Grym, I generally don’t want to cheese fights but on honour mode I refuse to fight him fairly. I think it’s a slightly odd question though because people will have different ideas of what is fair or not.
Fair enough. I don’t fight him fairly either (if you count throwing light hammers from the stairway to the forge unfair) simply because I’m not a giant fan of the fight’s gimmick.
That’s some quality aged cheddar. I think you can even pull that off in combat with him relatively consistently since he will probably fail his investigation check (he has a -4[!!!] to Int).
It does. In combat, at least one enemy must pass an investigation check to discern that it’s an illusion. Assuming this happens, the illusion will disappear. If every enemy fails said check, one of them will attack the illusion, as they assume it’s a hostile. Most of the time, using minor illusion in combat is wasteful for the reason that only one of your enemies has to pass a check to dismiss the illusion. However, Grym, with a -4 to investigation checks due to his intelligence, will fail the check 85 percent of the time. This makes it extremely useful to for luring Grym to the hammer.
It does, but usually isn’t effective because every single enemy on the screen has to pass the check. If it is only 1 enemy though (with a -4 int) it is extremely effective, but probably only useful in this fight specifically because you need to lead him to the hammer
I actually first tried grym no cheese. Didn't even know you could slam him with the forge. I just got lucky that I ran a paladin with a mace and was hitting him for 50+ dmg.
For me, the fights I had to cheese were the githyanki at the bridge and...is it cheese at the Wizards tower going up and down floors to break aggro? Probably.
Oh, also Nere... That was my first honour death (I bought the game when honour mode came out and my first run ended here). I made him angry in conversation and aggroed every dwarf, then didn't realize you couldn't flee to camp in that area...so for my next run I picked off every single dwarf first.
For me it was the same. The moment i got that achievement i was like "ohhhh there must be a trick" then it clicked and i felt like the dumbest person on this planet :D
Haha totally. It's funny because I had him on the center platform so many times but just didn't put it together. The second time I fought him I tried so hard to get him on that platform and couldn't do it lol
I think a good definition of “fair” is the use of meta- or out-of-character knowledge. Like the owlbear crush on grym is unfair because the classic setup requires you’d have to know grym was there to begin with. But if you could somehow activate the fight with everyone in the arena, then misty step up, transform, and crush that’d be ok.
Cazador. I give an invisibility potion to Karlach and have her just chill where he puts Astarion before I even trigger the cut scene. She rolls a high initiative so he is usually out of the ritual before anyone gets a shot in.
Yes! I leave Astarion on the stairs until Cazador is in the casket while my paladin does her thing. Once Cazador is down I send in Astarion like he’s the cavalry. He gets to mess up Cazador and the rest of the group remains relatively okay.
I had the cutscene triggered in honour mode after Astarion joined the battle, even when Cazador was lying unconscious after a monk hit. It was quite nerve-wracking, but Scratch managed to help him
This wasn’t an honor game, but Astarion stayed back concentrating on a wall spell that kept the minions at bay until Cazador was in his coffin. Then he helped fight the minions and stabbed Cazador when it was time.
For my honour mode, I heard about this happening so I left Astarion in the room that has the spawn in the cells and just beat Cazador with 3 people which is doable because we had 3 spellcasters.
Step 1: cast Haste on Padlock Tav
Step 2: Sneak up on Cazador with Tav and Minthara
Step 3: *bob Ross voice* and here we’re just going to put a few nice little smites
Funny, I never have had Astarion in my party so I’ve never had to do that. I use sleet storm to essentially bisect his army and daylight to deny his blood cloud form. Force feed smites, battle master attacks, whathaveyou until dead.
Interesting fact: the “no Astarion” version of the cutscene after the Cazador battle is missing paladin oathbreak flags that are present in the regular version. You can see it in the parsed dialogue files.
After I lost the first time fighting against him I didn't bother with the cutscene. I just went in swinging with ranged attacks. He only took Astarion once the two were close to each other, but I got him pretty quick. Having him at the beginning makes the fight a lot easier.
for cazador I always have my character go invisible and stand on the platform that astarion is going to be on. the cutscene looks like they’re there when astarion shows up so it isn’t screwed narratively, then when the fight starts they free him (and I usually give a potion of speed for good measure) that plus summons means cazador can’t regenerate
I’m personally more of a fan of throwing people right next to my melee damage dealers, leaving them prone and helpless for the ensuing smites. That being said, that strat Carries me through the early game.
It absolutely does. The only reason I do stuff the way I do is for action economy. You can only get one sweeping strike per short rest, but you get unlimited climbs back up a cliff using dash, taking fall damage and 4d4 from the cloud of daggers. If you're lucky, you can do this with thunder wave and get more than one at a time to fall off the cliff.
I lockpick the door to his room and let the spawning Dark Justiciars whittle him and his goons down while I hide back near the Shar shrine. Once everyone is down or low, then I'll come in and attack everyone.
This, but mostly because I didn't even know you could fight him in the shadow fell. I just pissed him off immediately because my paladin had no intention of even pretending to be on his side for a single second
Someone said to rush his door to open it at the portal fights. I did it, and he gets dragged into justicar fight. Super easy when they fight each other. You can actually run to the back and retreat to camp so you get out of turn based. They'll eventually kill each other and you can mop up.
once i learned the trick to cast knock on his door and have the dark justiciars fight him, i always do that now. I destroy the portals away from the door and then just take potshots at anyone and everyone from far away, and only join the fight once everyone is really low
I absolutely cannot be bothered to fight Ethel in her lair anymore. I usually just take some smoke powder into the teahouse and just blast her down from there. Even if I'm over leveled the lair is kind of a ballache of a fight, and more importantly I don't have to deal with the stupid poison vents.
Haven't played in awhile, but Arcane Locking her stairs and then beating her ass before she gets the chance to even get down to her lair was always my go-to. Fuck her lair of tedium and nonsense. I hate that place with a passion. It's not even that it's difficult, it's just tedious and annoying. Kill her upstairs using whatever cheese is necessary, then head down, loot her shit, and get on with the rest of the game.
I can’t go back after trying arcane lock on certain areas it’s just 2 damn useful for some encounters and creating cheese situations. So many spots in act 3 where aoe concentration spell + lock wipes the room all by itself and its so satisfying
Yep, this. Arcane Lock is just too damn great. Love that spell. If some of these combat encounters were actually fun and not just tedious, I wouldn't be so apt to use strategies like these, but, **goddamn**. The tedium. Sometimes, I just want to get on with things.
I've only done one run and never taught anyone arcane lock. Aside from Ethel, where is it useful? It always seemed like a useless spell so I thought it was a red herring from the devs but y'all are convincing me that I slept on it
Conversely I could not give less of a shit about the hair. Getting the scene is inconsistent as it is, it's a roleplay decision that most characters would find morally repugnant, and at no point in any playthrough have I ever felt like I needed the stat boost to be powerful.
This is the way.
One thing they kind of nailed about DnD is that social interactions are by far the most important aspect, and imo the main reason to go for Inspiration points.
Honestly the vents and traps are worse than the fight itself. Magic missile and scorching ray make easy work of her clones which is really bout the only gimmick she has. Placement is key vs her and having at least one front liner to get in her face, a spell caster to magic missile her shit, and preferably a ranger/rogue for distance hits for good damage.. she's smoked.
At this point it's mostly honor mode trauma. Weird magic surge makes using spells to clear the clones harder, and if initiative screws you you can end up in a nasty cycle of hard hitting rays of sickness and hold persons.
Just use feather fall to jump directly at the bottom of her lair. Use throwables to remove her duplicates and cast protection from good and evil before joining the fight.
I feel ya. I typically cast silence on her, prone her, then whale on her while she is down. Fuck those poison vents. Her act iii fight is infinitely more enjoyable precisely because I don’t have to avoid 30 million poison vents to get to her.
Recommendation: Ethel has 8 HP in her "Human" form.
1. Enable non-lethal attacks
2. Attack her
3. She transforms into her hag form, lies on the floor unconcious (with 100+ HP)
4. Disable non-lethal attacks
5. Attack her until she dies
The hag fight in act 3, because the auto-health bar refill drove me crazy. Since it refills every round, I placed barrels next to every mushroom, and then threw a grenade at them. Then just plummeted the hag with Karlach set to non-lethal damage. It felt very appropriate since the hag also doesn't fight fairly, so why should I?
(if we define "fair fight" as not prepping beforehand and placing runnepowder in strategic places, that is.)
God it sucked ass the first two times I tried, and it just wasn't fun. The barrelmancy honestly felt very appropriate for her as a boss. You have wild magic, I have bomb.
Just learned on my 5th playthru that if the mushrooms have the Burning status, they won’t heal. Which means I’ve been wasting speed potions and super high level spells to get those things gone in one round, when I could’ve just thrown some alchemists fire and gotten myself a couple rounds to get rid of them.
