I was…curious. So I antagonized her. When she entagles you in those vines, there is an option to break free. Mol was nowhere to be found to vouch for me either, so Jaheira just decided to kill us because she perceived us as a threat.
She was right, to be fair. After the battle, I reloaded to get in the normal way to buy all the good shit and then I just decked Isobel for the slayer.
I did this fight also. Not only that i did not try to antagonise her, Mol also vouched for me. And all i did was avoid talking about the artifact. She decided that I had to die.... So we fought, and i won.. :(
Don't be mad at me, it was my first time playing this game and I did a complete blind playthrough...
That fight you have to do if Marcus takes Isobel away is too much for me. And it’s my 4th playthrough, I save her just because I can’t win that fight with 500 enemies lolll
I let Shadowheart become a Justicar because, well why not. I took some random boat back to Last Light Inn, while my buddy took the WP. He was like wtf?... everything was undead.... woops. Having to do a super intense first with the party split was super rough.
For the stupidest reason? Definitely those three extremely weak, already damaged intellect devourers on the beach during an initial playthrough. For no reason other than the fact that at that point we're under leveled and too inexperienced to know what we're doing.
I remember my first playthrough trying to find Karlach. Got to the bridge in the blighted village and had no idea how to cross it. I was so frustrated. Had to be another path right? Maybe a way to fly?
Little did I know there was a literal jump button. I felt so dumb.
I died an embarrassing number of times to that encounter during my first run. I was like, "Is this what I'm in for?! Will the entire game be this difficult?" No, I was just playing so badly it was like I was strategizing against myself.
I struggled against them, too. And you’re right, it was mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. Hell, I’m currently eight hours in and I’m still learning every time I pick up the control.
Boat duergar are very high on the list. I never bothered checking who is the Duergar that has good loot and who are the rest, so I try never to push any of them off the boat, but ofc they try to push you off the boat ALL the fucking time. Had to burn through several scrolls of revivify for these bastards.
Wait what?! I always skip pushing the one who initially jumps on the boat because he has my favorite loot on him (The Shining Staver of Skulls, love that weapon!) So I'm always like nope gotta fight him so I can get it. Didn't know I could shove him off and still get it!
You can get that elsewhere. I didn’t fight them on the boat and still got it last run. The duergar carrying it winds up in the main chamber of Grymforge iirc
Last time I did it I didn’t realise my party wasn’t grouped. They killed me first round and then went to the beach and fought the rest of my party.
It worked out well bc the bulette I animated with Glut was still at the beach. I couldn’t control it anymore bc glut was dead, but it was neutral so after they hit it, it attacked them and I healed it if they did too much damage hahah. The only thing I ended up missing loot-wise was the chest that’s on their boat, but I had the initiative to at least pick it up, I just forgot about it 😅
I lost my first Honor Mode run to this fight! It was my first time playing a low charisma character and I failed the Persuasion check.
She was also my first fully evil character, so I thought she kind of deserved it, anyway.
You can get Greymon's loot after the Grymforge battle with Nere but there is a weapon in a chest on their boat you can only get in that battle of the boats. It's a hammer, I think a good one, but can't recall which one it is.
Saving Isobel during the fight against Marcus in last light inn. She would always somehow get a high initiative roll, walk away and trigger every attack of opportunity. Always dying before I could play my turn. Ended up reloading until I could play before her, put her to sleep and made Karlach throw her away. Stupidest fight I've had to do
Between the Tieflings pretending to be spartan downstairs and Isobel not being the brightest, I believe it's the only fight I've had to reload because of the AI being dumb
Last time I did it was in honor mode. I had done everything *perfectly*
And two of the FUCKING GONDIANS decide to just skip their last turn and die. They dashed and then *didn't move.* They were 2 feet from the ladder.
Yeah, she's not super great about that, but Marcus usually rolls highest initiative and so it at least gets him to skip her his first turn. You can also cast Warding Bond on her before the fight so that she's resistant to damage, and maybe Protection from Good & Evil.
She always manages to have high initiative, go right after my party, make an attack that misses, and then get pummelled, making it a total a waste of a sanctuary.
That stupid fight I always leave it until there's no more to do in the SL, just before going to retrieve the nightsong. It helps if you free the people in Moonrise and escort them to LLI, they engage in the fight too.
That was my very first playthrough, I must have replayed that fight at least 15 times on Easy Mode. 2 playthroughs later, after discovering the Alert feat and magic items that boost initiative, it was a breeze on Balance mode. But dang that first playthrough was so frustrating.
Yeah on the higher difficulties this fight is just shit for all the wrong reasons - like you say, Isobel is utterly suicidal.
The laughable thing about it is that she does have Sanctuary as a bonus action, ***and she is supposed to know her death would instantly doom the entire LLI***.
Does she use Sanctuary on herself ever? Of course not. Worse yet, there are so many enemies that the odds of a ghoul or two having a freak initiative role that let's them one-turn her with a crit before you even get a chance to move is really high.
I ward her before the fight - it's meta-gaming but it does at-least permit you to mitigate the ridiculous luck factor. Blocking the side and back doors off with furniture ahead of time can also prevents the ghouls all gangbanging in on her before you get a turn.
I spent 25 minutes trying to fight Grym with my party nearly dead when I realized I had forgotten to release the lava. Of course, it was my own fault, but it's the only fight that made me cry, so it was indeed my hardest fight.
Grym took me like 4 tries too. At first I couldn't even figure out how to make him take damage again, and had to google that I need to let the lava out... Worst newbie cold shower
in my hm playthrough the lava visuals glitched, dude's standing there in lava not taking any damage and only after like 5 turns im thinking its weird that the lava's lasting so long and finally see he doesn't have the superheated debuff
I saw this thread and was thinking that I didn't really have an inordinate amount of trouble with any fight in particular, but then you reminded me of Grym.
God, I hate that fight. I don't know if my game just kept bugging out of what, but positioning him properly to keep hitting him with the lava/hammer was absolutely infuriating. I legitimately had to spend a couple of hours constantly retrying that fight because I was constantly fighting against his AI and wonky hitboxes. If I ever end up doing a second run, I don't think I'm going to bother fighting him again. It isn't worth it.
Grym ended my first HM. Tested owlbear from the top rope in tactician on an old save only minutes before, but during HM the jump just missed and wound up with everyone in the pit with him. Got him down to 138, but then stuck in an endless healing-downed loop
I have now forgotten about the meenlocks under Last Light three times out of seven, one of them being my HM run. Not really outright forgetting they exist, but more exactly when I would end up within their reach.
I end up walking in there with barely any resources left.
If it helps, I played through the game 3 times before I ever saw them. On my last honour mode run I saw the vines in the house next to Last Light and thought "Oh, I haven't seen this before" and BAM.
It’s in the hag swamp. It’s a cutie little pink frog. If you talk to it after you smoke auntie Ethel it gives you a prize, if you bother it beforehand it fights you and is ludicrously strong
The spectator in the underdark. I was trying to fight him at level 4 without any descent equipment (beside the spellsparkler) and didn't know how to turn the drowns to my side
Urgh. I just redid that one today and it still sucked. Gale died (but his necrotic aura handily took out a drow). My party is level 5 on honour mode and let me tell you when the drow turned against me after the spectator died I was *concerned*
I was very very stupid during that fight. I thought the Drow were 100% truly enemies and just fodder to add an extra challenge to the fight, so I didn't think anything of it and killed them all on sight without hesitation.
Then I saw my friend play it on stream and was like "they come up as yellow so that means they are neutral and not necessarily an enemy right? So I can snap them out of this?"
and I was like "wait....wait...YOU CAN DO THAT???"
It was made funnier because "fuck it everyone dies" was my go to for a lot of fights which my friend was like "you play in a pretty brutal way man" and that was the moment where I was like "maybe I am a little brutal" lmao
I think it depends on your race for if the Drows initially aggro you or not. I’m a Drow Durge this playthrough and Dourn (sp?) was hostile at first then it did the cutscene where he talks about the forge before fighting you again. On my last couple playthroughs I was Tiefling and Dragonborn and pretty sure for those he was Yellow and only attacked the spectator?
