Demons and Demigods and Difficulty

i could barely touch the avatar of IUZ!

 

I tried the 4 Iuzs once. I had a party of five 20 lvl characters - one was even a CG fighter with Scather and I was wiped out before I could do much at all. It was humbling but I just didn't feel that I had a chance so I didn't bother trying again. I usually try to complete all the quests that is appropriate for a NG party but I'm afraid that this one will be an exception for me.

That's just my 2 cents. I know that some players complain about things being too easy. Iuz is one bad dude though. Maybe Iuz with some sort of creature/servants would still be challenging for some while not out of reach of others.

 

First time around i had 6 level 20 characters and met 4 Balors.
It took med a while to get them down and i used Elder elementals to draw attention away from my own characters so the fight quite easy.

Second time i got 4 St Cuthberts and was without a hope,

 

I've only tried this quest with a NG party and each time I faced 4 Iuz avatars. I have attempted this quest numerous time and even with six 20th level characters the usual result was the party dying quickly. I did finally manage to beat the encounter, but it took numerous tries and a lot of searching the boards for helpful info. A final encounter should be extremely challenging, but not next to impossible. Instead of 4 Iuz avatars or 4 balors, maybe a single Iuz and 3 balor guardians??

 

Fought Iuz Avatars. Voted very challenging. With the right party it can be done. Not easy, but doable, without casualities even. What would make it insane would be a spellcaster to support him! (One of them could be acting as a cleric for instance. OUCH!!!). Don't think this is the right thread to discuss tactics, but if anyone wants it, could open one.

 

Actually I would like to see a Tactics discussion on this fight.

I have party of 6 20th levels, and have been getting my butt kicked. I really have barely done much damage to any of the Iuzs. 4 just seems to be so touch, I cant get any spells to have an effect.
I often summon creatures in to fight , but mainly it serves as a distraction. Iuz wipes those up quickly and I have to summon in more creatures. Had hope to use that, so I can stand back and cast spells, but my spells have minimal effect.

 

Check out the new discussion thread for this one, there's bound to be some good tips in there. When first encountered in the Temple circa 10th level, Iuz is extremely hard to damage. High spell resistance, immunity to most types of energy, high AC (normal, touch,and flatfooted), and lots of hit points. And I think he's also immune to sneak attacks. I don't think the avatars in the the final fight have been tweaked, but even with 10 more PC levels, Iuz is still a very nasty opponent.

 

My opinions on the difficulty and some details of my avatar encounters:
(Don't read if you're not already spoiled)



4 Cuthberts - insanely (too) difficult

Cuthbert's are utterly insane and undoable without either Fragratch or Scather. Can't touch AC 70+ without one of them, no matter the buffs or uber crafted weapons used. I couldn't anyway. Absolutely no spells got through either vs SR 67. Never got to see what his racial bonus on saves was (like I did with Iuz) because no spell ever got past spell resistance and/or immunities. 0 for about 40 all told. I eventually got the Cuthberts with Scather and a sacrificial anode strategy using Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the anodes. With the right intiatives, positioning, etc, my one hasted character with Scather could pound away at Cuthbert's back without him even noticing as he continued to bang away at the sphere causing no damage to the protected character. First time I've used Fragratch/Scather since the Balor AoO/ctd issues that surfaced a long time ago. Still in effect in the Fire Node as far as I know. I'm still kind of hard coded not to use Scath/Frag. Don't pull it out unless I have to. Too many AoOs (Scather, Opportunist, Combat reflexes, Balor/Salamander fire, reach weapons on approach, etc) in one spot is asking for trouble in my opinion.

4 Iuzs - very challenging, but doable

Iuz's were do-able after some practice and a strategy review by the party. Hittable with uber (legally obtained and crafted) weapons? Barely, AC in the mid 40s IIRC. Multiple spellcasters with quicken spell feat as above for whole party buffs as the fight continues. Mass Heal was a must. Some spells actually got through (SR mid to low 30s) when I used that sacrificial lamb strategy to prolong the fight. Just barely got a couple of spells through with Spell Pen and Greater Spell Pen. I actually killed one Iuz with 400 HP left with a heightened Dismissal spell. Not a lot of other spells got through, other than Power Word Kill working consistently if you get that far. Both he and Cuthbert were seemingly immune to Holy Word/Blasphemy. I threw all of the ones I had memorized at them every time hoping to get lucky. Huge HP on that spell when it hits. Pretty sure that one is just a pipe dream though. Under no circumstances let one of the avs get in more than one attack per round (good luck). Iuz is a better hitter, Cuthbert is very extremely, very well protected.

Neither were trippable with my limited and seldom tried tripping skills, got a '<avatar name> is untrippable' message in the rolls window when I tried. Of course a bigger stronger diety with umm godlike strength immediately tripped me right back on trip failure...

There is a strategy out there to use 5 foot step at the end of your turn to stop the avatar from getting full attacks by making him reapproach. I did not use it, just luck, positioning, strategy and a larger party than I usually run (6 vice 4) with 2 extra characters named Martyr and Sacrifice in character creation. From reading the thread (wasbear's solo Iuz win IIRC), I would have to change my options to make this work. Next thing on my list if I have to face Cuthberts again.

