Question: Can BT3 be completed without a Rogue in the party?

Situation:
- I created a party in BT1 and have gone through all three games with those characters. No rogue in the party.
- I've managed to get all the way through to Malefia, but I think I'm blocked on completing the game, as I don't have a Rogue to "Use" Sceadu's Cloak on his statue (which is a Rogue only item)

Any insight appreciated, also if there are additional things which cannot be completed without a Rogue apart from the above.

I would prefer not to load a save prior to Malefia, train up a Rogue & leave another party member behind, and redo that maze of a dungeon again.

Thanks!

(Spoilers for right before Malefia, but you're past that point anyway)

Secadu's Cloak, I believe, is the only issue, though if you are playing the remaster, the final boss might be a problem. You might want to try using the cloak anyway, even if you can't equip it, as it might actually work. (How were you able to kill Secadu, anyway?)

You *can* leave the dungeon the way you came in (or, if you're playing the remaster without Misc. Differences, cast Safety Spell; who cares about gold at this point in the game), create a Rogue, and then level them up at one of the Mage's Guild in one of the other dimensions. (Yes, this is a pain in the classic versions due to the code wheel, but it is an option.) Alternatively, if you are playing a classic version, you can still use the review board in Skara Brae, provided you only have characters who haven't witnessed the Old Man's death. (This doesn't work in the remaster.)

As far as killing the final boss, it is doable in classic versions.
8-bit: Just cast PREC (which is 100% reliable in this version), kill all the enemies except Tarjan, advance into melee, and then attack.
16-bit: You don't even *need* to do that; due to a bug, Tarjan will advance on his own (instead of summoning), and eventually reach melee range, where he will attack for single digit damage. (With that said, if you are playing one of these versions, and aren't using the bugfix patch that's out there for the DOS version, I honestly recommend starting over with either an 8-bit version or the remaster.)

In the remaster, apparently Tarjan can now use FOTA to push you away (and is, I assume, nearly immune to magic unless your level is really high), so he's not so easy to kill. If you do train a new Rogue, try to get them an item with the guaranteed hide property (I believe the Helm of Justice is one such item), boost their accuracy as much as possible, and don't be afraid to use a bard song to boost it further. (Also, don't forget that you don't have to map Malefia yourself; just have your Geomancer (you do have one, right?) cast Pathfinder (6th level spell IIRC) and the automap will be filled in for you (though special squares still aren't marked).)

Firstly, thanks dtgreene for the detailed and very helpful input! Unfortunately I tried using it with everyone else, but to no avail. Mildly annoyed, as I would have preferred the game to stop me from getting this far before putting such a blocker in the way. Technically, you could hit the same issue by not having a character who could equip one of the other items too (although that's much less likely given the broader groups they tend to target).

I think it would be great if the remaster Devs tweaked this to avoid blocking anyone, or weave a message on this into the game (e.g. something the old man says before he dies). That was ridiculously easy - believe my Hunter simply threw the Nightspear and critically hit him. I had everyone else defend. Just what I was trying to avoid, but thanks for confirming the approach details. Fantastic info, thanks. I'd heard a Rogue was the best way to take him out, but given my party is ridiculously overpowered by this stage, I was going to try brute strength (e.g. between my Geo, Chrono and two Archies I can cast NUKE ~75 times before running out of initial spell points and needing to use gems to recharge). I was actually expecting the battle to be a big disappointment.

My hunter was level 163 (1407 critical hit) when facing Secadu, currently 173 (with 1520 critical hit), but can't seem to hit Gremlins.

This is actually quite interesting. From this, we can conclude:
* Secadu's saving throws are not capped, and are worse then Gremlin's (which I believe are at the cap).
* While I suspect a high level character might be able to hit a Gremlin with a ranged attack or spell, evidently level 173 is not high enough. (I suspect that hitting Tarjan with a ranged attack or spell would be as difficult as hitting a Gremlin.)

I also have some observations of my own:
* A Gremlin can hit another Gremlin with its breath attack. (However, I note that Gremlins can easily have over 12k HP, and therefore killing them this way is not practical.)
* The "critical hit" stat is irrelevant past a certain point, and you are long past that.

In any case, it is probably faster to level up a Rogue to the point of being able to hit Tarjan (level 1 might be enough, for all I know, with the right equipment, and possibly the help of spells and bard songs) then it is to level up your Hunter to the point of being able to take out Tarjan* at range. In the meantime, you could use the opportunity to stock up on Black Arrows for your Hunter; they're very useful during the final sequence of fights in this version.

* Random fact: In classic versions (haven't checked in the remaster), there are a few enemies that have no pronouns; instead of saying something like "critically hitting it", it uses the name of the enemy instead, like "critically hitting Taran".

Thanks so much for this thread. I'm about to transfer my party to Bard's Tale 2 in the remaster, and will have to expand my party. I was considering attempting to skip out on the rogue in favor of maybe a paladin, to see if it was possible to get through on the back of a Hunter, but it seems it is not.