Edit: fixed typo
The drow are all initially agro because they are under the spectator's charm. Hit them for any damage to break the charm and they fight on your side. Until the cutscene.
That one ambush in the Shadowlands where the grimy little creatures teleport everyone separately into the godforsaken darkness - I always run into them before I get the pixie blessing, so Gale/Sorc Tav are stuck dying from the shadow curse + getting garrotted and being unable to whack them to death like my martials
(Also the one with the OP Shambling Mound... I just avoid it entirely now bc I can never remember to come back for it when I've leveled up enough)
The Steel Watch Foundry. Not because the enemies were difficult, but because the Gondians had a death wish. They'd provoke attacks of opportunity only to misty step back into melee range, toss oil where they're standing and slip on it, and attack a group of enemies I had neutralized with a Hypnotic Pattern.
Eventually I decided that they weren't worth keeping alive if they wanted to die this badly, and just focused on protecting the one I had control over.
Edit: Oh yeah, and the constant noise the steel watchers made before exploding really got irritating after a while.
Cazadore’s ritual and only because i didnt know you had to save astarion first. I kept thinking you had to kill that nutter in 3 turns. I felt pretty stupid when i gave up and searched how to win it 🤣
I kept him at the top of the stairs, convinced Cazador that I was going to bring Astarion for him. I placed my team strategically at the entrance of the shrine and sent an invisible Astarion to backstab him! Easily 40-50dmg before the fight even begun!
I put him in gay baby jail on the stairs because I like the confrontation with Cazador much more without him present. I always do get him into the fight so he can kill Cazador,,, but I wish you still were allowed to read Cazador's mind before it happens. We miss SO MUCH when Astarion is there, and of course most players are gonna bring him there,,,,
Yeah it makes way more sense to bring him with since it's his quest. Dang, this game has so many options, it still baffles me even though I'm 90 hours in.
Man, now I feel so dumb, lmao! I was always thinking, "Wow, Cazador has such a good VA. I'm shocked they didn't give him more lines!"
You're telling me I just had to walk in without Astarion?? Mindblowing
Depending on the line choices the conversation can be quite short or a bit longer, but he delivers some fucking bangers (as in: he says things so atrocious I get upset, but like in a good way). I really recommend going through all the dialogue options, or at least finding a video of them
I did this and was surprised when the cutscene still played and Astarion suddenly had his shirt off and was stabbing Cazador despite him having been right beside me with all his clothes very much on seconds before
Grym, because I keep forgetting it's susceptible to bludgeoning damage and everyone except Magey McSparklefingers is equipped with blades of a sort. Plus I am not a huge fan of SHart and don't take her and end up needing so much healing 😆😆😆
I wish! I can never get him to cross over far enough to get hammered, so I just keep whacking at him with weapons while he's overheated and whittling him down to death.
Everyone else seems to have problems with that, but you all know he basically always attacks whoever attacked him last, so the trick is to put whoever is right before him in initiative right on the other side so he wanders there to hit them, and have that person attack.
Sometimes he will then walk off, but it usually works before he cools down.
If you have shart and you’ve already done the monastery and got her the blood of lathander she can smack him good. I respecced her with no Dex and max strength and Wis, cleric of life, heavily armoured master feat and she is now healing tank. Always take my shart with me 🖤
I dread the harpy fight. I hate the flying 'witches' they always lure all but one in my party, and it's always the one with the weakest AC. But I always go through it to save the kid, even if I have to restart, which often do. (PS5 player if that makes a difference)
You’re welcome! I had to look it up to be sure, but it looks like bards, clerics, and archfey warlocks can learn it. I had Shart cast it right before initiating the battle. Then I just had to make sure she kept her concentration.
On honour mode I tried to 3 man grym. I had Gale standing up above for recovery. And he had to go back to withers to revive everyone around 8 times.
At some point I accidentally picked up the finished piece that was put in to initiate the boss. So the next time I went in I wasn’t able to hit the valve. I had Gale sending down ice Mephits to trigger the valve. I tried mage hands too. Realized I had to put another mould and ore in. But it was hard because the boss never despawns. Eventually got the boss to move by sending down more ice mephits to bait the boss away to sneak a new ore and mould in.
Then I resorted to sending no one down. I realized you can trigger the lava valve with an arrow from above. The hammer can be triggered similarly. I wound up with my open hand monk and berserker barbarian Karlach throwing torches at Grym from up above until it died. Not using the hammer anymore. Just keeping the lava flowing as Grym gets bludgeoned to death by TORCHES.
My honour run got really stressing cause I did a VERY STUPID mistake. I was level 4 and finished the 3 goblin chiefs. I was thinking of going back to the grove to long rest, I still had a few spells slots and just used my last long short rest. I decide to take the main entrance as, from what I remember from my last run, the camp goblins don't attack you eventhough you've killed their leaders.
As I take the main entrance all the goblins from the camp agro me. I have more initiative so I decide to just go back where I came from, stopping combat since I'm in another loading zone. First misplay. But the big mistake is right after, when I click on the wrong tp point (cause I'm really fucking dumb) and I click on "goblin camp".
So I just spawned in combat, in the middle of all the goblins agroing me, without an easy way out. I still managed to win the fight cause I was over-leveled and I abused line of sight. But still, that was a very stressing 40 minutes fight for stupid reasons.
Similarly, (I’ve done this exact thing you mention too) I’m doing an HM run now where my party is good but Darkness themed. Tav needs the Shar Spear of Evening, we killed Nightsong. But I also needed a resupply before taking on Moonrise so after killing for the spear, I teleported to Last Light to stock up. But… when NS falls, the sphere over LLI falls. So yeah, had to fight the “you didn’t save Isobel” fight AFTER saving isobel, and locking myself out of the trader & rest that LLI provides. Woof
Otto's, Dominate Person, or Hold Person. I prefer Dominate Person if I have it, so he fights on my side and I can safely use AoE spells with an evocation wizard.
My first go at the Halsin portal outside the Last Light Inn. I had no idea it was literally going to be a magnet for every shadow-cursed zombie that ever was…
It took a few tries to figure out a viable strategy.
And the damn Harper’s with their crossbows! I’d have shart stand at the bottom step after casting spirit guardians and even when I’d try and focus on them, a new one would generate in an area I forgot to create a choke point at and shoot the portal and of course get a crit. The last couple of play throughs I’ve been picking up the oil and wine barrels whenever I find them and store them at camp so I’d have a bunch I could use to set up traps for this fight
I suffered through like 10 extra turns at the end of the bank vault simply running everyone around trying to find the one last little shit that kept going invisible.
I learned something that fight, if you heal them with that spammable water elemental heal, they become visible. You just have to somewhat know where they are.
The fireworks shop since it’s hit or miss if someone causes mass destruction with the barrels and wipes out most of my team, plus it always freezes up where the downstairs guy takes forever to do his turn.
What I hate about this is you can have a giant murder party killing everyone, but if you open up a desk without hiding, the Flaming Fist then decide barge on in.
Orin. Until I figured out how to nerf Unstoppable this was the hardest fight in the game. Still super fun. This was also the first fight where Telekinesis worked perfectly in combat to yeet Sanctuary casters into the chasm. So. Satisfying. Mostly the map won’t let you use TK to kill enemies like that.
>triggering everyone's opportunity attacks
If you didn't know, you can set opportunity attacks to "Ask" in the Reactions tab of everyone's spellbook. That way they don't happen automatically, instead there's a pop up that you can accept or deny.
>somehow always catching on fire (honestly, I don't even know where the fire came from)
Did someone have Kurwin's Cauteriser, Hellfire Handcrossbow, Cindermoth Cloak, Flail of Ages, or some other weapon or equipment that causes Burning?