1 set of Iuzes (LG), 2 sets of Cuthberts (NE, CN) so far. I've yet to have Balors. Curious if I can use Scath/Frag on them out of the Fire Node without breaking my game. Still trying to figure out how to get Balors. Maybe I'm just being dense about alignment selection.

 

If I may make a suggestion, how about changing the neutral fight from balors to Avatars of Zuggtmoy? She is a "demon" and has a much more comparable difficulty to the avatars than balor.

 

Brutal. Not used to seeing 8 level 20 characters get blasted like that. Half the party gone in 2 rounds. At this point I have no idea how to be competitive.

 

I fought the Iuz Avatars and voted for moderate challenging. First I tried my general fighting strategies, haste, greater heroism, summon elder elementals etc., and had not the slightest chance.
Spoiler Ahead

After that I let my cleric cast stoneskin, left him standing in the middle of the four Avatars who did no damage to him now. My fighter with fragrach and my rogue with sneak attack could now finish one avatar after the other. This way the fight was quite easy even a little bit dull. Just waiting for the avatars to hack away and then my two fight characters doing their turn for about 45 minutes.
Nevertheless I still had a good feeling after i had finished four avatars of Iuz. So even when I critizise a bit I still enyoid this piece of new content as well.

 

Got hammered by the 4 cuthberth avatars, only managed to take 1 of them down, so as far as i'm concerned it was extreemly difficult but then again my party composition is mediocre at best(made it that way to get a better game challenge) :
barb 2/rogue 18 -spike chain
fig 4/rogue 16 -great sword
ranger 10/fig 10 - clongbow(str 18)
cleric 20 (elonah plant&good) -long spear ; defensive spell caster
bard 20 -lite xbow ; offensive spell caster
plus wiked(barb 2/rogue 16) -morningstar&shield (extra muscle never hurts)
reasons for my obvious failiure :
1)my aveg ac 40+ did nothing, the avatars nailed my guys easily
2)absence of wiz/sorc/druid sevearly limited my choice of strategies
Rather sure that the presence of at least a druid(summon focused) would have made it possible for me to win
as i could hit the avatars well enough and do decent dmg the only real thing that lacked was smth to stall the avatars long enough for the rest of the party to do the dirty work.

 

Finally got balors on my 5th playthrough. Sheesh, stand for something or fall for anything already. Some opinionated feedback below (kinda spoils dieties & demigods encounter, but why are you reading this thread if you haven't had the encounter? Hmm?):


Comparatively (see previous post about Iuz/Cuthbert), Balors are cheesecake, especialy facing a large party with 10 more levels of better saves. His lack of summoning hurts him. I hate being surrounded by a covey of quasits in the fire node! Tried the encounter twice more from saves. On one, a balor managed to 'fear effect' 5 of 6 party members. Still cheesecake, due to short spell duration for the balor's fear. One or two balors kept casting dispel magic to no effect (party can't buff for this encounter). Note: The only spell buff I've found that makes it through the enforced waiting/time lapse before the d&d encounter is greater magic fang (used by a druid on a monk), but at 20th level that spell's duration easily lasts through an 8 hour rest period as well.

Still don't know how anybody is hitting AC70+ Cuthberts 'well enough' without Scather or Frag. A BAB with pluses of 50+ is needed. I've yet to be able to get that without the addition of a Pelor cleric's strength feat to every other attack bonus add I can muster. For one round. The only thing I can do to Cuthbert without Scather or Frag is failed crits. In the rolls window no PC attack roll+adds ever exceeds the 70+ needed to actually have a chance of hitting with a non Scath/Frag weapon. For me.

I think part of the reason the balors are seemingly easier is becuase of the Pavlovian conditioning of players, including myself, to build a party to beat him (and/or take advantage of the balor's weaknesses) for so many years. In 3 attempts, 1 of several balor 'death' spells killed a party member outright. One. That PC was raised, fully healed and killed the last balor. Pretty much it for balor 'difficulties' in my case.

One good thing about v7nc, I learned how to use all the meta-magic feats for my spellcasters. Quicken spell and run like hell is my new ToEE high level mantra... Never been a fan of the Meld to Stone or Resilient Sphere strategies necessary for me to survive the Iuz and Cuthbert encounters, but it's still the only way I can beat them, so far...

Basically, 20th level PCs are way way >>> 10th level PCs. On the dismissal spell that worked on 1 Iuz, 1 time, I found out later from replays of old saves that DC=1 for dismissal of Iuzes and Cuthberts. That 1 Iuz must have rolled a critical miss of 1 to save vs <extraplanar> dismissal after the spell got through his SR. Never happened again.

More comparison/opinion-> I think the slavers are tougher than the balors, especially without the 'lets just fight' out given in the dialog. Even moreso if the they were completely surrounding the party... Also, Bathsheba, Overseers, etc. have to have some evil twins somewhere...

Great addition to the ToEE NC experience!!! I say tone down the Cuthberts and rev up the balors! Did I mention I'm an overly opinionated crochety old man yet? My DVD player is still blinking 12:00 am as we speak... Feedback above is as unbiased and straightforward as I can make it. Kudos and a tip of the hat to all involved in the latest incarnation of ToEE NC. Finally, an opportunity for maxed out NC pcs to perform at their optimum, or perish in the attempt.