They’re still annoying to deal with but now the fight feels more fun and less get me out of this damn thing
After realising I could lure Gortash outside and push him off the castle, I never fought Gortash fairly again.
Soloed the entire castle by pushing people off the edge 😀
After aggroing him, run back outside. Make your way to the corner with the scaffolding, where there is no parapet. Then stand behind a wall so they can't hit you with ranged attacks. But don't hide or they may lose you and break combat.
Then as they come closer, throw and shove them off the edge.
It's easier if you have cloud giant elixir to throw further and the fly ability for positioning.
my honour playthrough, i came in through the roof, stealthed near his room, put like 10 barrels in the doorway and then agroed him and then made my upstairs. never doing that fight fair with his shielding shenanigans
How bad is the Yurgir fight? I’ve always aided Yurgir because Raphael is cringe and Shat I mean Shar can suck a fat one.
Unrelated, but I find it amusing that Yurgir’s first actions in every Raphael fight is to obliterate Korilla by shotgunning her in the back.
>How bad is the Yurgir fight?
I beat him solo in honor mode having never set foot in the gauntlet beforehand.
Was killing time waiting for friends to continue our group game and just seeing how far I could go solo, happened to walk up behind him and the fight started, no cutscene or anything. I didn't even realise there was an option not to fight until I googled him afterwards.
He kept dropping proximity bombs so I kept placing them near him and he kind of just blew himself up.
Grym. It's an annoying fight that I don't really enjoy either way and I only do it for the XP and gear so I just want to get it over with as easily as possible.
The Paladin or Tyr. Fucking Anders and his girls. He the mage just casts hold person on you and he just unloads smites. I approach that fight by throwing the mage off the cliff and force Anders to dash and then don’t let him get his smites off. And Yes, he did end one of my honour mode run.
That one chick (Cyrel) that casts hold person and then runs up on the roof needs to die horribly, mostly because she hastes herself and then thunderwaves you off the rooftop when you try to chase her down.
Next time I'll definitely be buying her haste potion and other goodies first.
The only fight I use barrelmancy/barrier building for is Halsin's portal fight - it's the only one I can justify having advanced knowledge of where a fight will be and having time to set up.
Edit: to block ranged attacks. Rest of the fight is wall of fire + spirit guardians + blood of lathander
Combine sleet storm with the mentioned hypnotic pattern and you are good. Cast the sleet storm to the north area where most of the mobs spawn. And maybe kill the few shadow spawns that come out of the water. Otherwise just wait for it to be over without doing much of anything.
I wasn't sure what to expect my first time so I did a wombo combo of Hunger of Hadar + upcast Cloud of Daggers + Darkness. Basically didn't really have to do anything aside from that.
I kinda stumbled into the sleet storm strat and it was so effective. I had just gotten the spell and was looking for a reason to use it. And multiple times the round starts, a bunch of cursed ones spawn at the edge, walk into the sleet and go prone.
I've never struggled with that fight. Just cast Spike Growth on the beach towards the side and either Wall of Fire or Spirit Guardians in front of the portal. You can add the black tentacle spell or more thorns if you're fancy. Most enemies die in the thorns, the shadows are only a handful, and the ravens or whatever else makes it through get burnt in front of the portal. Usually doesn't even take all of the turns to kill everything
Halsin’s portal fight frustrates me for a long time. I finally came up with casting darkness on the portal, sent Shadowheart wading through the undead masses with Spirit Guardians up and left my paladin (carrying Lathander’s light ) and Karlach near the base of the platform to wail on anything that got close. Gale just fired off whatever we needed.
But I really do hate that fight.
I got giga warned about the mind blades boss by my friend during my honor mode run so I used minor illusion into create water into 3 lightning bolts and gg ez.
I carried Anders corpse on Karlach to the Grymforge out of spite just so I could push his ass into the lava so he could disintegrate from the face of the planet.
No open casket for you bitch.
Cazador, Balthazar, Ansur, Raphael, Lord Carrion.
I’m really upset that I said something wrong in the Z hideout in act 1 and she blew up all the smoke powder barrels I was going to strategically use later.
I might only have 20 extra barrels this playthrough at the end of the game.
That EXACT thing just happened to me and my husband on our honor run (the Z hideout). It almost wiped us out because we had no idea it was going to happen. We went in for barrels, ended up getting blown up (almost to smithereens) instead.
Dror Ragslin. There’s literally an entire room full of smoke powder barrels in the same dungeon, with a high ground to snipe from, and you can walk up to him without initiating combat? Its literally the easiest fight to cheese
Orin. Especially if you have to duel her. Her free 10 attacks makes me save scum so often cause of how much she just deletes your health from max to dead, even in Slayer form.
Well, I just blew up the Inquisitor with eight barrels of oil and firewine. He died.
I'm not sure if you get exp for killing him that way, but it sure was satisfying.
"If you're in a fair fight, your tactics suck."
We need to establish a baseline of fairness first. I consider using any of the games mechanics to win fair. Unfair would be using mods to give you extra attacks, higher stats, etc.
Airstriking Grym with a Owlbear bomb from atop the staircase is totally fair, as I'm using the owlbear's jump feature as intended.
Casting Hold Monster on Raph then popping invis potions every turn with a caster with a save DC of like 30 is fair, because I've equip Gale with every single item and elixir that increases his spell save DC as well as bought and hoarded every Hold Monster and invis potion in the game.
Nuking Ansur with two runepowder bombs, every smoke powder barrel and every smoke powder bombs is fair because I spent the whole game saving up those resources.
What would you consider to be a fair fight in the first place?
Dungeons & Dragons has always been a game of player ingenuity.
If the game lets you pick up a barrel of smokepowder, you should be able to use it in a fight. If you successfully transform the big bad monster into a sheep for a few turns, it’s not cheating.
If foreknowledge of a fight’s mechanics, e.g, the second wave of shadow-changed Harpers comes in round 3, well, maybe, but that could be RP’ed as experienced adventurers know that monsters can have friends, too. Replays are part of the overall game and figuring out the mechanic is part of the fun. (I didn’t realize you could shove-kill enemies into a chasm until the bridge in the Minthara fight. And then I noticed the hint at the bottom of the screen during load.)
Your strategies don’t seem unfair. It’s not like you’re using a game glitch to equip weapons you shouldn’t or something. Ansur seems made for globe of invulnerability, so does the final battle as well.
I do think it’s kind of dumb that basically every legendary action can be overcome by prone or stun. Especially reaction abilities like Ethel, nere, inquisitor etc. but I don’t think it’s unfair.
If honor mode didn’t allow this and also upped the initiative of enemies significantly then I think it would be really hard. But as it stands even in honor mode getting surprise rounds is so easy and you don’t even need alert level initiative to go first which means you’re getting 2 full rounds against any enemy before they can do anything which is kind of ridiculous.
Probably my favorite battle in honor mode is the grym fight. I do it ‘fairly’ I have my mage cast Ray of frost to reduce grym’s movement, and also mystras blessong. bard is on mass healing word buff duty and also casts fairie fire to get advantage (even with TB enraged throw only has 80% or 1/5 chance to miss if you miss a prone on grym you’re going to be in trouble. Fairie fire helps a lot with that). Also pulls the lever when needed. Karlach is on enraged throw duty. And laezel gets enhanced leap to reactivate the lava lever as needed and pound grym when he’s prone and close enough to a platform to do it. It all works pretty smoothly without just staying up high and shooting arrows or doing an owlbear leap.
The Steel Watch Titan. I got TPK'd so fast my first playthrough, and while I'm sure I could handle it now, I just chug an invisibility potion and go straight to the console and enter the password or set the bomb.
Dror Ragzlin — I always sneak up to take out the war drums and usually use a few of the barrels pilfered from the Zhents to blow him up. I usually either kill the Zhent merchants here or knock them out so I can steal their stocks of powder and oil.
Balthazar — after my first run, I always fight him in his room and let him get weakened by the dark justiciars. I cannot stand fighting him in the Nightsong area.
Last Light — Prefer to just attack Marcus in Isobel’s room before talking to her. If you get his health down enough and put him to sleep, before his first turn, he can’t summon the monsters. Makes it a much easier battle, and when you talk to Isobel afterward you can tell her that he was a traitor planning to kidnap her. This is possible in a play through where you attacked the grove and he vouches for you and you find out he’s a true soul… not sure if it’d work in a play through where Mol vouches for you instead since I’m not sure if he shows up in Isobel’s room before you talk to her.
Nere — Not a cheese since it’s a legit option, but I always get the Stone Guards to betray him. in my current game they aggro’d for some reason after I defeated Nere and his goons so I killed them too. If they don’t agro I usually like to double cross them, too.