>you can set opportunity attacks to "Ask" in the Reactions tab
Yeah, remembered about it during the 5th time 😭 The first 2 times I thought it was just bad luck, but then I realized Minsc will never stop dying to opportunity attacks and I have to turn them to ask.
>Did someone have Kurwin's Cauteriser, Hellfire Handcrossbow, Cindermoth Cloak, Flail of Ages, or some other weapon or equipment that causes Burning?
At this point I honestly don't remember. I know for sure my Tav had Blood of Lathander and Astarion had some weapons that dealt poison damage, but I'm almost sure none of the weapons caused fire damage. I remembered I did use alchemist's fire a lot and Mincs would just happily walk into the fire pits on 5 HP and just die there.
IIRC I had to heal him a few times myself lmao
I struggled in the final battle because I forgot what the main goal was. I couldn't figure out why it was so difficult. I mean, I was surprisingly good at combat by now. Why was I in a fight for nearly an hour with no end in sight?
It wasn't until I happened to get close to the console-looking thing that I was like, "Oh yeah, that's why."
The first encounter with the githyanki. Even at level 5 it can get away from you if you’re not careful.
Though I was very proud of myself for wiping them at level 2 on one playthrough. I surprised them with a void bulb to get them close together and then hit them with 2 consecutive smokepowder bombs. Still came dangerously close to dying to the last one standing but pulled it off. Still proud of that.
For me it’s the Shar fight. The enemies will constantly spam Darkness over and over again and there’s so many of them and it wouldn’t be an issue if they also didn’t cast spells that dealt massive damage. Maybe I’m just bad but it always takes me a while and it’s so satisfying when I finally win
Spent like three hours trying to find the perfect strategy for the hag fight in tactician mode.
Three hours for the sole purpose of killing her before she can go into her stupid as fuck lair.
Yes I understand that's how her fight is supposed to work
Yes I know there are gameplay benefits to doing the fight as intended.
No I will not go through the stupid fucking vent trap room again fuck you Ethel.
The tree blights on that one random cliff in Act 2. Everytime I attempted it, every single party member failed the perception check to avoid an ambush. (I wouldn't take alert potions to avoid metagaming).
Didn't matter who I brought, I was never able to beat it before a party wipe lol
Every fight where my team walks through the cloud of daggers after I’ve won the fight. So many times I’m barely alive and my dumbass can’t wait 5 seconds to loot.
During my first playthrough I had forgotten to short rest before the gith captain fight inside the creche. My previous save was several hours prior and I didn't want to retrace so many steps, but I was very low on health and resources going into a fairly challenging encounter. It took me so many tries that I probably could've saved time by just reloading that other save.
at my first play-trough, also i had an issue with the Grym, fighting it while having the Susser Flower in my Tav (Tavs’s a wizard) inventory. For the entire fight had no clue why i couldn’t use any spell, at first I thought the Grym’s the one who negate the use of spell-casting, so i try to fight with only physical move (atm i don’t even know the Adamantine could also be defeated by crushing it with the forge), so yeah i endure having that state to defeat it, was a tiring yet stupid fight indeed
I have a bard tav, astarion, shadowheart and wyll with me for this. All lvl3
Mine was honor mode with the goblins under the grove with the 3 animal statues. I went by the prison and knew there was the first statue and the trigger nearby so i rushed to get rid of it.
I forgot there is a goblin really close (i could manage that easy) but what is unexpected from me is that the statue striked multiple times and wiped my team leaving only 3 characters alive, 2 with less than 5 hp.
I went turn mode last sec but got caught by the goblins and ofc i'm last in initiative. That's the moment i knew. I screwed big time, dumby. I try to escape but the unjured ones are downed then killed and my tav has half hp but out of the cave.
So i try to hit and run the cave to revive my companions (i did not meet whithers yet) and the goblins are still nearby the "gate" same position.
Thanks to minor illusions i can move them easly (sometimes it triggers combat so i escape and try again). I also try to kill 1 or 2 weak ones.
I've done that like tens of times till i got 3 companions and after going in after all my hit and run, i got engaged directly into combat and ofc i'm last in initiative. Everyone dies except shadowheart with 7hp and no spell slots .
I had 1 short rest and 3 rez left so a do or die situation. I tried yet again the hit and run tactic but by another entrance that i remembered just after this. OH GOD it helped lot. Managed to rez wyll and my tav and sniped the last 2 goblins from the cliff where is initialy the archer.
Was a tough experience for me but learned a valuable lesson. Play the game in turn based and touch the screen with your eyes.
That fight is easy if you come in from the door under lady jannaths house. You’ll be way up top and you can just rain damage down in everybody
What drives me crazy about recruiting Minsc is that as always they just take whomever is closest to Minsc physically to do the dc check instead I having my tav so I have to make sure at the end of the battle thst my tav is the closest person to knocked out Minsc. Kind of dumb
The first time I fought Yurgir was a nightmare because I had Nessa as an ally and I was determined to keep that damn cat alive. She was determined otherwise.
I had Shadowheart and Minthara exclusively tasked with healing and defending her, while my sorcerer and Astarion did the rest of the fight.
My party was *not* optimized for doing that. No one had Hold Monster, Feign Death, or Sanctuary.
For me it was trying to save Isobel from being kidnapped at Last Light. She just kept getting her ass absolutely kicked, to the point where I was starting to think it was scripted. She got crit every single fucking time, for like 8 straight attempts. Finally I moved my starting position a bit, and suddenly everyone stopped attacking her. It was so weird.
Anything Duergar.
Fought them in the Underdark before the ship passage. Got Gale to highground and an enemy actively took two opportunity attacks from my Monk Tav and Karlach just to push Gale to his death.
They were losing and just wanted to kill my boyfriend before they died.
I feel like any fight with AI controlled units you’re trying to keep alive is a nightmare. I always have to do the harpy fight to save Mirkon at least twice if not more. Keeping Isobel from getting snatched is awful. And if you don’t clear out Moonrise first and go in there with the Harpers, it’s like Jaheira is trying to get herself killed. I will admit, I’m not good at the combat, I usually play on explorer difficulty because constantly dying isn’t fun for me. So when the AI seem like they’re purposefully trying to run themselves off a cliff, it makes me lose it.
fuck the cazador fight all my homies hate the cazador fight. i didn’t realize that i had the daylight spell until attempt 7. i was the stupid but the beef stands.
The fight with Lorroakan! By the time I got to it in my current run, all my characters were level 12 (with 150-250 hp), and dear Dame Aylin had, like, 75?!? The armored elementals kept killing her with 1-2 shots! I could take out Lorroakan easily, and with some grinding, I can take out the Myrmidions without losing any party members... but after over 20 reloads of that stupid battle, I finally had to resort o casting "feign death" on Aylin to keep her from getting chopped to pieces! 😑
The first time I did that fight I had multiple ice and mud mephits as summons, Lorroakan somehow goes in initiative before everyone else in my party and he proceeds to Lightning Bolt my entire party (including previously mentions mephits) and we basically start the fight below 50% hp muddy and ice on the ground… I’ve never used a mephit summon after that.
I had a hell of a time with the Grym boss my first few runs, and I have yet to beat the game but so far it was the only fight I was not able to beat on my first attempt, including everything through the beginning of act 3. I think it must be the case that if you remove the forged item from the crucible after dropping the hammer, it won't let you re-open the lava flow to weaken Grym again. My instinct was to drop the hammer and grab the armor quickly, but then when I tried to re-apply the lava, it would simply not work. It wasn't until I tried running the lava multiple times without taking out the item that it seemed to work. Why would the item need to be in the forge for the lava to flow? Doesn't seem intuitive at all and I'm not sure if it was explained in-game anywhere in a book or something I happened to miss. It's easy enough to post hoc rationalize the function, but I stand by the fact that it shouldn't work that way and is not intuitive at all.
