BGT, I admit. That might change things, somehow I picked up the idea the OP was using it as well. Apparently I was getting confused with one of the other threads.

I find Demonknight harder than Aec'Letec, because DK always uses dispell on my characters while Aec'Letec never dispelled my buffs. I'm pretty sure Aec'Letec do not use dispell magic in vanilla BG1.

So, for an easy fight with Aec'Letec you must buff with Haste, Potions of invulnerability, Storm Giant Strength, Heroism, Bless etc, and most important, Potion of Mirrored Eyes because they do protect against Death Gaze. Send the most buffed tank near Aec'Letec to attract his attention while the others kill the cultist with arrows of detonation and spells. Then concentrate on Aec'Letec and he should be dead very fast.

I think potion of magic shielding or invulnerability also helps against death gaze and paralyzation, because they take effect only if the saving throw fails, but Potion of Mirrored Eyes grants 100% invulnerability. Just make sure to have several prepared in quick slots because they wear off quickly.

You could be right on that one. Ok, I've just checked the resources, and the Tanari Death Gaze is not a petrification spell, which is what Mirrored Eyes protects from. In fact, Aec'Letec doesn't even have any spells or abilities, they are all unique, and all force applied via script. Checking the Tanari Death Gaze, it is classed as an innate ability, with no connection to petrification, so I do not see how a potion of mirrored eyes can help in any way whatsoever. I did notice one thing, which I wasn't aware of before; the death gaze can be saved against (paralyze/poison/death), but Potion of Mirrored Eyes is quite specific that it protects from Petrification only.

Yes, but IIRC there is a potion (magic shielding or blocking or something) that lets you make all your saves automatically, but only lasts a few turns. So that one makes you immune to the death gaze (mirrored eyes does nothing though).


Edit: I just checked, it's called a potion of magic shielding, it also blocks 50% of magic damage so it works against the vampire touch as well and lasts 3 turns which should be more than enough to do the job.
That coupled with free action and a good AC should let you tank Aec-Letec with little problem.

There's a problem with that, too. You see, the Potion of Magic Shielding protects (50%) from magical, non-physical attacks -- Vampiric Touch is a physical attack. According to the Tanari Death Gaze spell resource, it is not classed as a magical attack, like Magic Missile or Chromatic Orb is, therefore it doesn't get covered by that.

Well, death gaze doesn't do any damage and only works on a save, so a potion that lets you make all your saves obviously negates death gaze.

As for vampiric touch, I'm not sure what type of damage it is to be honest. I thought it was magical damage like magic missile, but it might be physical. Still, it's a spell, so the potion that gives 50% magic resistance combined with the cloak of Balduran that gives 25% magic resistance should take care of it.

Yeah, fair enough.

The Tanari Vampiric Touch is a melee attack. Melee == physical.

Potion of Mirrored Eyes protects from the gaze attack. The attached image is from BG:EE, but it works in vanilla too, even if the description may not be the same. I have tested it and it works, never got the death gaze effect while using potion of mirrored eyes.

I'm not getting into the argument, but just want to point out that the description of the Mirrored Eyes potion doesn't say it protects against all gaze attacks. It's saying it protects against petrification, including petrification from gaze attacks

Whether Mirrored Eyes works against Aec'Letec or not I don't know.

Well... this was a rough tumble. Probably the toughest fight in BG1, because you are basically riding your luck on making the death gaze saves. In the fifth attempt we finally got through without anybody dying.

Reading this thread post battle, I see that free action would have helped, as usually one or two guys got incapacitated. Potion of invulnerability is a great help, as that makes it more likely you'll make the saves. Then you need wand of monster summoning. In Tutu/BGT that is limited to only five monster at a time, so you need to keep spamming them as they die or get turned. I also used some fireballs from spells and bottles to take out the cultists. In one of the failed attempts we 'killed' Aec Letec 3 times, but four was one too many, as a death gaze finally landed. The cultists are more sturdy than expected, but make sure you take them all out, because if you don't, Aec'Letec will just spawn in one of the alive ones and you have to kill him again.

I had forgotten that the death gaze is possible to dispell, but after reading this thread I was reminded that you can dispell it with arrows of dispelling (friendly fire). That can come in handy in a pinch. The spell can be used too, ofc, but you usually don't have many of those, and it has a wide catchment area, and you really don't want to mess up your buffs in the entire party so those death gazes land easier.