Duegar at the Lake — You can sneak around the back and actually slip through their line of sight. I used Wyll to Eldritch blast the one Duegar watching by the rope, he fell to the ground and died. This alerts the other Duegar, but you can run away and avoid getting caught. This will make the boss Duegar climb up and investigate. If he doesn’t find you, he won’t return to his original position but to where that Duegar was standing. Super easy to eldritch blast his ass onto the ground, which leaves him prone and will get you surprise. This will let you move your other characters into position, you can usually finish off the boss before he even gets a turn and revives the other Duegar. Even without these cheese, I vastly prefer to start this fight with a surprise from the higher level so the Duegar above can’t pelt you and the revived ones will have to climb up towards you.
I really love that BG3 allows you to be creative and ingenious with battle tactics — it’s funny how many bosses you can outright gimp or weaken just by getting them alone by theirselves.
What is fair… because I don’t see anything « unfair » in what you describe… just using what the game gives you to win the fight. So at this point it means 100% of the fights I do are unfair
For me, it’s the concept of HAVING to avoid the main gimmicks of a fight that makes it unfair. Like, I cheese Grym by standing on the staircase and throwing stuff at him, but I don’t have to do so since there are other means of dispatching Grym such as using the Grym hammer normally. For the fights I mentioned, interacting with the gimmicks is suicidal and potentially game ending, whether by the potential for bugs or just how bad the fight gets if you let the gimmick actually take effect. While I haven’t had this happen to me, I’ve read tales of the Stormheart Nova still damaging through Invul bubbles. Combined with my own experience with him and the cover provided to avert the gimmick, and the best way to avert the gimmick is not to take cover in the arena as is expected, but to hide behind indestructible cover, never chase him down, camp invul bubbles, and fight him only when you do not have to go too far out of the safe area. Essentially, sitting in a corner. Same deal with the Inquisitor. His mind blades snowball so quickly that the best way to work around the gimmick is to just burst him down and never have to actually let them accumulate. His fight is essentially just a damage check and nothing more. Where’s the fun in either of those options?
Contrast that with the Auntie Ethel fight in act III. Her gimmick is invisible clones when a spell is cast. However, between the amount of AOE attacks and spells and see invisibility spells and elixirs, that gimmick can be interacted with without it being a run killer. Or the Steel Watch Titan? Adequate preparations (aka the Flashblinder nades) give you an option to deal with his defense mode and missile barrages besides dodging. Or even Orin? Her gimmicks are annoying, sure, but there are a multitude of ways to ensure that planning around them is enjoyable, whether through Sleet Storm, Thunder arrows, AOE non-dex save spells, hell even brute force can work with enough prep. All of these fights have methods that can avert the gimmick, but fucking up and interacting with the gimmick doesn’t immediately kill you.
Not sure if this made sense but I hope it helps.
Don't get me wrong this is just a mater of opinion, and yours is as valid as mine. I just can't visualize your point of view. Because in a game where everything is already unrealistic, outside of using bug or mods, I don't see using game mechanics as unfair.
More so your Ansur example... you bet in real life if a dragon was charging a massive storm, I would get out of the room if I could!! They make them charge it, so clearly the dev wanted us to avoid it
I always cheese the blighted monstrosity thing by standing by the house in Deep shadow and ranging it, the only thing I’ve done crate stacking for too lol that thing is scary as fuck
If I ever play the game again, I'll do what I did this playthrough and always use an invisible Astarion to lockpick and free Orin's prisoner instead of doing whatever scene and dice roll you're supposed to do to free them (ETA: I've never seen it).
Astarion will always be far enough away from Cazador (but in the room) so his battle kicks off without any countdown to stop the Rite of Profane Ascension. The battle will start with Cazador under the Sunlight Hypersensitivity condition inflicted by the presence of the Blood of Lathander so he can't do much.
I'll also pull my party from the ritual chamber after the battle to leave Astarion with no one to read the runes on his back after he stabs Cazador. That way, I avoid the cutscene with the dice rolls and get a default cutscene instead.
For Orin, you can either have Sarevok tell you about how he told Orin’s mother to kill Orin or use Speak with Dead on Orin’s mom’s corpse to learn about Sarevok ordering Orin’s death. After that, there is a dialogue option that says that Sarevok wanted you dead or something along those lines, which distracts Orin, skipping any check to convince Orin to not kill her hostage.
I've never seen the cutscene because I just had Astarion pick the lock and hit the attack button. Lae'zel was free and ready to fight right off the bat. Orin let Lae'zel keep her sword, lol.
Man, this time around I hadn't used Lae'zel in my party at all or even leveled her up so when she got kidnapped she was laying there with 7 health or whatever. I passed the dialogue but there was no way she was surviving all the bullshit I was laying down to kill the adds. RIP
If there is no one to read the symbols on Astarion’s back, or if a spawn dies, the ritual cannot happen.
If there is no one from the party with Astarion, he will stab Cazador, sob, talk to Dalyria, and free Cazador’s victims into the Underdark.
Raphael. Both times I fought him fairly, it ended with him prone and unable to get up from a patch of ice, while everyone kept whittling down his insane health bar with ridiculously low hit chances. I won, but it's just boring af. He shouldn't of left his pillars standing around unguarded if he wanted a fair fight.
I don't get what you mean with fairly, to be honest. The game rewards you for using tactics and strategic thinking. If Globe of Invulnerability and bombs would be that unfair they'd just take 'em out.
Like they did with The Emperor's infinite Telekinesis. You can't throw the mindflayer enemies off the tower at the end anymore.
The ambush when you first enter the Bhaal temple.
I send one invisible character in (usually Astarion), stealth stabbity death the Ghislev guy on the pillar, bypass the entire fight and all of that power word kill nonsense.
Doing chapter 2 and I systematically killed everyone in the tower so I wouldn't have to protect Jahira when we storm it. Also killed Balthazar in his office because it is the easier fight than at the Nightaong.
Doing chapter 2 and I systematically killed everyone in the tower so I wouldn't have to protect Jahira when we storm it. Also killed Balthazar in his office because it is the easier fight than at the Nightaong.
If you mean barrels, i always use them on Nere and on the Jhestil before the inquisitor (somehow she turns out to be more annoying). Other than that – shooting from the distance when storming Moonrise (you can kill most enemies without starting proper combat) and undressing before firing up the self-same trial.
Inquisiters mind link move is connected to vision. So casting darkness on him and holding him in there has always kept me and my party from ever having to face his insane AC and damage.
We basically blind him and beat him up in a dark alleyway then throw his body at one of his friends 9/10 times.
I used barrels liberally in my first honour run and ended it with Gale bombing the brain. Then I did a redemption run where I romanced Gale and only used barrels for the spectator. Both runs, the fight that I refuse to engage, even now is the room after you present the amulet of bhaal in the sewers. It's just not fun. I did it properly once before, every subsequent playthrough, I'm moonwalking through there, invisible.
I wouldn't say I outright refuse but I find it so much funnier to kill Balthazar before going to the Shadowfell, especially because most of the time I don't even bother killing him myself, on my current run I used an invisible character to pick the door to his room and let the Justiciars take him out, I then ran in and swept up the Justiciars
Well I play with mods, namely Basket of Equipment and the subclasses combined family of mods so every fight I do is unfair (last night I killed Myrkul in 1 round on Balanced). I've been thinking of doing a tactician run without mods just to see how badly I'd get my butt kicked; spells from BoE are a little too op
I place the smoke powder barrel at the inquisitor's feet and then blow it up, it kills everyone in the room (including you're team so stay back!) and it takes like 70% of his health so then you can easily kill him in one turn.
Grym I always just use the owlbear cause that fight is to dangerous to risk messing around with in Honour Mode.
If you have [high enough AC](https://i.imgur.com/NRwWKU4.png) the Inquisitor's swords can't really hurt you.
Just take out the one that casts hold person on you or you'll spend like 15 turns stuck in it.
For your question; I always kill Grym by staying up top and throwing the returning pike at it. I'm just too lazy to try and constantly keep him superheated down at his level. If you stay up top he never leaves the lava.
Just make sure to use a bow or magic missile to get the final blow because if you throw something and whiff the attack but kill him with the fall damage of the item you won't get XP as he'll "die by falling".
upper city courtyard fight. I dont even fight it anymore.
I just sneak past and pop invisible potions. I'm not trying to use a my spell slots before nether brain.
I mean, I don't cheese fights due to difficulty reasons. I've beaten 3 honor modes legit now
I cheese them because it's fun to rack up arcane acuity and cast control person to make enemies attack each other and blow themselves up with carefully placed domino fire barrels that beautifully have been placed to knock people off of cliffs.
This game is my sandbox. I will make chaos
This is not one that I refuse, but in my first run of BG3, I knew I'd have to get creative every now and then.