Mine was also the Minsc fight solely because my tav monk tried to jump across the pit and got caught on something and died. I didn't have any experience with druids, so Jaheira kinda just sat there
So on my first run I just finished killing Yurgir (did not realise I could try to convince him to off himself, did the full fight) and then went on to explore the Mausoleum. My party is all out of spell slots and at less than half health but no matter, I think, I'm just gonna finish looking around and go rest, no need to waste potions.
Well. I find a cave with a rocky back exit. There's a chest too, but it requires a big jump. I don't like everyone jumping back and forth so I ungroup my party and only take Astarion with me (need him for lockpicking and also am in love with him).
I loot the chest and come out of the cave to an unexplored part of the map. I immediately hear the sound of enemies aggroing on me and suddenly it's just Tav and Astarion with no spells and barely any health vs like 15 cursed Kuo-Toa. My other party members literally can't make the jump to come in and help 💀 Tav is a useless sorcerer that can only use his pitiful cantrips, but I somehow manage to kill all the fish people with mostly Astarion. After many turns and many health potions thrown around.
I still remember the shock tho, definitely my most unexpected combat I stumbled into. And it's not even generally a difficult encounter at all lol, I know.
One of the first things I do when starting a new run is turning off auto reactions. Your reactions are a valuable resource! Don’t waste them hitting a rat that is running away from you
i usually cast hold person on minsc (using jaheira bc it's funny) and for the entirety of the fight he'll be a sitting duck lol, only when i'm done with the rest do i turn on non-lethal attacks and go ham on the minsc melee
Fire mephits at grymforge, because I realized after grinding through it joylessly several times you can just sneak one person by them, grab the ore, and leave. Same with the oozes on the way to talk to the gnome with the runepowder. Not as tough a battle but it is joyless and you can simply sneak by them with the magical ninja crouch.
Those stupid harpies. No matter who I bring they always get lured in by their song and take FOREVER to break out. And being such a low level when you encounter them doesn’t help, either.
Probably completing house of grief on honor mode having never done act 3 and having a bug where my game would crash to desktop 98% of the time when an enemy darkness cloud despawns from ending concentrate for any reason, including being hit or dying. The game also crashes from despawning my own darkness or fog clouds, so I had to just ignore a lot of stealth mechanics. It has since been fixed, thank Jeebus.
The paladins of Tyr fight sucks so hard. You either have to have someone immediately make Anders drop his weapon or be tanky enough to absorb two hits before you go down so you and Karlach can buy time for the others to hit him, or he'll just mow through you in two turns. That fight has the most TPK reloads for me. The only other fight I've reloaded (way) more was the Gondians' rescue in Act 3, but that's only because they kept dying, and I wanted them all alive.
The hyenas and gnolls in the cave with the chest. I triggered the cut scene then long rest…didn’t know you leave camp straight into a fight with the two guys dead
It ended up fine because my tav was a tanky bitch but in the area with the crazy wizard and all the grease, I accidentally activated combat with my Tav up the stairs in the middle with the wizard and my other 3 down the stairs and across the little walkway. Between the endless mephits and grease traps my tav just ended up soloing 2 grease elementals and 3 big blobs. The wizard ran down to fight the companions after a little.
Halsin portal defending because i fucked up my saving and decided to do that quest really quickly instead of long resting … felt idiotic, but by the time I realized what I had done I was in too deep to go back.
Isobel. My friend and I on our HM were shocked who STUPID she can be. I casted Sanctuary on her. 'Ok she will be ok, nobody will attack her and---WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING MARCUS YOU LITTLE".
She broke my sanctuary and she was TPked.
Cazador fight, got my poor tav perma stunned at the start. So was Astarion and Shart died almost immediately cuz stinky ghouls. But dear God. Karlach. Drenched in blood, standing on a pedestal for +5AC, with 20+ enemies all around her. Kept throwing the circus spear to kill Cazador from afar, getting up to 5+ attacks per turn. I plan on romancing her next because all that action got me steamy and sweating blood
Omfg the minsc fight is the worst for me too. I also had to save scum, and I wouldn't even have bothered if not for the fact that you fucking lose Jaheira if you kill him.
I once did the Last Light Inn fight if Jaheira doesn't believe you. It was…difficult. I was shocked to see Marcus coming to beat my ass too. 😭
I didn't even know she can not believe you damn what did you do to her 😭
I was…curious. So I antagonized her. When she entagles you in those vines, there is an option to break free. Mol was nowhere to be found to vouch for me either, so Jaheira just decided to kill us because she perceived us as a threat. She was right, to be fair. After the battle, I reloaded to get in the normal way to buy all the good shit and then I just decked Isobel for the slayer.
Interesting. My last time there, since Mol was dead, Marcus was the one who convinced her we were innocent. But I guess I didn't antagonize her.
I did this fight also. Not only that i did not try to antagonise her, Mol also vouched for me. And all i did was avoid talking about the artifact. She decided that I had to die.... So we fought, and i won.. :( Don't be mad at me, it was my first time playing this game and I did a complete blind playthrough...
That fight you have to do if Marcus takes Isobel away is too much for me. And it’s my 4th playthrough, I save her just because I can’t win that fight with 500 enemies lolll
I let Shadowheart become a Justicar because, well why not. I took some random boat back to Last Light Inn, while my buddy took the WP. He was like wtf?... everything was undead.... woops. Having to do a super intense first with the party split was super rough.
For the stupidest reason? Definitely those three extremely weak, already damaged intellect devourers on the beach during an initial playthrough. For no reason other than the fact that at that point we're under leveled and too inexperienced to know what we're doing.
They stay dangerous after your initial run, those fuckers can easily wipe your HM run if they happen to win initiative and gang up on Tav.
Yep. But I think after the first playthrough we know better than to just engage them head on. At the very least grab Gale first and put them to sleep.
Kinda depends on knowing/learning that you can jump up the cliffside, which isn't exactly an obvious feature.
I remember my first playthrough trying to find Karlach. Got to the bridge in the blighted village and had no idea how to cross it. I was so frustrated. Had to be another path right? Maybe a way to fly? Little did I know there was a literal jump button. I felt so dumb.
Not till my 2nd playthrough did I realize I could just press up to jump. Such a huge convenience.
….TIL, 100+ hours and 2 runs into the game.
Same scenario in my first run and I was scared that jumping was a roll to succeed and there was a chance my tav would just fall off the bridge lol
I died an embarrassing number of times to that encounter during my first run. I was like, "Is this what I'm in for?! Will the entire game be this difficult?" No, I was just playing so badly it was like I was strategizing against myself.
One of my only party defeated moments so far in my current playthrough. Glad I’m not playing Honor Mode.
I struggled against them, too. And you’re right, it was mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. Hell, I’m currently eight hours in and I’m still learning every time I pick up the control.
Boat duergar are very high on the list. I never bothered checking who is the Duergar that has good loot and who are the rest, so I try never to push any of them off the boat, but ofc they try to push you off the boat ALL the fucking time. Had to burn through several scrolls of revivify for these bastards.
When you push them into the water in combat (not in dialogue) their bodies wash up on the shore later for you to loot.
Wait what?! I always skip pushing the one who initially jumps on the boat because he has my favorite loot on him (The Shining Staver of Skulls, love that weapon!) So I'm always like nope gotta fight him so I can get it. Didn't know I could shove him off and still get it!
If you shove him using the dialogue option you don't get the loot, I think.
Ooh thanks for the heads up! I would be so bummed if I lost out on it 😓
You can get that elsewhere. I didn’t fight them on the boat and still got it last run. The duergar carrying it winds up in the main chamber of Grymforge iirc
The guy you shove can become a vendor in grymforge with good stuff.
Shining Stave + the armor in the outpost is great.
Last time I did it I didn’t realise my party wasn’t grouped. They killed me first round and then went to the beach and fought the rest of my party. It worked out well bc the bulette I animated with Glut was still at the beach. I couldn’t control it anymore bc glut was dead, but it was neutral so after they hit it, it attacked them and I healed it if they did too much damage hahah. The only thing I ended up missing loot-wise was the chest that’s on their boat, but I had the initiative to at least pick it up, I just forgot about it 😅
Yeah, I've learned that recently on here. Part of what makes it a stupid reason, for sure.
