Map: Rhateph's Castle (DoA1), level 4

Flee chance: 7/16 (43.75%)

Map

Key

Questions

• Question 00: RÄTSEL 00 (En); RÄTSEL 00 (De) (Unused)
• Answer 00: LÖSUNG 00 (En); LÖSUNG 00 (De) (Unused)

Messages

• 00: YOU WILL FACE YOUR ENEMY. DARK LORD IS WAITING FOR YOU! PREPARE TO DIE HUMANS! (En); DU STEHST NUN ENDLICH VOR DEINEM FEIND DARKLORD. ZEIT ZU STERBEN !!!! (De)

Chests

• 00: Elf arrows x3, healing potion x2
• 01: Kel’s Arrows, arrows x2
• 02: (Small explosion trap) Stemberfang
• 03: (Acid trap) Empty
• 04: Healing potion x4
• 05: 100g
• 06: (Small explosion trap) Empty
• 07: (Unlocked) Healing potion x4 (pois)

Random monster encounters

• 1-5 groups of 1-6 Green Dragon, Guard, or Hellworm

Fixed monster encounters

• 1b: 27 worms
• 1c: 28 worms
• 1d: 29 worms
• 1e: 2 fire dragons
• 1f: Dark Lord, 5 fire trolls, 8 fire trolls

Monster statistics

• Dark Lord can cast Deadly Flash (240-482 damage to one target).
• Fire Dragon and Fire Troll can cast cast Air to Fire (25-38 damage to all).
• Green Dragon can cast Can cast Flame Ball (15-26 damage to all).
• Guard can cast Acid Breath (28-36 damage to all).
• Hellworm can cast Swarm of Bees (7-16 damage to all).

Dark Lord encounter

The final boss fight of Dungeons of Avalon is practically impossible. This is due to a combination of extreme enemy difficulty and the fixed-encounter records bug, where the game forgets enemies killed when leaving the battle, meaning you have to defeat them all in one go. If you somehow do win, the same bug also prevents the game from registering the victory conditions needed to trigger the final cutscene.

The advice is to fix the bug. Even so, the encounter. Some strategy advice:

• As a fixed encounter, all enemies start at distance 0, and can attack in the first turn. They take their turns either before (on 75% of turns) or after (25%) the first, second, and third hero’s turn, respectively. Each has a 50-50 chance to use their spell, or make a regular attack.
• The Anti-Aura scroll persists even if you flee (43.75% chance to flee successfully) or save and re-load the game. It may be wise to have the first hero use the scroll, flee, heal up, and return, so save the first hero’s turn.
• In total, the Dark Lord has a 75% chance to target a hero in the front row and a 25% chance to target the second row, in both cases an instant kill. However, there are two defences:
  • A Magician can cast Magic Armour before battle for +3 to WC. Combined with the best possible item loadout, and a Level 16 Fighter, Knight, or Hunter with at least 80 Luck, two heroes (ideally your front row) can reach WC 17, which, when using the Parry option (+3), is just enough to block both the Dark Lord’s attacks. A Wizard can only cast Magic Armour2 for +2 WC, and the item situation is that only one hero can reach WC 17 this way.
  • A Troll of Stembär with above-average HP can reach 204+ HP, allowing them to survive one melee attack, but not one Deadly Flash. However, their lower Luck prevents them from reaching WC.
• Each Fire Troll has a 50-50 chance to either use a regular attack, or cast Air to Fire.
  • The regular attack hits one target in the front two rows, but can be blocked with WC 15, which is possible for all Fighter, Knight, and Hunters, and even a Thief if he uses Parry. It has a 1/16 chance to hit anyway, so you will take an average of 0.8 hits in the first round, and at 74-77 damage a hit, any average hero can survive at least one hit.
  • Air to Fire is more dangerous, because it hits the whole party, including the spellcasters on the back row. However, you only need WC 9 to block it, which is attainable by any character.
• Offensively, the fastest way to kill enemies are the spells Medusas Eye (kills one group) and Deadly Flash (kills one individual). Your back row consists of Magicians/Wizards who can cast these spells, and the sole purpose of the rest of the party is to protect them.

The party therefore looks like this

Fighter, top left

WC 17 (+3 Luck, +3 Magic Armour spell, +4 Fire Shield, +3 Knight Armour, +3 Battle Helmet, +1 Killersword). Parry every round to maintain an effective WC 20.

Hunter, top right

WC 17 (+3 Luck, +3 Magic Armour spell, +4 Ara’s Shield, +3 Ara’s Armour, +2 Arc’s Helmet, +1 Arc’s Sword, +1 Bee-Ring). Parry every round.