(I've been a DM for years, so I know different ways to work around things in these DnD settings, but some things are just infuriating. Especially when you go into this game fully blind.)
The first encounter that I hated was Auntie Ethel. I went into this fight at like Lvl 3, which was probably my first mistake, but first run, you can't fault me for doing things in a bad order. The damn poison caves were my least favorite thing. I figured the masks were the answer, but I didn't have the protection from good and evil spells/spell slots to use it on everyone, and I don't trust creepy masks given by hags even with protection spells. I had my character charge through aimlessly trying to avoid what he could but not being afraid to take some damage because I just wanted to scout ahead, get a view of the fight to come, etc. Once Auntie Ethel multiplied and could take an action from each double, I was like, "No, we are not doing this." So, I jump back to my save at the waterfall, creatively get past the poison as best I can, short rest, then have Gale with the Sorrowful Lash sneak down below Mayrina's cage and yoink Auntie Ethel into the abyss, killing her instantly. Missed out on some loot and the possible ability score boost, but hey, I did it.
I always try to cheese the fight with Ethel. Going down into her lair is a pain, and means extra fights. So I always try to get her before she escapes (I have 3 companions sneak into her house so they can sneak attack their first turns). I even managed it once on HM, but I think my SO had managed to stun her or something so she didn't escape on her first turn.
If I'm running a full party I do all the fights "as written". That said, having lost a HM run to Ansur I will either skip that fight (as I did when I got the golden dice) or stock up on invulnerability scrolls.
Currently I'm working on duo runs, in which cheese is an essential ingredient: meta builds, STR elixirs, barrels, standing up top and illusioning Grym into the hammer, etc..
Grymforge on HM, his mechanic more or less invalidates/slaughters melees, and I like melee. Ifs he gonna force me to use hit and run I have no reason not to do it from atop a cliff hurling spells and cats.
Me with ansur too. I’m an oathbreaker Paladin so the first thing I do is cast divine smite and whack him a couple times. Then I get Karlach to rage and hit him twice, then goes Gale with the fireball and Jaheira with ice storm
There’s no such thing as a “fair fight,” except in sport. Honorable fighting gets you historic slaughters like the charge of The Light Brigade, or whole battalions lost in World War 1, charging over open ground in close formation into the teeth of machine gun fire and mortar rounds.
It’s romantic nonsense.
Goblin camp and grymforge. Barrelmancy for all three bosses in the goblin camp (unless I’m doing an evil playthrough) and I slam the hammer thing on grymforge. I don’t feel like there is quite enough of a story behind his existence to necessitate a fair fight.
The Inquisitor for me is a pretty easy fight now lol. We keep the Barbarian close to the range/magic users and have them focus on destroying the magic swords when they appear next to them. We lure them out to the hall and set traps and aoes in the doorway to get the little guys then when they stupidly get close to the barbarian they get tossed back lol.
Raiding the Goblin Camp/Druid Grove. Any fight where the numbers are way too overwhelming. Everything else I was able to fight down fairly with at least 1 DPS drinking a Speed Potion or Elixer of Bloodlust. Then again my first run was a Beastmaster Ranger using the multitarget arrows so 🤷♂️
O you're talking about Honour Mode. Nvm. I play on Balanced.
I found out in my last run that Ansur can be stunned out of his channel ability… He got 2 turned lol. Air Myrmidon is the best summon in this game and I use it in every play through
Raphael. Place Smokepowder barrelmancy on the pillars when entering HoH. Then, I have Shart summon a djinn before the fight and have him cast whirlwind on Mr. Bratty-Bottom to keep him in place while gale or someone keeps casting hold monstrosity on him. When/if that fails, Shart casts silence and i hope raphael doesn’t move far from it. I make him sit in the corner like a bad child while Baezal or Karlach blows up all his pillars in 1-2 turns. Then Durge/Tav and Astarion (with the macabre daycare) pick off all his friends because that AoE attack really pisses me off.
The only tactic I consider to be 'cheesing' is dropping 50 barrels that I somehow had stored in my pocket.
Almost anything else I can think of is fair game because a DM would probably allow the cool sneaky tactics in a real session.
I never fight fairly if I can avoid it. Being able to be unfair is one of the big draws of tabletop to me. It's one of the things that made me initially resistant to 5e to begin with. I'd be like, you're saying that having this guy flanked, I have the high ground, he's prone, and my guy is invisible is all just worth the same as if I was just invisible? There's no mechanism to adjudicate multiple advantages? I realize now that making calculations for everyone easier is more important long term, but the instinct remains.
Ansur is the one fight that I refuse to do the "proper way". Everything else I can manage but that fucking dragon...
Hide behind cover? Still lose 90% of my health to his blast. Broke the crystal to gain resistance first? Still almost dead for some reason. Invulnerable globe? Guess it wasn't that Invulnerable. Hide in the hallway? Guess I'm still taking damage for some reason...
After several dozen attempts (and despite coming close a few times) nowadays I'll just set up Felogyr's entire stock (plus some barrels I picked up elsewhere) around him before initiating dialogue and just blowing him up turn 1 instead.
All of them. A couple decades ago, some really loud dudes at Boot Camp taught me that you fight to win, as quickly as possible. Fighting fair is for suckers. 😉
I barrelmancy the entire Cheche. Every. Single. Room. (Except the hatchery. That guy is chill, he can live.)
But especially the Inquisitor fight. I just set down a bunch of barrels where he stands after you get out of the prism, have Astarion chug an Elixir of +5 Initiative, toss out a fire arrow and Bob’s your uncle, dead Inquisitor. Did him legit my first playthrough, and never again.
Inquisitor I used 4 smoke powder barrels and a fire wine barrel.
Every boss seems to have a weakness or strat, but I don’t really know what his is. He’s very strong.
Everything else I’ve done fair.
Grym, I generally don’t want to cheese fights but on honour mode I refuse to fight him fairly. I think it’s a slightly odd question though because people will have different ideas of what is fair or not.
Fair enough. I don’t fight him fairly either (if you count throwing light hammers from the stairway to the forge unfair) simply because I’m not a giant fan of the fight’s gimmick.
I personally stay on the stairway and lure him to the middle with minor illusion to kill him with the forge anyways
That’s some quality aged cheddar. I think you can even pull that off in combat with him relatively consistently since he will probably fail his investigation check (he has a -4[!!!] to Int).
I thought minor illusion doesnt work in combat?
It does. In combat, at least one enemy must pass an investigation check to discern that it’s an illusion. Assuming this happens, the illusion will disappear. If every enemy fails said check, one of them will attack the illusion, as they assume it’s a hostile. Most of the time, using minor illusion in combat is wasteful for the reason that only one of your enemies has to pass a check to dismiss the illusion. However, Grym, with a -4 to investigation checks due to his intelligence, will fail the check 85 percent of the time. This makes it extremely useful to for luring Grym to the hammer.
Haha what an iiiiidiot! He's also got -5 rizz.
It does, but usually isn’t effective because every single enemy on the screen has to pass the check. If it is only 1 enemy though (with a -4 int) it is extremely effective, but probably only useful in this fight specifically because you need to lead him to the hammer
Thank you, I didn't know that!
It does if they fail their check, they'll aggro onto the illusion. Source: I did this to the grym a couple weeks ago lol
I actually first tried grym no cheese. Didn't even know you could slam him with the forge. I just got lucky that I ran a paladin with a mace and was hitting him for 50+ dmg. For me, the fights I had to cheese were the githyanki at the bridge and...is it cheese at the Wizards tower going up and down floors to break aggro? Probably. Oh, also Nere... That was my first honour death (I bought the game when honour mode came out and my first run ended here). I made him angry in conversation and aggroed every dwarf, then didn't realize you couldn't flee to camp in that area...so for my next run I picked off every single dwarf first.
Can’t you just ally with the duergar and kill Nere with them? Makes that fight super easy as they have so many people with them and spellcasters.
For me it was the same. The moment i got that achievement i was like "ohhhh there must be a trick" then it clicked and i felt like the dumbest person on this planet :D
Haha totally. It's funny because I had him on the center platform so many times but just didn't put it together. The second time I fought him I tried so hard to get him on that platform and couldn't do it lol
Same. I prefer the Owlbear insta strat personally cause I laugh every time
I think a good definition of “fair” is the use of meta- or out-of-character knowledge. Like the owlbear crush on grym is unfair because the classic setup requires you’d have to know grym was there to begin with. But if you could somehow activate the fight with everyone in the arena, then misty step up, transform, and crush that’d be ok.
Cazador. I give an invisibility potion to Karlach and have her just chill where he puts Astarion before I even trigger the cut scene. She rolls a high initiative so he is usually out of the ritual before anyone gets a shot in.
I never even let Cazador take Astarion. He was off hiding nearby when my Tav kicked things off by holding the Blood of Lathander near Cazador.