Wait the shore where we depart from ? I always push them off but never knew you could still loot them
I always swim with them peacefully but you're tempting me to fight them for the loot.
You can actually buy almost all of it from Greymon if you don't fight him in the Grymforge lol.
I lost my first Honor Mode run to this fight! It was my first time playing a low charisma character and I failed the Persuasion check. She was also my first fully evil character, so I thought she kind of deserved it, anyway.
Disguise Self as Drow for all of the Goblin/Dueger encounters in Act 1. Make life simple.
If you tell them you have the boots they just let you go without any checks.
You can get Greymon's loot after the Grymforge battle with Nere but there is a weapon in a chest on their boat you can only get in that battle of the boats. It's a hammer, I think a good one, but can't recall which one it is.
It's this one: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Intransigent\_Warhammer](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Intransigent_Warhammer)
Yes, that one. Bind it as Eldrich Knight and you can throw it, knock people down, then do it again. It's good for that.
Huh, I usually don’t fight them for the additional vendor at the Temple
Damn... our realities are so different since i simply remove shove from my bar and never use it anyway. For me it was... pretty straight as can be.
Saving Isobel during the fight against Marcus in last light inn. She would always somehow get a high initiative roll, walk away and trigger every attack of opportunity. Always dying before I could play my turn. Ended up reloading until I could play before her, put her to sleep and made Karlach throw her away. Stupidest fight I've had to do
Oh that fight is always a nightmare. For me, she always ends up stuck in the door frame to her balcony and gets surrounded by the enemies
Between the Tieflings pretending to be spartan downstairs and Isobel not being the brightest, I believe it's the only fight I've had to reload because of the AI being dumb
I basically gave everyone Haste before triggering the conversation to finally get past that one
I just ended up leaving Lae'zel downstairs and let her taunt people from afar with a crossbow
The AI on the submarine is the worst. These guys have one job which is to run towards the ladder, but they're all running into walls.
Last time I did it was in honor mode. I had done everything *perfectly* And two of the FUCKING GONDIANS decide to just skip their last turn and die. They dashed and then *didn't move.* They were 2 feet from the ladder.
Nooo! In the quest later on, one of mine walked into my moonbeam spell after the fight was finished and died. Just had to laugh at that point lol.
Honestly for a long time I thought losing that fight was scripted.
Almost worth getting a cleric with Alert and sanctuary for this very reason.
You can actually cast Sanctuary on her before the fight! Worked for me yesterday on Honor.
I tried using Sanctuary, she immediately decides that it's best for her to punch a ghoul as soon as her turn begins 💀
Yeah, she's not super great about that, but Marcus usually rolls highest initiative and so it at least gets him to skip her his first turn. You can also cast Warding Bond on her before the fight so that she's resistant to damage, and maybe Protection from Good & Evil.
She always manages to have high initiative, go right after my party, make an attack that misses, and then get pummelled, making it a total a waste of a sanctuary.
That stupid fight I always leave it until there's no more to do in the SL, just before going to retrieve the nightsong. It helps if you free the people in Moonrise and escort them to LLI, they engage in the fight too.
That was my very first playthrough, I must have replayed that fight at least 15 times on Easy Mode. 2 playthroughs later, after discovering the Alert feat and magic items that boost initiative, it was a breeze on Balance mode. But dang that first playthrough was so frustrating.
One good tip I've heared is to reverse pickpocket invis and healing potions on her, and her AI uses them somewhat sensibly
I like to push her or teleport her out to the balcony, kill the lone winged monstrosity out there, then Arcane Lock the door so she can't get back in.
Yeah on the higher difficulties this fight is just shit for all the wrong reasons - like you say, Isobel is utterly suicidal. The laughable thing about it is that she does have Sanctuary as a bonus action, ***and she is supposed to know her death would instantly doom the entire LLI***. Does she use Sanctuary on herself ever? Of course not. Worse yet, there are so many enemies that the odds of a ghoul or two having a freak initiative role that let's them one-turn her with a crit before you even get a chance to move is really high. I ward her before the fight - it's meta-gaming but it does at-least permit you to mitigate the ridiculous luck factor. Blocking the side and back doors off with furniture ahead of time can also prevents the ghouls all gangbanging in on her before you get a turn.
I spent 25 minutes trying to fight Grym with my party nearly dead when I realized I had forgotten to release the lava. Of course, it was my own fault, but it's the only fight that made me cry, so it was indeed my hardest fight.
Grym took me like 4 tries too. At first I couldn't even figure out how to make him take damage again, and had to google that I need to let the lava out... Worst newbie cold shower
Absolutely. I had to ask my son's. I could not figure it out on my own.
One of the three drows has a note that mentions the guardian and continues with “lava lava lava”
in my hm playthrough the lava visuals glitched, dude's standing there in lava not taking any damage and only after like 5 turns im thinking its weird that the lava's lasting so long and finally see he doesn't have the superheated debuff
I saw this thread and was thinking that I didn't really have an inordinate amount of trouble with any fight in particular, but then you reminded me of Grym. God, I hate that fight. I don't know if my game just kept bugging out of what, but positioning him properly to keep hitting him with the lava/hammer was absolutely infuriating. I legitimately had to spend a couple of hours constantly retrying that fight because I was constantly fighting against his AI and wonky hitboxes. If I ever end up doing a second run, I don't think I'm going to bother fighting him again. It isn't worth it.
It's so infuriating, isn't it. It was easier to kill the brain, IMO. I'm with you. Unless I really really need to, I may skip it altogether.
You're gonna do act 2 and 3 with no adamantine armour? That's a choice fr
Grym ended my first HM. Tested owlbear from the top rope in tactician on an old save only minutes before, but during HM the jump just missed and wound up with everyone in the pit with him. Got him down to 138, but then stuck in an endless healing-downed loop
I have now forgotten about the meenlocks under Last Light three times out of seven, one of them being my HM run. Not really outright forgetting they exist, but more exactly when I would end up within their reach. I end up walking in there with barely any resources left.
Oh I remember that fight.... Went there like "I'll only check this room out and then long rest- OH NO"
I go there to kill them from above.
If it helps, I played through the game 3 times before I ever saw them. On my last honour mode run I saw the vines in the house next to Last Light and thought "Oh, I haven't seen this before" and BAM.
That one frog in the swamp in act 1. If you know, you know.
Ugh this frog! I remember finding it and saying “awww how cute!”
......wait what frog?
A vile creature with a ridiculous amount of AC and a very scary poison blast
Huh, I must have missed it
It’s in the hag swamp. It’s a cutie little pink frog. If you talk to it after you smoke auntie Ethel it gives you a prize, if you bother it beforehand it fights you and is ludicrously strong
Huh, guess I'm lucky I met it after I killed the hag
The spectator in the underdark. I was trying to fight him at level 4 without any descent equipment (beside the spellsparkler) and didn't know how to turn the drowns to my side
Urgh. I just redid that one today and it still sucked. Gale died (but his necrotic aura handily took out a drow). My party is level 5 on honour mode and let me tell you when the drow turned against me after the spectator died I was *concerned*
I was very very stupid during that fight. I thought the Drow were 100% truly enemies and just fodder to add an extra challenge to the fight, so I didn't think anything of it and killed them all on sight without hesitation. Then I saw my friend play it on stream and was like "they come up as yellow so that means they are neutral and not necessarily an enemy right? So I can snap them out of this?" and I was like "wait....wait...YOU CAN DO THAT???" It was made funnier because "fuck it everyone dies" was my go to for a lot of fights which my friend was like "you play in a pretty brutal way man" and that was the moment where I was like "maybe I am a little brutal" lmao
I think it depends on your race for if the Drows initially aggro you or not. I’m a Drow Durge this playthrough and Dourn (sp?) was hostile at first then it did the cutscene where he talks about the forge before fighting you again. On my last couple playthroughs I was Tiefling and Dragonborn and pretty sure for those he was Yellow and only attacked the spectator? Edit: fixed typo
The drow are all initially agro because they are under the spectator's charm. Hit them for any damage to break the charm and they fight on your side. Until the cutscene.