Thief, center left

WC 13 (+3 Luck, +3 Magic Armour spell, +3 Buckler, +2 Sefer’s Helmet, +2 Armour, Bolas or Sword). There are better classes for the final fight, but realistically this is what you have in your party. A good candidate to use Anti-Aura scroll on turn 1, if you want to do it all in one go. If one of the front row dies, this spot is promoted to the front row, where only Parry will protect him from the melee attack of Fire Trolls. Cannot survive a hit from the Dark Lord, although with some prepration you can make your thief a Stembär and carefully level him to have 204+ HP. You could give him a scroll of New Live to resurrect the Healer or casters if necessary) and Stemberfang (28-51 damage on the Dark Lord), but the main use of the Thief is really just to pad out the front row so Deadly Flash can’t hit the casters.

Healer, center right

WC 10 (+3 Luck, +3 Magic Armour spell, +1 Healing Robe, +1 Wood Shield, +1 Helmet, +1 Arc’s Boolas). At this WC, Parry won’t make a difference. Restoration is marginally useful to allow a Stembär in slot 3 to recover from a Dark Lord melee hit on the front row. New Live is of limited use, as resurrected heroes return at the back of the party where they can’t do much. Actually, the most useful thing might be to attack the Dark Lord with Arc’s Boolas for a little addditional damage.

Magician, back left

WC 10 (+3 Luck, +3 Magic Armour spell, +1 Healing Robe, +1 Wood Shield, +1 Helmet, +1 Arc’s Boolas). Before the battle, cast Magic Armour to give everyone WC +3. On the first round, cast Medusas Eye to kill the second stack of Fire Trolls. On every subsequent round, cast Deadly Flash against the Dark Lord. It deals 240 - 267 damage (average ~303), and the Dark Lord has 999 HP, so three or four hits should do it.

Wizard, back right

WC 10 (+3 Luck, +3 Magic Armour spell, +1 Healing Robe, +1 Wood Shield, +1 Helmet, +1 Arc’s Boolas). On the first round, cast Medusas Eye to kill the third stack of Fire Trolls. (Third stack is larger, and the sixth slot is safer because he won’t enter Deadly Flash range until two heroes are killed.) On every subsequent round, cast Deadly Flash against the Dark Lord.

If you are using the default party, i.e. you only have a Wizard and no Magician, the fight will be more difficult:

• Wizard can only cast Magic Armour2, which only grants WC +2, so only one of your front row can have high enough WC to parry the Dark Lord.
• On average, Wynder at Level 16 has exactly enough MP (119) to cast Magic Armour2 once, Medusas Eye once, and Deadly Flash three times. On average, he has enough MP (117) to reliably survive three Air to Fire.
• Wynder should be placed in the bottom-right slot (safest), and cast Deadly Flash on the Dark Lord on the first three turns. This will kill him if you are lucky, or your allies can also land hits. On the fourth turn, cast Magic Armour on the stack of 8 Fire Trolls.
• Place Robin in the first slot and give him Arc’s Sword. On average, he will reach Level 16 with higher Strength than Amber (118 vs 84), dealing 83-97 damage with Arc’s Sword. On average, three Deadly Flash and one Arc’s Sword hit is exactly enough to kill the Dark Lord. Give Amber both the Battle Helmet and Bee-Ring so he can parry with WC 20 and hold the line.
• The monk Simarhon should mainly use Stormfist (20-37 damage to all enemies) or Restoration. However, attacking with Arc’s Boolas will do more damage to a single target (33-44). The Healer is worth using New Live because it will help to have as many heroes as possible as a last resort to fight the last Fire Trolls.
• The battle is still very RNG, and may take multiple attempts. Your chance of surviving a round without losing a hero drops from about 70% to about 1/3. Wynder enters the Dark Lord’s Deadly Flash range after two kills. Once the Fighter and Thief are gone, the Healer or Monk reach the front row and will be quickly killed by the Fire Trolls; the hero will on average take 3 hits, and be killed by 2 or 3. The ~25% chance for the top-left hero to go before the Dark Lord in the first round is more important, and refreshing the encounter after using the Anti-Aura scroll is a useful strategy.

Notes

• Avoid the southmost chest in the west treasure room, and the second chest from the south in the east treasure room. They are trapped and empty. The second chest from the south in the west room is also trapped, but contains the weapon Stemberfang.
• There are no rest points on this level. There are two in the level below, in the northeast and northwest of the map respectively.
• The unused questions simply read “Riddle 00” and “Solution 00” in German. No question squares appear on this level.

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