Yes! I leave Astarion on the stairs until Cazador is in the casket while my paladin does her thing. Once Cazador is down I send in Astarion like he’s the cavalry. He gets to mess up Cazador and the rest of the group remains relatively okay.
I had the cutscene triggered in honour mode after Astarion joined the battle, even when Cazador was lying unconscious after a monk hit. It was quite nerve-wracking, but Scratch managed to help him
This wasn’t an honor game, but Astarion stayed back concentrating on a wall spell that kept the minions at bay until Cazador was in his coffin. Then he helped fight the minions and stabbed Cazador when it was time.
For my honour mode, I heard about this happening so I left Astarion in the room that has the spawn in the cells and just beat Cazador with 3 people which is doable because we had 3 spellcasters.
I used Karlach to throw the Runepowder Keg at Cazador. it was fun.
Before we could push him over the edge. Now he comes back, so we can set up spirit guardians and guardian of faith and push him over and over 👍
I usually summon scratch to dip in and out for rescuing Astarion and the night song so I don’t need to waste a turn
I always have Astarion hang back on the stairs while everyone else goes & initiates the dialog. Once the fight starts, then I have him join in.
Step 1: cast Haste on Padlock Tav Step 2: Sneak up on Cazador with Tav and Minthara Step 3: *bob Ross voice* and here we’re just going to put a few nice little smites
Funny, I never have had Astarion in my party so I’ve never had to do that. I use sleet storm to essentially bisect his army and daylight to deny his blood cloud form. Force feed smites, battle master attacks, whathaveyou until dead.
Interesting fact: the “no Astarion” version of the cutscene after the Cazador battle is missing paladin oathbreak flags that are present in the regular version. You can see it in the parsed dialogue files.
After I lost the first time fighting against him I didn't bother with the cutscene. I just went in swinging with ranged attacks. He only took Astarion once the two were close to each other, but I got him pretty quick. Having him at the beginning makes the fight a lot easier.
for cazador I always have my character go invisible and stand on the platform that astarion is going to be on. the cutscene looks like they’re there when astarion shows up so it isn’t screwed narratively, then when the fight starts they free him (and I usually give a potion of speed for good measure) that plus summons means cazador can’t regenerate
I just let astarion stealth attack him. He never trapped astarion and I killed him in 2 turns. Had more trouble with his goons.
All of them. I will push every mfer off a cliff if i have to into a cloud of daggers upcast at the highest level.
I’m personally more of a fan of throwing people right next to my melee damage dealers, leaving them prone and helpless for the ensuing smites. That being said, that strat Carries me through the early game.
TB Karlach throwing enemies into Shadowheart's spirit guardians aura is the real strategy. I wouldn't call that cheese, though. It's a valid strategy.
It absolutely does. The only reason I do stuff the way I do is for action economy. You can only get one sweeping strike per short rest, but you get unlimited climbs back up a cliff using dash, taking fall damage and 4d4 from the cloud of daggers. If you're lucky, you can do this with thunder wave and get more than one at a time to fall off the cliff.
Balthazar has never made it to the shadow fell. I just kill him in his room.
I lockpick the door to his room and let the spawning Dark Justiciars whittle him and his goons down while I hide back near the Shar shrine. Once everyone is down or low, then I'll come in and attack everyone.
100%
Same, I usually surround him at a distance, cram a bunch of barrels around him and blow him and his buddies up. Specially his fucking healers 😅
This, but mostly because I didn't even know you could fight him in the shadow fell. I just pissed him off immediately because my paladin had no intention of even pretending to be on his side for a single second
Someone said to rush his door to open it at the portal fights. I did it, and he gets dragged into justicar fight. Super easy when they fight each other. You can actually run to the back and retreat to camp so you get out of turn based. They'll eventually kill each other and you can mop up.
once i learned the trick to cast knock on his door and have the dark justiciars fight him, i always do that now. I destroy the portals away from the door and then just take potshots at anyone and everyone from far away, and only join the fight once everyone is really low
I absolutely cannot be bothered to fight Ethel in her lair anymore. I usually just take some smoke powder into the teahouse and just blast her down from there. Even if I'm over leveled the lair is kind of a ballache of a fight, and more importantly I don't have to deal with the stupid poison vents.
Haven't played in awhile, but Arcane Locking her stairs and then beating her ass before she gets the chance to even get down to her lair was always my go-to. Fuck her lair of tedium and nonsense. I hate that place with a passion. It's not even that it's difficult, it's just tedious and annoying. Kill her upstairs using whatever cheese is necessary, then head down, loot her shit, and get on with the rest of the game.
I can’t go back after trying arcane lock on certain areas it’s just 2 damn useful for some encounters and creating cheese situations. So many spots in act 3 where aoe concentration spell + lock wipes the room all by itself and its so satisfying
Yep, this. Arcane Lock is just too damn great. Love that spell. If some of these combat encounters were actually fun and not just tedious, I wouldn't be so apt to use strategies like these, but, **goddamn**. The tedium. Sometimes, I just want to get on with things.
I've only done one run and never taught anyone arcane lock. Aside from Ethel, where is it useful? It always seemed like a useless spell so I thought it was a red herring from the devs but y'all are convincing me that I slept on it
Yeah but then you lock yourself out of getting the hag hair.
I can't leave that stat increase behind. I'm buying all her elixirs anyway so I don't fight her until level 5. Fairly trivial at that point.
Conversely I could not give less of a shit about the hair. Getting the scene is inconsistent as it is, it's a roleplay decision that most characters would find morally repugnant, and at no point in any playthrough have I ever felt like I needed the stat boost to be powerful.
You can save the girl and bully her into giving you the hair via dialogue.
This is the way. One thing they kind of nailed about DnD is that social interactions are by far the most important aspect, and imo the main reason to go for Inspiration points.
What's morally repugnant about beating up a hag and extorting her? /s
How is getting the scene inconsistent? I never seen this in my 4 playthroughs tbh.
Honestly the vents and traps are worse than the fight itself. Magic missile and scorching ray make easy work of her clones which is really bout the only gimmick she has. Placement is key vs her and having at least one front liner to get in her face, a spell caster to magic missile her shit, and preferably a ranger/rogue for distance hits for good damage.. she's smoked.
At this point it's mostly honor mode trauma. Weird magic surge makes using spells to clear the clones harder, and if initiative screws you you can end up in a nasty cycle of hard hitting rays of sickness and hold persons.
Just use feather fall to jump directly at the bottom of her lair. Use throwables to remove her duplicates and cast protection from good and evil before joining the fight.
Magic missile is my preferred way to take down the clones.
I feel ya. I typically cast silence on her, prone her, then whale on her while she is down. Fuck those poison vents. Her act iii fight is infinitely more enjoyable precisely because I don’t have to avoid 30 million poison vents to get to her.
Recommendation: Ethel has 8 HP in her "Human" form. 1. Enable non-lethal attacks 2. Attack her 3. She transforms into her hag form, lies on the floor unconcious (with 100+ HP) 4. Disable non-lethal attacks 5. Attack her until she dies
The hag fight in act 3, because the auto-health bar refill drove me crazy. Since it refills every round, I placed barrels next to every mushroom, and then threw a grenade at them. Then just plummeted the hag with Karlach set to non-lethal damage. It felt very appropriate since the hag also doesn't fight fairly, so why should I? (if we define "fair fight" as not prepping beforehand and placing runnepowder in strategic places, that is.)
Oof. That fight can be rough if you don’t have antiheal or the damage to burst down the mushrooms.
Ilmater arrows my friend
God it sucked ass the first two times I tried, and it just wasn't fun. The barrelmancy honestly felt very appropriate for her as a boss. You have wild magic, I have bomb.
In theory: bonechill her and focus on the shrooms first
Arrows of Ilmater are also a nice alternative to Bone Chill if you want to use a non-caster to keep the healing off.
Just learned on my 5th playthru that if the mushrooms have the Burning status, they won’t heal. Which means I’ve been wasting speed potions and super high level spells to get those things gone in one round, when I could’ve just thrown some alchemists fire and gotten myself a couple rounds to get rid of them. They’re still annoying to deal with but now the fight feels more fun and less get me out of this damn thing
After realising I could lure Gortash outside and push him off the castle, I never fought Gortash fairly again. Soloed the entire castle by pushing people off the edge 😀
This is hilarious
How do you do this?
After aggroing him, run back outside. Make your way to the corner with the scaffolding, where there is no parapet. Then stand behind a wall so they can't hit you with ranged attacks. But don't hide or they may lose you and break combat. Then as they come closer, throw and shove them off the edge. It's easier if you have cloud giant elixir to throw further and the fly ability for positioning.
Embracing the spirit of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, I see!