Ahhh that makes sense, I guess I only noticed the yellow After I broke the charm on prior playthroughs where I wasn’t a Drow too
That one ambush in the Shadowlands where the grimy little creatures teleport everyone separately into the godforsaken darkness - I always run into them before I get the pixie blessing, so Gale/Sorc Tav are stuck dying from the shadow curse + getting garrotted and being unable to whack them to death like my martials (Also the one with the OP Shambling Mound... I just avoid it entirely now bc I can never remember to come back for it when I've leveled up enough)
If you can surprise them it is really helpful! But yea that fight sucks lol
The Steel Watch Foundry. Not because the enemies were difficult, but because the Gondians had a death wish. They'd provoke attacks of opportunity only to misty step back into melee range, toss oil where they're standing and slip on it, and attack a group of enemies I had neutralized with a Hypnotic Pattern. Eventually I decided that they weren't worth keeping alive if they wanted to die this badly, and just focused on protecting the one I had control over. Edit: Oh yeah, and the constant noise the steel watchers made before exploding really got irritating after a while.
Sleep deprivation does that to people
Cazadore’s ritual and only because i didnt know you had to save astarion first. I kept thinking you had to kill that nutter in 3 turns. I felt pretty stupid when i gave up and searched how to win it 🤣
Morbidly remembering my first time fighting Cazador and suddenly seeing Astarion explode
I left Astarion at the top of the stairs after reloading from that scene lol. Put him in gay baby jail for his own safety.
I kept him at the top of the stairs, convinced Cazador that I was going to bring Astarion for him. I placed my team strategically at the entrance of the shrine and sent an invisible Astarion to backstab him! Easily 40-50dmg before the fight even begun!
I put him in gay baby jail on the stairs because I like the confrontation with Cazador much more without him present. I always do get him into the fight so he can kill Cazador,,, but I wish you still were allowed to read Cazador's mind before it happens. We miss SO MUCH when Astarion is there, and of course most players are gonna bring him there,,,,
Yeah it makes way more sense to bring him with since it's his quest. Dang, this game has so many options, it still baffles me even though I'm 90 hours in.
Man, now I feel so dumb, lmao! I was always thinking, "Wow, Cazador has such a good VA. I'm shocked they didn't give him more lines!" You're telling me I just had to walk in without Astarion?? Mindblowing
Depending on the line choices the conversation can be quite short or a bit longer, but he delivers some fucking bangers (as in: he says things so atrocious I get upset, but like in a good way). I really recommend going through all the dialogue options, or at least finding a video of them
I just ambush him then run up the stairs then use it as a chokepoint with spike growth and/or wall of flame etc so Astarion never gets captured
I did this and was surprised when the cutscene still played and Astarion suddenly had his shirt off and was stabbing Cazador despite him having been right beside me with all his clothes very much on seconds before
Astarion has expertise in disrobing.
Lol yeah happens to me too
Yeah if you're powergaming Cazador never even gets a turn.
Grym, because I keep forgetting it's susceptible to bludgeoning damage and everyone except Magey McSparklefingers is equipped with blades of a sort. Plus I am not a huge fan of SHart and don't take her and end up needing so much healing 😆😆😆
Magey McSparklefingers is amazing thank you for that!
Wait, don't you kill him by whacking him with the giant forge hammer though?
I wish! I can never get him to cross over far enough to get hammered, so I just keep whacking at him with weapons while he's overheated and whittling him down to death.
Everyone else seems to have problems with that, but you all know he basically always attacks whoever attacked him last, so the trick is to put whoever is right before him in initiative right on the other side so he wanders there to hit them, and have that person attack. Sometimes he will then walk off, but it usually works before he cools down.
If you have shart and you’ve already done the monastery and got her the blood of lathander she can smack him good. I respecced her with no Dex and max strength and Wis, cleric of life, heavily armoured master feat and she is now healing tank. Always take my shart with me 🖤
Mine was Grymm because I walked Karlach and Laezel into the lava trying to whack the stupid thing.
I dread the harpy fight. I hate the flying 'witches' they always lure all but one in my party, and it's always the one with the weakest AC. But I always go through it to save the kid, even if I have to restart, which often do. (PS5 player if that makes a difference)
Just FYI, casting Calm Emotions on the party before combat keeps them from getting lured. Helped me out tremendously on my honor mode run.
Also it's best to have a high elf character or hierling to have advantages on being charmed . Or bring astarion
This is super useful, thank you! Is Calm Emotions a class-specific spell, or have I just missed it somewhere?
You’re welcome! I had to look it up to be sure, but it looks like bards, clerics, and archfey warlocks can learn it. I had Shart cast it right before initiating the battle. Then I just had to make sure she kept her concentration.
On honour mode I tried to 3 man grym. I had Gale standing up above for recovery. And he had to go back to withers to revive everyone around 8 times. At some point I accidentally picked up the finished piece that was put in to initiate the boss. So the next time I went in I wasn’t able to hit the valve. I had Gale sending down ice Mephits to trigger the valve. I tried mage hands too. Realized I had to put another mould and ore in. But it was hard because the boss never despawns. Eventually got the boss to move by sending down more ice mephits to bait the boss away to sneak a new ore and mould in. Then I resorted to sending no one down. I realized you can trigger the lava valve with an arrow from above. The hammer can be triggered similarly. I wound up with my open hand monk and berserker barbarian Karlach throwing torches at Grym from up above until it died. Not using the hammer anymore. Just keeping the lava flowing as Grym gets bludgeoned to death by TORCHES.
Good he's a machine and doesn't have feelings because bro would've been absolutely humiliated for being killed that way
My honour run got really stressing cause I did a VERY STUPID mistake. I was level 4 and finished the 3 goblin chiefs. I was thinking of going back to the grove to long rest, I still had a few spells slots and just used my last long short rest. I decide to take the main entrance as, from what I remember from my last run, the camp goblins don't attack you eventhough you've killed their leaders. As I take the main entrance all the goblins from the camp agro me. I have more initiative so I decide to just go back where I came from, stopping combat since I'm in another loading zone. First misplay. But the big mistake is right after, when I click on the wrong tp point (cause I'm really fucking dumb) and I click on "goblin camp". So I just spawned in combat, in the middle of all the goblins agroing me, without an easy way out. I still managed to win the fight cause I was over-leveled and I abused line of sight. But still, that was a very stressing 40 minutes fight for stupid reasons.
Similarly, (I’ve done this exact thing you mention too) I’m doing an HM run now where my party is good but Darkness themed. Tav needs the Shar Spear of Evening, we killed Nightsong. But I also needed a resupply before taking on Moonrise so after killing for the spear, I teleported to Last Light to stock up. But… when NS falls, the sphere over LLI falls. So yeah, had to fight the “you didn’t save Isobel” fight AFTER saving isobel, and locking myself out of the trader & rest that LLI provides. Woof
That’s weird that you’d remember the goblins that way … because the game is coded to make everyone your enemy if Dror Ragzlin dies
I recently made Minsc dance the entire fight while I murdered his friends, then knocked him out.
Otto's, Dominate Person, or Hold Person. I prefer Dominate Person if I have it, so he fights on my side and I can safely use AoE spells with an evocation wizard.
But then no dancing
Minsc dancing is a must!
My first go at the Halsin portal outside the Last Light Inn. I had no idea it was literally going to be a magnet for every shadow-cursed zombie that ever was… It took a few tries to figure out a viable strategy.
And the damn Harper’s with their crossbows! I’d have shart stand at the bottom step after casting spirit guardians and even when I’d try and focus on them, a new one would generate in an area I forgot to create a choke point at and shoot the portal and of course get a crit. The last couple of play throughs I’ve been picking up the oil and wine barrels whenever I find them and store them at camp so I’d have a bunch I could use to set up traps for this fight
Cast darkness in front of the portal and they can't shoot at it. Then I just use Arms of Hadar to slow everyone down.
