Temple of Trials – Fallout 2 Location

In this guide we’ll show you everything there is to know about the Temple of Trials, where you’ll have to prove that you’re the Chosen One.

Walkthrough

After the introduction you’ll be placed just outside the foyer-like entrance hall of the temple with no escape from the area except to pass the trial. Your main goal is to enter the temple, navigate its short halls, kill a few creatures along the way for experience, pick up a couple of items if you wish including the Plastic Explosives in a pot near the inner sanctum door, pick up all the Scorpion Tails you can carry (for barter purposes) and finally face off against Cameron, your final trial. It’s not as hard as it sounds, though the beginning of this game is definitely more difficult than in Fallout 1.

The giant ants are fairly easy in the temple, but beware of the scorpions, as they can poison you and hit often. In fact, I believe they’re a tad difficult for the area and would have toned them down just a little had I been working on the game… but regardless, use this technique if you have several action points per round but the creature you’re facing (such as scorpions, ants, rats, etc.) doesn’t: attack them once and use your remaining action points to run away. On their turn they’ll spend enough action points as to not have enough for a single attack. Use that opportunity to attack and run once again. That technique will surely save your life. If you do not have many action points (6-7 or fewer), consider using the same technique and the critter will likely only get one attack rather than two… and by all means fight fewer creatures.

There are two pieces of advice I’d like to share now. One is obvious but I’m often surprised at watching other’s saving habits, so I’ll mention it. Use all 10 save slots the game offers, and save before any significant event. Make sure to spread your saves around in case you need to go back to a previous one. Secondly, search everything you can… desks, lockers, pots, wall-panels, dead bodies, etc. Most of the great stuff you find will be lying around, in a container or on opponents’ bodies.

In the Temple, look for Plastic Explosives in one of the pots, as you’ll need it to open the “impenetrable” door at the end of the Hallway map. Once you reach the doorway, open your inventory, hold your cursor over the Plastic Explosives to bring up the menu, and “use” it to set its timer. As long as you remain in the inventory interface, any time you set will not count down until you exit, so no worries there. Twenty seconds should be plenty of time to make an escape, so hold your cursor over the Plastic Explosives again, and “drop” it next to the door with the counter set, and then run away. After the explosion, enter through the newly-created hole and you’ll find Cameron in the northwestern room of the Inner Sanctum. Save before confronting him.

Your options with Cameron are to either fight him in unarmed combat (see below), steal the Temple Key from him and use it on the door in the same room (this can be done with a minimal Steal skill), or convince him that you both do not have to fight (only if you have the Speech skill tagged and at least an average Intelligence).

Fighting Cameron is definitely the most difficult option, especially if you built your character to be a gunslinger. Your equipment will get confiscated before the fight starts, so you won’t have anything more than your feet and fists to work with, and Cameron has way more AP than the ants and scorpions earlier in the Temple, so attacking and fleeing won’t work as well. But there’s a trick. You can drop items on the ground before the fight starts, and then pick them up as you go along. With some Healing Powders and perhaps a Spear on your side, you should be able to survive for long enough to do about 20 damage to Cameron, which will cause him to end the fight and declare you to be the winner. Afterwards, be sure to loot your equipment from the chest outside the room.

Exiting the Temple will complete the trials. This will reward you with 300xp (if you fought Cameron) or 600xp (otherwise). You’ll then gain a Vault 13 jumpsuit and a Pip-Boy, and you’ll move on to your hometown of Arroyo.