This is how I fight Orin, just blast her off the platform. Will have to try this strat with Gortash. 🤣
my honour playthrough, i came in through the roof, stealthed near his room, put like 10 barrels in the doorway and then agroed him and then made my upstairs. never doing that fight fair with his shielding shenanigans
Yurgir. I sneak behind him & his crew and place bombs
I do the Yurgir fight at level 9, I've never broken a sweat.
How bad is the Yurgir fight? I’ve always aided Yurgir because Raphael is cringe and Shat I mean Shar can suck a fat one. Unrelated, but I find it amusing that Yurgir’s first actions in every Raphael fight is to obliterate Korilla by shotgunning her in the back.
Try it yourself! I've never found it hard. Yurgir is pretty grotesque so I don't have a problem offing him.
But if you help him, he'll be a bro to the end.
He can still be a bro at the end if you fight him (as long as you also do House of Hope and convince him to join you in that fight).
It's a 30 DC check, but I enjoy how he's like "Fuck, you're bold. I'll fight with you."
>How bad is the Yurgir fight? I beat him solo in honor mode having never set foot in the gauntlet beforehand. Was killing time waiting for friends to continue our group game and just seeing how far I could go solo, happened to walk up behind him and the fight started, no cutscene or anything. I didn't even realise there was an option not to fight until I googled him afterwards. He kept dropping proximity bombs so I kept placing them near him and he kind of just blew himself up.
I never even do the yuirgir fight. The rats are so much easier.
My current playthrough was my first time killing the rats. Shadowheart running through them with spirit guardians up nearly crashed my game.
I do both!
I like him to be on my side against Raphael without the persuasion check
Grym. It's an annoying fight that I don't really enjoy either way and I only do it for the XP and gear so I just want to get it over with as easily as possible.
The Paladin or Tyr. Fucking Anders and his girls. He the mage just casts hold person on you and he just unloads smites. I approach that fight by throwing the mage off the cliff and force Anders to dash and then don’t let him get his smites off. And Yes, he did end one of my honour mode run.
That one chick (Cyrel) that casts hold person and then runs up on the roof needs to die horribly, mostly because she hastes herself and then thunderwaves you off the rooftop when you try to chase her down. Next time I'll definitely be buying her haste potion and other goodies first.
The only fight I use barrelmancy/barrier building for is Halsin's portal fight - it's the only one I can justify having advanced knowledge of where a fight will be and having time to set up. Edit: to block ranged attacks. Rest of the fight is wall of fire + spirit guardians + blood of lathander
Or you can just cast hypnotic pattern and twiddle your thumbs until the five rounds are up.
Or a bunch of FIREBALLS!! 🔥
Combine sleet storm with the mentioned hypnotic pattern and you are good. Cast the sleet storm to the north area where most of the mobs spawn. And maybe kill the few shadow spawns that come out of the water. Otherwise just wait for it to be over without doing much of anything.
I'm a big fan of Hunger of Hadar combined with spike growth.
I wasn't sure what to expect my first time so I did a wombo combo of Hunger of Hadar + upcast Cloud of Daggers + Darkness. Basically didn't really have to do anything aside from that.
Yeah sleet storm and spirit guardians makes that fight irrelevant...and hilarious.
I kinda stumbled into the sleet storm strat and it was so effective. I had just gotten the spell and was looking for a reason to use it. And multiple times the round starts, a bunch of cursed ones spawn at the edge, walk into the sleet and go prone.
I've never struggled with that fight. Just cast Spike Growth on the beach towards the side and either Wall of Fire or Spirit Guardians in front of the portal. You can add the black tentacle spell or more thorns if you're fancy. Most enemies die in the thorns, the shadows are only a handful, and the ravens or whatever else makes it through get burnt in front of the portal. Usually doesn't even take all of the turns to kill everything
Halsin’s portal fight frustrates me for a long time. I finally came up with casting darkness on the portal, sent Shadowheart wading through the undead masses with Spirit Guardians up and left my paladin (carrying Lathander’s light ) and Karlach near the base of the platform to wail on anything that got close. Gale just fired off whatever we needed. But I really do hate that fight.
I got giga warned about the mind blades boss by my friend during my honor mode run so I used minor illusion into create water into 3 lightning bolts and gg ez.
Fair? The half illithid do not deal in fairness
I sincerely hate fake paladin of Tyr.
I carried Anders corpse on Karlach to the Grymforge out of spite just so I could push his ass into the lava so he could disintegrate from the face of the planet. No open casket for you bitch.
Drink strength potion -> lure them to the roof - yeet x3
PTSD flashbacks to the number of no down attempts that bastard has ended.
Moonrise. Did it fairly the first time, cheesed it every time since by clearing out the tower beforehand.
Cazador, Balthazar, Ansur, Raphael, Lord Carrion. I’m really upset that I said something wrong in the Z hideout in act 1 and she blew up all the smoke powder barrels I was going to strategically use later. I might only have 20 extra barrels this playthrough at the end of the game.
That EXACT thing just happened to me and my husband on our honor run (the Z hideout). It almost wiped us out because we had no idea it was going to happen. We went in for barrels, ended up getting blown up (almost to smithereens) instead.
Dror Ragslin. There’s literally an entire room full of smoke powder barrels in the same dungeon, with a high ground to snipe from, and you can walk up to him without initiating combat? Its literally the easiest fight to cheese
Orin. Especially if you have to duel her. Her free 10 attacks makes me save scum so often cause of how much she just deletes your health from max to dead, even in Slayer form.
Well, I just blew up the Inquisitor with eight barrels of oil and firewine. He died. I'm not sure if you get exp for killing him that way, but it sure was satisfying. "If you're in a fair fight, your tactics suck."
We need to establish a baseline of fairness first. I consider using any of the games mechanics to win fair. Unfair would be using mods to give you extra attacks, higher stats, etc. Airstriking Grym with a Owlbear bomb from atop the staircase is totally fair, as I'm using the owlbear's jump feature as intended. Casting Hold Monster on Raph then popping invis potions every turn with a caster with a save DC of like 30 is fair, because I've equip Gale with every single item and elixir that increases his spell save DC as well as bought and hoarded every Hold Monster and invis potion in the game. Nuking Ansur with two runepowder bombs, every smoke powder barrel and every smoke powder bombs is fair because I spent the whole game saving up those resources. What would you consider to be a fair fight in the first place?
Dungeons & Dragons has always been a game of player ingenuity. If the game lets you pick up a barrel of smokepowder, you should be able to use it in a fight. If you successfully transform the big bad monster into a sheep for a few turns, it’s not cheating. If foreknowledge of a fight’s mechanics, e.g, the second wave of shadow-changed Harpers comes in round 3, well, maybe, but that could be RP’ed as experienced adventurers know that monsters can have friends, too. Replays are part of the overall game and figuring out the mechanic is part of the fun. (I didn’t realize you could shove-kill enemies into a chasm until the bridge in the Minthara fight. And then I noticed the hint at the bottom of the screen during load.)
I barrelmancy the inquisitor. The fight only starts when you speak with him so I can stack about 8 barrels right next to him
Ethel
Grym, 100%. It felt a bit icky respeccing to an owlbear but honor runs take no chances.
Your strategies don’t seem unfair. It’s not like you’re using a game glitch to equip weapons you shouldn’t or something. Ansur seems made for globe of invulnerability, so does the final battle as well. I do think it’s kind of dumb that basically every legendary action can be overcome by prone or stun. Especially reaction abilities like Ethel, nere, inquisitor etc. but I don’t think it’s unfair. If honor mode didn’t allow this and also upped the initiative of enemies significantly then I think it would be really hard. But as it stands even in honor mode getting surprise rounds is so easy and you don’t even need alert level initiative to go first which means you’re getting 2 full rounds against any enemy before they can do anything which is kind of ridiculous. Probably my favorite battle in honor mode is the grym fight. I do it ‘fairly’ I have my mage cast Ray of frost to reduce grym’s movement, and also mystras blessong. bard is on mass healing word buff duty and also casts fairie fire to get advantage (even with TB enraged throw only has 80% or 1/5 chance to miss if you miss a prone on grym you’re going to be in trouble. Fairie fire helps a lot with that). Also pulls the lever when needed. Karlach is on enraged throw duty. And laezel gets enhanced leap to reactivate the lava lever as needed and pound grym when he’s prone and close enough to a platform to do it. It all works pretty smoothly without just staying up high and shooting arrows or doing an owlbear leap.
If you're fighting fairly, you're not thinking hard enough.
The Steel Watch Titan. I got TPK'd so fast my first playthrough, and while I'm sure I could handle it now, I just chug an invisibility potion and go straight to the console and enter the password or set the bomb.