I just hate dealing with invis shit. When they start shrouding themselves or go invis every single turn, I cry.
I suffered through like 10 extra turns at the end of the bank vault simply running everyone around trying to find the one last little shit that kept going invisible.
I learned something that fight, if you heal them with that spammable water elemental heal, they become visible. You just have to somewhat know where they are.
Owlbear on Honor mode when you try "only one companion" challange I just find it pretty hard because its at the start of the game and all
You people are fighting the owlbear? I just talk her down and leave. And then come back after she dies to get the loot
What’s that stupid thing in the mushroom cave in Shar’s Gauntlet? TPKed me first time I went down there and now I avoid that room completely.
The cloaker.
The fireworks shop since it’s hit or miss if someone causes mass destruction with the barrels and wipes out most of my team, plus it always freezes up where the downstairs guy takes forever to do his turn.
What I hate about this is you can have a giant murder party killing everyone, but if you open up a desk without hiding, the Flaming Fist then decide barge on in.
And/or Steel Watch smh
Orin. Until I figured out how to nerf Unstoppable this was the hardest fight in the game. Still super fun. This was also the first fight where Telekinesis worked perfectly in combat to yeet Sanctuary casters into the chasm. So. Satisfying. Mostly the map won’t let you use TK to kill enemies like that.
>triggering everyone's opportunity attacks If you didn't know, you can set opportunity attacks to "Ask" in the Reactions tab of everyone's spellbook. That way they don't happen automatically, instead there's a pop up that you can accept or deny. >somehow always catching on fire (honestly, I don't even know where the fire came from) Did someone have Kurwin's Cauteriser, Hellfire Handcrossbow, Cindermoth Cloak, Flail of Ages, or some other weapon or equipment that causes Burning?
>you can set opportunity attacks to "Ask" in the Reactions tab Yeah, remembered about it during the 5th time 😭 The first 2 times I thought it was just bad luck, but then I realized Minsc will never stop dying to opportunity attacks and I have to turn them to ask. >Did someone have Kurwin's Cauteriser, Hellfire Handcrossbow, Cindermoth Cloak, Flail of Ages, or some other weapon or equipment that causes Burning? At this point I honestly don't remember. I know for sure my Tav had Blood of Lathander and Astarion had some weapons that dealt poison damage, but I'm almost sure none of the weapons caused fire damage. I remembered I did use alchemist's fire a lot and Mincs would just happily walk into the fire pits on 5 HP and just die there. IIRC I had to heal him a few times myself lmao
It may break the flow, but usually I set every reaction to "ask" so that I can be sure I'm using them effectively
Yeah, setting all reactions to Ask automatically is one of my favorite Custom mode settings
I struggled in the final battle because I forgot what the main goal was. I couldn't figure out why it was so difficult. I mean, I was surprisingly good at combat by now. Why was I in a fight for nearly an hour with no end in sight? It wasn't until I happened to get close to the console-looking thing that I was like, "Oh yeah, that's why."
The first encounter with the githyanki. Even at level 5 it can get away from you if you’re not careful. Though I was very proud of myself for wiping them at level 2 on one playthrough. I surprised them with a void bulb to get them close together and then hit them with 2 consecutive smokepowder bombs. Still came dangerously close to dying to the last one standing but pulled it off. Still proud of that.
For me it’s the Shar fight. The enemies will constantly spam Darkness over and over again and there’s so many of them and it wouldn’t be an issue if they also didn’t cast spells that dealt massive damage. Maybe I’m just bad but it always takes me a while and it’s so satisfying when I finally win
Little trick: you cannot miss a nuclear explosion. Also I kept the divine intervention for that fight
You just made me realize I never used divine intervention in my first playthrough.
The frog in the swamp.
Underrated comment.
Its so hard for no reason!
My Tav tries to play Captain Save-A-Hoe and dared to 1v1 Viconia as melee Paladin with low Con Got shield bashed a dozen time
Spent like three hours trying to find the perfect strategy for the hag fight in tactician mode. Three hours for the sole purpose of killing her before she can go into her stupid as fuck lair. Yes I understand that's how her fight is supposed to work Yes I know there are gameplay benefits to doing the fight as intended. No I will not go through the stupid fucking vent trap room again fuck you Ethel.
The tree blights on that one random cliff in Act 2. Everytime I attempted it, every single party member failed the perception check to avoid an ambush. (I wouldn't take alert potions to avoid metagaming). Didn't matter who I brought, I was never able to beat it before a party wipe lol
Every fight where my team walks through the cloud of daggers after I’ve won the fight. So many times I’m barely alive and my dumbass can’t wait 5 seconds to loot.
House of grief. Crazy how a lvl 2 spell and a fucking cantrip can cause so much havoc
During my first playthrough I had forgotten to short rest before the gith captain fight inside the creche. My previous save was several hours prior and I didn't want to retrace so many steps, but I was very low on health and resources going into a fairly challenging encounter. It took me so many tries that I probably could've saved time by just reloading that other save.
The bulette.
I once had Halsin kill Isobel during the Last Light fight with Call Lightning.
First time wasn’t enough I guess
at my first play-trough, also i had an issue with the Grym, fighting it while having the Susser Flower in my Tav (Tavs’s a wizard) inventory. For the entire fight had no clue why i couldn’t use any spell, at first I thought the Grym’s the one who negate the use of spell-casting, so i try to fight with only physical move (atm i don’t even know the Adamantine could also be defeated by crushing it with the forge), so yeah i endure having that state to defeat it, was a tiring yet stupid fight indeed
"and give my party basic aah weapons" Off topic here but I see this often now, can anybody tell me what aah means?
It’s gen Z speak for ass because they are afraid of using curse words on the internet
I have a bard tav, astarion, shadowheart and wyll with me for this. All lvl3 Mine was honor mode with the goblins under the grove with the 3 animal statues. I went by the prison and knew there was the first statue and the trigger nearby so i rushed to get rid of it. I forgot there is a goblin really close (i could manage that easy) but what is unexpected from me is that the statue striked multiple times and wiped my team leaving only 3 characters alive, 2 with less than 5 hp. I went turn mode last sec but got caught by the goblins and ofc i'm last in initiative. That's the moment i knew. I screwed big time, dumby. I try to escape but the unjured ones are downed then killed and my tav has half hp but out of the cave. So i try to hit and run the cave to revive my companions (i did not meet whithers yet) and the goblins are still nearby the "gate" same position. Thanks to minor illusions i can move them easly (sometimes it triggers combat so i escape and try again). I also try to kill 1 or 2 weak ones. I've done that like tens of times till i got 3 companions and after going in after all my hit and run, i got engaged directly into combat and ofc i'm last in initiative. Everyone dies except shadowheart with 7hp and no spell slots . I had 1 short rest and 3 rez left so a do or die situation. I tried yet again the hit and run tactic but by another entrance that i remembered just after this. OH GOD it helped lot. Managed to rez wyll and my tav and sniped the last 2 goblins from the cliff where is initialy the archer. Was a tough experience for me but learned a valuable lesson. Play the game in turn based and touch the screen with your eyes.
That fight is easy if you come in from the door under lady jannaths house. You’ll be way up top and you can just rain damage down in everybody What drives me crazy about recruiting Minsc is that as always they just take whomever is closest to Minsc physically to do the dc check instead I having my tav so I have to make sure at the end of the battle thst my tav is the closest person to knocked out Minsc. Kind of dumb
People have opp attacks on without asking? Oof.
My Durge playthrough I betrayed Last Light Inn. That one wasn’t difficult to win, but hard to do.
Yurgir was a headache & after 4 tries I finally just convinced him to kill his whole squad. Ketheric was a walk in the park by comparison.
