to get there in the first place. You'll be shooting from afar so it doesn't really matter what weapons you've equipped, unless he manages to come near you, that is

[pblack]

paralysis and dragon slayers to be safe. But confusion and blindness also work, i just don't like to let it move =P

[Captain Platypus]

I did it at Day 150 with my recent ultra. I was there for day 120, but fucked up when I thought it was the first instead of the [/i] last hour of darknight. Just sat in the wilderness for thirty days. It was the last thing I did before descending to D:49, which I would advocate in almost all cases unless it's particularly convenient to do earlier - Keriax ain't foolin' around, and it isn't like going there makes you any more powerful for the rest of the game.

[Panda_Lord]

I've been shafted as far as Seven League Boots goes. I found them once (out of my attempts at an ultra) at the bandit town, but that character died due to Hotzenplotz being speed 110 (as opposed to my 102), and me not realizing that fact until he walked up to me and punched through my armor like he always does.

What I'm getting from this thread is:

-Secure a method of disabling Keriax (paralyzation wand, potions of blindness/invisibility/confusion). My last character didn't have any of these.
-Seven League Boots. My last character didn't have these. Hopefully they'd pop up until
-Potions of Cure Corruption. No PoCCs dropped, and the black druid's corpse rotted before I even left DD:7.
-Dragon-Slaying Ammo. This I did have, but my character was immediately confused and one-shotted before he got a chance to use it.
-Confusion resistance. The Protector provided confusion resistance. I also had a ring of mental stability, and a ring of the clear mind. I am unsure of my character's willpower, but I am sure it was not above 30. Nonnak was fed to the rat to get to the circle in the first place.
-Wait until the final CoC dive to actually confront him. I confronted him before I even got to Khelavastar's level in the CoC. I thought it'd be something to do while I wait for an AoLS to pop up. Perhaps I should have pool-sipped in Darkforge, or stairhopped in the ID for one.

I always tried to get to Keriax before the 90th day because I have a dread of post-90th day corruption. My one win (who was blessed with seven league boots at an early point in the game) beat the game in about 50 days. Perhaps I must suck it up, especially if I plan to confront him before the final dive. I thank you all for your advice.