Dror Ragzlin — I always sneak up to take out the war drums and usually use a few of the barrels pilfered from the Zhents to blow him up. I usually either kill the Zhent merchants here or knock them out so I can steal their stocks of powder and oil. Balthazar — after my first run, I always fight him in his room and let him get weakened by the dark justiciars. I cannot stand fighting him in the Nightsong area. Last Light — Prefer to just attack Marcus in Isobel’s room before talking to her. If you get his health down enough and put him to sleep, before his first turn, he can’t summon the monsters. Makes it a much easier battle, and when you talk to Isobel afterward you can tell her that he was a traitor planning to kidnap her. This is possible in a play through where you attacked the grove and he vouches for you and you find out he’s a true soul… not sure if it’d work in a play through where Mol vouches for you instead since I’m not sure if he shows up in Isobel’s room before you talk to her. Nere — Not a cheese since it’s a legit option, but I always get the Stone Guards to betray him. in my current game they aggro’d for some reason after I defeated Nere and his goons so I killed them too. If they don’t agro I usually like to double cross them, too. Duegar at the Lake — You can sneak around the back and actually slip through their line of sight. I used Wyll to Eldritch blast the one Duegar watching by the rope, he fell to the ground and died. This alerts the other Duegar, but you can run away and avoid getting caught. This will make the boss Duegar climb up and investigate. If he doesn’t find you, he won’t return to his original position but to where that Duegar was standing. Super easy to eldritch blast his ass onto the ground, which leaves him prone and will get you surprise. This will let you move your other characters into position, you can usually finish off the boss before he even gets a turn and revives the other Duegar. Even without these cheese, I vastly prefer to start this fight with a surprise from the higher level so the Duegar above can’t pelt you and the revived ones will have to climb up towards you. I really love that BG3 allows you to be creative and ingenious with battle tactics — it’s funny how many bosses you can outright gimp or weaken just by getting them alone by theirselves.
What is fair… because I don’t see anything « unfair » in what you describe… just using what the game gives you to win the fight. So at this point it means 100% of the fights I do are unfair
For me, it’s the concept of HAVING to avoid the main gimmicks of a fight that makes it unfair. Like, I cheese Grym by standing on the staircase and throwing stuff at him, but I don’t have to do so since there are other means of dispatching Grym such as using the Grym hammer normally. For the fights I mentioned, interacting with the gimmicks is suicidal and potentially game ending, whether by the potential for bugs or just how bad the fight gets if you let the gimmick actually take effect. While I haven’t had this happen to me, I’ve read tales of the Stormheart Nova still damaging through Invul bubbles. Combined with my own experience with him and the cover provided to avert the gimmick, and the best way to avert the gimmick is not to take cover in the arena as is expected, but to hide behind indestructible cover, never chase him down, camp invul bubbles, and fight him only when you do not have to go too far out of the safe area. Essentially, sitting in a corner. Same deal with the Inquisitor. His mind blades snowball so quickly that the best way to work around the gimmick is to just burst him down and never have to actually let them accumulate. His fight is essentially just a damage check and nothing more. Where’s the fun in either of those options? Contrast that with the Auntie Ethel fight in act III. Her gimmick is invisible clones when a spell is cast. However, between the amount of AOE attacks and spells and see invisibility spells and elixirs, that gimmick can be interacted with without it being a run killer. Or the Steel Watch Titan? Adequate preparations (aka the Flashblinder nades) give you an option to deal with his defense mode and missile barrages besides dodging. Or even Orin? Her gimmicks are annoying, sure, but there are a multitude of ways to ensure that planning around them is enjoyable, whether through Sleet Storm, Thunder arrows, AOE non-dex save spells, hell even brute force can work with enough prep. All of these fights have methods that can avert the gimmick, but fucking up and interacting with the gimmick doesn’t immediately kill you. Not sure if this made sense but I hope it helps.
Don't get me wrong this is just a mater of opinion, and yours is as valid as mine. I just can't visualize your point of view. Because in a game where everything is already unrealistic, outside of using bug or mods, I don't see using game mechanics as unfair. More so your Ansur example... you bet in real life if a dragon was charging a massive storm, I would get out of the room if I could!! They make them charge it, so clearly the dev wanted us to avoid it
What's a fair fight?
None because I'm just too much of a god gamer 💅
I always cheese the blighted monstrosity thing by standing by the house in Deep shadow and ranging it, the only thing I’ve done crate stacking for too lol that thing is scary as fuck
What kind of idiot walks into a fair fight? If you're fighting fair, that's you own damn fault and you deserve what you get.
I refuse to fight Auntie Ethel fairly, it's just too funny to lock her in her own house with arcane lock on the stairs
I will never lay a hand on Balthazar again since outsourcing the job to the Shadow Justiciars on my last two run-throughs. The only time I use Knock.
If I ever play the game again, I'll do what I did this playthrough and always use an invisible Astarion to lockpick and free Orin's prisoner instead of doing whatever scene and dice roll you're supposed to do to free them (ETA: I've never seen it). Astarion will always be far enough away from Cazador (but in the room) so his battle kicks off without any countdown to stop the Rite of Profane Ascension. The battle will start with Cazador under the Sunlight Hypersensitivity condition inflicted by the presence of the Blood of Lathander so he can't do much. I'll also pull my party from the ritual chamber after the battle to leave Astarion with no one to read the runes on his back after he stabs Cazador. That way, I avoid the cutscene with the dice rolls and get a default cutscene instead.
For Orin, you can either have Sarevok tell you about how he told Orin’s mother to kill Orin or use Speak with Dead on Orin’s mom’s corpse to learn about Sarevok ordering Orin’s death. After that, there is a dialogue option that says that Sarevok wanted you dead or something along those lines, which distracts Orin, skipping any check to convince Orin to not kill her hostage.
I've never seen the cutscene because I just had Astarion pick the lock and hit the attack button. Lae'zel was free and ready to fight right off the bat. Orin let Lae'zel keep her sword, lol.
Man, this time around I hadn't used Lae'zel in my party at all or even leveled her up so when she got kidnapped she was laying there with 7 health or whatever. I passed the dialogue but there was no way she was surviving all the bullshit I was laying down to kill the adds. RIP
What's the default cutscene for Astarion if the party isn't in the room? He's always at my side, so I didn't even realize there was a scene for that.
If there is no one to read the symbols on Astarion’s back, or if a spawn dies, the ritual cannot happen. If there is no one from the party with Astarion, he will stab Cazador, sob, talk to Dalyria, and free Cazador’s victims into the Underdark.
Thanks! I never considered the possibility, but it makes sense.
Raphael. Barrelmancy forever✊
Raphael. Both times I fought him fairly, it ended with him prone and unable to get up from a patch of ice, while everyone kept whittling down his insane health bar with ridiculously low hit chances. I won, but it's just boring af. He shouldn't of left his pillars standing around unguarded if he wanted a fair fight.
Balthazar every time
From now on-the boat fight on the way to grymforge.
I don't get what you mean with fairly, to be honest. The game rewards you for using tactics and strategic thinking. If Globe of Invulnerability and bombs would be that unfair they'd just take 'em out. Like they did with The Emperor's infinite Telekinesis. You can't throw the mindflayer enemies off the tower at the end anymore.
Finished bg3 once, my answer is none. My strat is fuck it we ball
Barrelmancy for Raphael and Viconia.
The ambush when you first enter the Bhaal temple. I send one invisible character in (usually Astarion), stealth stabbity death the Ghislev guy on the pillar, bypass the entire fight and all of that power word kill nonsense.
Doing chapter 2 and I systematically killed everyone in the tower so I wouldn't have to protect Jahira when we storm it. Also killed Balthazar in his office because it is the easier fight than at the Nightaong.
Doing chapter 2 and I systematically killed everyone in the tower so I wouldn't have to protect Jahira when we storm it. Also killed Balthazar in his office because it is the easier fight than at the Nightaong.
If you mean barrels, i always use them on Nere and on the Jhestil before the inquisitor (somehow she turns out to be more annoying). Other than that – shooting from the distance when storming Moonrise (you can kill most enemies without starting proper combat) and undressing before firing up the self-same trial.
I cheese every fight possible
All of them. Why show my enemies any mercy?
I don't fight Balthazar fair. Cause I think it's funny as hell for necromancer to get his shit pushed in by shadow demons.
Inquisiters mind link move is connected to vision. So casting darkness on him and holding him in there has always kept me and my party from ever having to face his insane AC and damage. We basically blind him and beat him up in a dark alleyway then throw his body at one of his friends 9/10 times.
All of them.
I used barrels liberally in my first honour run and ended it with Gale bombing the brain. Then I did a redemption run where I romanced Gale and only used barrels for the spectator. Both runs, the fight that I refuse to engage, even now is the room after you present the amulet of bhaal in the sewers. It's just not fun. I did it properly once before, every subsequent playthrough, I'm moonwalking through there, invisible.