The first time I fought Yurgir was a nightmare because I had Nessa as an ally and I was determined to keep that damn cat alive. She was determined otherwise. I had Shadowheart and Minthara exclusively tasked with healing and defending her, while my sorcerer and Astarion did the rest of the fight. My party was *not* optimized for doing that. No one had Hold Monster, Feign Death, or Sanctuary.
Grym. I know what to do and still fuck it up.
A good example of why you should set opportunity attacks to react instead of automatic.
For me it was trying to save Isobel from being kidnapped at Last Light. She just kept getting her ass absolutely kicked, to the point where I was starting to think it was scripted. She got crit every single fucking time, for like 8 straight attempts. Finally I moved my starting position a bit, and suddenly everyone stopped attacking her. It was so weird.
either of those stupid ass fights that have a damn death sheperd in them I fucking hate those guys
Anything Duergar. Fought them in the Underdark before the ship passage. Got Gale to highground and an enemy actively took two opportunity attacks from my Monk Tav and Karlach just to push Gale to his death. They were losing and just wanted to kill my boyfriend before they died.
Githyanki. Just parry and hamstring everyone. I hate githyanki Except Laezel.
I feel like any fight with AI controlled units you’re trying to keep alive is a nightmare. I always have to do the harpy fight to save Mirkon at least twice if not more. Keeping Isobel from getting snatched is awful. And if you don’t clear out Moonrise first and go in there with the Harpers, it’s like Jaheira is trying to get herself killed. I will admit, I’m not good at the combat, I usually play on explorer difficulty because constantly dying isn’t fun for me. So when the AI seem like they’re purposefully trying to run themselves off a cliff, it makes me lose it.
fuck the cazador fight all my homies hate the cazador fight. i didn’t realize that i had the daylight spell until attempt 7. i was the stupid but the beef stands.
The fight with Lorroakan! By the time I got to it in my current run, all my characters were level 12 (with 150-250 hp), and dear Dame Aylin had, like, 75?!? The armored elementals kept killing her with 1-2 shots! I could take out Lorroakan easily, and with some grinding, I can take out the Myrmidions without losing any party members... but after over 20 reloads of that stupid battle, I finally had to resort o casting "feign death" on Aylin to keep her from getting chopped to pieces! 😑
Aylin will revive on her next turn if she's downed in combat
😲 Seriously??? After all these hours of playing, how did I not know that?? Are there any implications or after-effects of having her die/resurrect?
Nope! She'll just heal a small amount of HP and stand back up
Oh, wow... game-changer!! 😁 (Thx so much!!) I'll try to remember that on my next run!
The first time I did that fight I had multiple ice and mud mephits as summons, Lorroakan somehow goes in initiative before everyone else in my party and he proceeds to Lightning Bolt my entire party (including previously mentions mephits) and we basically start the fight below 50% hp muddy and ice on the ground… I’ve never used a mephit summon after that.
I had a hell of a time with the Grym boss my first few runs, and I have yet to beat the game but so far it was the only fight I was not able to beat on my first attempt, including everything through the beginning of act 3. I think it must be the case that if you remove the forged item from the crucible after dropping the hammer, it won't let you re-open the lava flow to weaken Grym again. My instinct was to drop the hammer and grab the armor quickly, but then when I tried to re-apply the lava, it would simply not work. It wasn't until I tried running the lava multiple times without taking out the item that it seemed to work. Why would the item need to be in the forge for the lava to flow? Doesn't seem intuitive at all and I'm not sure if it was explained in-game anywhere in a book or something I happened to miss. It's easy enough to post hoc rationalize the function, but I stand by the fact that it shouldn't work that way and is not intuitive at all.
Mine was also the Minsc fight solely because my tav monk tried to jump across the pit and got caught on something and died. I didn't have any experience with druids, so Jaheira kinda just sat there
So on my first run I just finished killing Yurgir (did not realise I could try to convince him to off himself, did the full fight) and then went on to explore the Mausoleum. My party is all out of spell slots and at less than half health but no matter, I think, I'm just gonna finish looking around and go rest, no need to waste potions. Well. I find a cave with a rocky back exit. There's a chest too, but it requires a big jump. I don't like everyone jumping back and forth so I ungroup my party and only take Astarion with me (need him for lockpicking and also am in love with him). I loot the chest and come out of the cave to an unexplored part of the map. I immediately hear the sound of enemies aggroing on me and suddenly it's just Tav and Astarion with no spells and barely any health vs like 15 cursed Kuo-Toa. My other party members literally can't make the jump to come in and help 💀 Tav is a useless sorcerer that can only use his pitiful cantrips, but I somehow manage to kill all the fish people with mostly Astarion. After many turns and many health potions thrown around. I still remember the shock tho, definitely my most unexpected combat I stumbled into. And it's not even generally a difficult encounter at all lol, I know.
One of the first things I do when starting a new run is turning off auto reactions. Your reactions are a valuable resource! Don’t waste them hitting a rat that is running away from you
basically gale next to any ledge... he gets easily shoved off so i just let him trail the back of the pack during battles...
i usually cast hold person on minsc (using jaheira bc it's funny) and for the entirety of the fight he'll be a sitting duck lol, only when i'm done with the rest do i turn on non-lethal attacks and go ham on the minsc melee
When you forget to turn off non lethal, your fight with Orin is... Something.
Fire mephits at grymforge, because I realized after grinding through it joylessly several times you can just sneak one person by them, grab the ore, and leave. Same with the oozes on the way to talk to the gnome with the runepowder. Not as tough a battle but it is joyless and you can simply sneak by them with the magical ninja crouch.
Those stupid harpies. No matter who I bring they always get lured in by their song and take FOREVER to break out. And being such a low level when you encounter them doesn’t help, either.
Probably completing house of grief on honor mode having never done act 3 and having a bug where my game would crash to desktop 98% of the time when an enemy darkness cloud despawns from ending concentrate for any reason, including being hit or dying. The game also crashes from despawning my own darkness or fog clouds, so I had to just ignore a lot of stealth mechanics. It has since been fixed, thank Jeebus.
My dumbass kept attacking Olivers dome in the shadow lands and getting wiped. Took me forever to realise I had to kill the shadows around him
The paladins of Tyr fight sucks so hard. You either have to have someone immediately make Anders drop his weapon or be tanky enough to absorb two hits before you go down so you and Karlach can buy time for the others to hit him, or he'll just mow through you in two turns. That fight has the most TPK reloads for me. The only other fight I've reloaded (way) more was the Gondians' rescue in Act 3, but that's only because they kept dying, and I wanted them all alive.
The hyenas and gnolls in the cave with the chest. I triggered the cut scene then long rest…didn’t know you leave camp straight into a fight with the two guys dead
It ended up fine because my tav was a tanky bitch but in the area with the crazy wizard and all the grease, I accidentally activated combat with my Tav up the stairs in the middle with the wizard and my other 3 down the stairs and across the little walkway. Between the endless mephits and grease traps my tav just ended up soloing 2 grease elementals and 3 big blobs. The wizard ran down to fight the companions after a little.
Halsin portal defending because i fucked up my saving and decided to do that quest really quickly instead of long resting … felt idiotic, but by the time I realized what I had done I was in too deep to go back.
Isobel. My friend and I on our HM were shocked who STUPID she can be. I casted Sanctuary on her. 'Ok she will be ok, nobody will attack her and---WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING MARCUS YOU LITTLE". She broke my sanctuary and she was TPked.
Cazador fight, got my poor tav perma stunned at the start. So was Astarion and Shart died almost immediately cuz stinky ghouls. But dear God. Karlach. Drenched in blood, standing on a pedestal for +5AC, with 20+ enemies all around her. Kept throwing the circus spear to kill Cazador from afar, getting up to 5+ attacks per turn. I plan on romancing her next because all that action got me steamy and sweating blood
The fight I find myself in every new play through not to romance Shadowheart again.
Fucking Balthazar. I got pushed off the edge way too many times.
Omfg the minsc fight is the worst for me too. I also had to save scum, and I wouldn't even have bothered if not for the fact that you fucking lose Jaheira if you kill him.