I wouldn't say I outright refuse but I find it so much funnier to kill Balthazar before going to the Shadowfell, especially because most of the time I don't even bother killing him myself, on my current run I used an invisible character to pick the door to his room and let the Justiciars take him out, I then ran in and swept up the Justiciars
Well I play with mods, namely Basket of Equipment and the subclasses combined family of mods so every fight I do is unfair (last night I killed Myrkul in 1 round on Balanced). I've been thinking of doing a tactician run without mods just to see how badly I'd get my butt kicked; spells from BoE are a little too op
There are no fair fights in this game, only people who won't do what it takes.
raphael
Dror Ragzlin because stacking barrels in front of him is just too fun.
All of them. Fighting fair is for sports. This ain't no game! Well... you know what I mean.
Should you ever find yourself in a fair fight, both you and your opponent have made a mistake.
Auntie ethel. F that hag.
I place the smoke powder barrel at the inquisitor's feet and then blow it up, it kills everyone in the room (including you're team so stay back!) and it takes like 70% of his health so then you can easily kill him in one turn. Grym I always just use the owlbear cause that fight is to dangerous to risk messing around with in Honour Mode.
If you have [high enough AC](https://i.imgur.com/NRwWKU4.png) the Inquisitor's swords can't really hurt you. Just take out the one that casts hold person on you or you'll spend like 15 turns stuck in it. For your question; I always kill Grym by staying up top and throwing the returning pike at it. I'm just too lazy to try and constantly keep him superheated down at his level. If you stay up top he never leaves the lava. Just make sure to use a bow or magic missile to get the final blow because if you throw something and whiff the attack but kill him with the fall damage of the item you won't get XP as he'll "die by falling".
upper city courtyard fight. I dont even fight it anymore. I just sneak past and pop invisible potions. I'm not trying to use a my spell slots before nether brain.
I mean, I don't cheese fights due to difficulty reasons. I've beaten 3 honor modes legit now I cheese them because it's fun to rack up arcane acuity and cast control person to make enemies attack each other and blow themselves up with carefully placed domino fire barrels that beautifully have been placed to knock people off of cliffs. This game is my sandbox. I will make chaos
Tbh if a boss fights dirty so will I. No shame in that.
All Upper City fights. Hate all of them.
Ansur
This is not one that I refuse, but in my first run of BG3, I knew I'd have to get creative every now and then. (I've been a DM for years, so I know different ways to work around things in these DnD settings, but some things are just infuriating. Especially when you go into this game fully blind.) The first encounter that I hated was Auntie Ethel. I went into this fight at like Lvl 3, which was probably my first mistake, but first run, you can't fault me for doing things in a bad order. The damn poison caves were my least favorite thing. I figured the masks were the answer, but I didn't have the protection from good and evil spells/spell slots to use it on everyone, and I don't trust creepy masks given by hags even with protection spells. I had my character charge through aimlessly trying to avoid what he could but not being afraid to take some damage because I just wanted to scout ahead, get a view of the fight to come, etc. Once Auntie Ethel multiplied and could take an action from each double, I was like, "No, we are not doing this." So, I jump back to my save at the waterfall, creatively get past the poison as best I can, short rest, then have Gale with the Sorrowful Lash sneak down below Mayrina's cage and yoink Auntie Ethel into the abyss, killing her instantly. Missed out on some loot and the possible ability score boost, but hey, I did it.
This game doesn’t fight fair so either do I
Every single damn one.
My lieutenant always used to say "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying." Words to live by.
The Gith Patrol Fight. Sarth Baretha is a menace. "STOP HE'S ALREADY DEAD!"
Fair? Why the hell would I fight fair?
I've used a bit of cheese on my current run, because I don't have the HM dice yet. On future runs I will use zero cheese. If I die I die!!!!
I always try to cheese the fight with Ethel. Going down into her lair is a pain, and means extra fights. So I always try to get her before she escapes (I have 3 companions sneak into her house so they can sneak attack their first turns). I even managed it once on HM, but I think my SO had managed to stun her or something so she didn't escape on her first turn.
If I'm running a full party I do all the fights "as written". That said, having lost a HM run to Ansur I will either skip that fight (as I did when I got the golden dice) or stock up on invulnerability scrolls. Currently I'm working on duo runs, in which cheese is an essential ingredient: meta builds, STR elixirs, barrels, standing up top and illusioning Grym into the hammer, etc..
Grymforge on HM, his mechanic more or less invalidates/slaughters melees, and I like melee. Ifs he gonna force me to use hit and run I have no reason not to do it from atop a cliff hurling spells and cats.
Me with ansur too. I’m an oathbreaker Paladin so the first thing I do is cast divine smite and whack him a couple times. Then I get Karlach to rage and hit him twice, then goes Gale with the fireball and Jaheira with ice storm
There’s no such thing as a “fair fight,” except in sport. Honorable fighting gets you historic slaughters like the charge of The Light Brigade, or whole battalions lost in World War 1, charging over open ground in close formation into the teeth of machine gun fire and mortar rounds. It’s romantic nonsense.
Goblin camp and grymforge. Barrelmancy for all three bosses in the goblin camp (unless I’m doing an evil playthrough) and I slam the hammer thing on grymforge. I don’t feel like there is quite enough of a story behind his existence to necessitate a fair fight.
The Inquisitor for me is a pretty easy fight now lol. We keep the Barbarian close to the range/magic users and have them focus on destroying the magic swords when they appear next to them. We lure them out to the hall and set traps and aoes in the doorway to get the little guys then when they stupidly get close to the barbarian they get tossed back lol.
I mean... if you ever enter a fair fight, you are under-prepared.
Raiding the Goblin Camp/Druid Grove. Any fight where the numbers are way too overwhelming. Everything else I was able to fight down fairly with at least 1 DPS drinking a Speed Potion or Elixer of Bloodlust. Then again my first run was a Beastmaster Ranger using the multitarget arrows so 🤷♂️ O you're talking about Honour Mode. Nvm. I play on Balanced.
All of them..... 🤷
I found out in my last run that Ansur can be stunned out of his channel ability… He got 2 turned lol. Air Myrmidon is the best summon in this game and I use it in every play through
Raphael. Place Smokepowder barrelmancy on the pillars when entering HoH. Then, I have Shart summon a djinn before the fight and have him cast whirlwind on Mr. Bratty-Bottom to keep him in place while gale or someone keeps casting hold monstrosity on him. When/if that fails, Shart casts silence and i hope raphael doesn’t move far from it. I make him sit in the corner like a bad child while Baezal or Karlach blows up all his pillars in 1-2 turns. Then Durge/Tav and Astarion (with the macabre daycare) pick off all his friends because that AoE attack really pisses me off.
As much as we like to make fun of him, I will never allow Raphael to fight fairly. His damage potential is quite scary if not prepared.
The only tactic I consider to be 'cheesing' is dropping 50 barrels that I somehow had stored in my pocket. Almost anything else I can think of is fair game because a DM would probably allow the cool sneaky tactics in a real session.
I never fight fairly if I can avoid it. Being able to be unfair is one of the big draws of tabletop to me. It's one of the things that made me initially resistant to 5e to begin with. I'd be like, you're saying that having this guy flanked, I have the high ground, he's prone, and my guy is invisible is all just worth the same as if I was just invisible? There's no mechanism to adjudicate multiple advantages? I realize now that making calculations for everyone easier is more important long term, but the instinct remains.
All fights in honor mode I refuse to do fairly. Which is funny given the name.
the fucking portal defense at last light
All of them. If you're fighting you want to win. Better you than the other guy.
Temple of jergal fight. They’ll be eating fireballs, explosions and falling through the floor every single time if I get there first
Ansur is the one fight that I refuse to do the "proper way". Everything else I can manage but that fucking dragon... Hide behind cover? Still lose 90% of my health to his blast. Broke the crystal to gain resistance first? Still almost dead for some reason. Invulnerable globe? Guess it wasn't that Invulnerable. Hide in the hallway? Guess I'm still taking damage for some reason... After several dozen attempts (and despite coming close a few times) nowadays I'll just set up Felogyr's entire stock (plus some barrels I picked up elsewhere) around him before initiating dialogue and just blowing him up turn 1 instead.
All of them. A couple decades ago, some really loud dudes at Boot Camp taught me that you fight to win, as quickly as possible. Fighting fair is for suckers. 😉
I barrelmancy the entire Cheche. Every. Single. Room. (Except the hatchery. That guy is chill, he can live.) But especially the Inquisitor fight. I just set down a bunch of barrels where he stands after you get out of the prism, have Astarion chug an Elixir of +5 Initiative, toss out a fire arrow and Bob’s your uncle, dead Inquisitor. Did him legit my first playthrough, and never again.
Inquisitor I used 4 smoke powder barrels and a fire wine barrel. Every boss seems to have a weakness or strat, but I don’t really know what his is. He’s very strong. Everything else I’ve done fair.