Slavers

I thought I'd post a thread specific to these characters. I've done the encounter twice with 7 PCs plus Elmo and more than have my hands full. All my PCs had crafted weapons and armor to maximize damage and minimize their hits (but that barbarian and his spiked chain just tears me up). My best is 3 PCs dead and should have been 1 more but I had the periapt of wound closure.

What tactics are people using to beat them?

What buffs work the best?

What spells work the best?

How do you save the children?

I think this is the toughest battle in the game.

 

I don't go to Verbobonc until after I've completed the temple proper, meaning clearing it out as well as the nodes. By the time I hit Verbobonc, I'm about 18th level with 3 or 4 characters. Having more than 3 characters significantly decreases your experience and splits it between all characters. I would say throw away 3 or 4 of your characters and Elmo and level some more.

I just wade in and spank them all. They are going to Blaspheme your fighter for the whole fight so he's worthless. You can't use AoE spells or you'll kill the kids. Your second slot PC, always a rogue in my case, will be killed before battle, leaving a cleric of Heironomous with his +3 holy/shocking burst/icy burst/flaming burst longsword with his +3 Hero's Shield to go around and sweep them all up. The wizard can sit back and plink away with scorching rays, polar rays, magic missiles.

 

6 party members: 2 fighters (one dies) 1 cleric, one rogue, one wizard (evocation) and Meleny.

Have improved initiative, especially for rogue and wizard. Make sure rogue has high saving throws.

Walk to the LEFT before beginning the conversation. Enemies are all in a line, and doing this makes it difficult for enemies to get to your spellcasters.

Rogue attacks CLERIC. You need to do 30 points of damage on him to drop him below 150 hp. Wizard casts power word stun on Cleric. You do this, so cleric can't cast heal. The crazy lady casts finger of death on rogue. That's why you need high saving throws. It is useful to survive this ONE spell.

Surviving fighter wails on cleric. Meleny retreats (maybe letting enemies get AoO- better than facing something like 10 attacks per round). Casts flame strike on crazy lady. My cleric casts flame strike (ignoring dead fighter) on crazy lady. Both these flame strikes also hit the other people around, but NOT THE KIDS.

Second round. Wizard casts power word stun on crazy lady. Enemy cleric likely dies, crazy lady likely dies (up to 4 flame strikes on top of her). At this point, all enemies employ physical attacks, and the scenario is now doable. Wizard casts chain lighting.

This strategy relies on power word stun- auto hit, no saving throw. I also tried with hold monster, but the enemies seem to be able to cast spells even when held.

I only played through once. Another possible strategy is to have wizard cast lightning bolt on turn 1, as enemies are all in a line. With luck, a lightning bolt will kill the crazy lady. If not, cleric and druid flame strike can finish the job.

 

Just dumb luck but I beat them with three. I put Zaxis in the 2 slot to get whacked. My rogue/fighter got first strike and killed the big lady with a crushing amount of sneak attacks with Frostbane. The henchmen dropped my rogue/fighter like nothing, but he had a precept of wound closure and so they all just keep going after him to kill him. He took over 4000 points of damage, but wouldn't die. My barbarian/fighter just walked around and slashed them up. The only guy that ever targeted him was the archer. Probably just a freak occurrance.

 

The slaver encounter is the 2nd most difficult fight (no 1 is still the Balor) in the entire game. I've managed to beat the encounter without losing anyone after getting mauled the first several times I tried it.

So how do I do it?? First off I don't like automatically losing a PC just during the red-headed witch's dialogue. So no dialogue, I just attack as soon as I can see them. So no dialogue and no auto dead PC. Also no buffing by the slavers. Not fair some might complain, but I give no apologies for ambushing them. I don't craft uber-weapons, my PC's are weaker (usually 12 or 13th level at this point), the slavers are EVIL, and my party alignment is usually LE or NE. My PC's aren't paladins, so don't expect them to fight "honorably."

I find that the best way to eliminate the slavers and avoid killing hostages is to sneak a rogue or other stealthy character close enough to see the entire position. If the sneaker is a mage as well, the PC can open up immediately. The shortest fight I encountered was when my invisible halfling rogue1/wizard 13 took out all of the slavers with a prismatic ray (he had 24 Int, they rolled very poorly). Usually the slavers roll very well on saves, so this was a special case. My more frequent tactic is to hit the slavers with a lot of spells with no spell resistance. Starts off with a quickened web, then cloudkill. Follow up with a heightened grease and solid fog. This has a number of effects on the slavers. Most of them get stuck in the web or at least slowed down by the solid fog. Even if they manage to move, the heightened grease usually trips them up at least once. So the slavers are stuck in the cloudkill zone taking Con damage for several rounds. Cloudkill has no save or spell Resistance, so anyone caught in it is usually severely weak or dead soon. The slowed up movement means the fighter and barbarian have less chance to attack the party, while the web, grease, and solid fog spells hamper the rogue and spell casters. I usually play with a bard, a wizard and a rogue with high Use Magic Device skills, so gettin a large number of spells off in one round isn't a problem. This is currently my favored approach, I hope to hear how others are dealing witht the slavers

 

Great stuff guys, keep them coming.

I'm usually in the 12/13 level range when I hit them. The ambush is a nice thought - why give them the advantage. I hadn't thought of moving Elmo into the 2nd position to have him take the death instead of my better outfitted fighter.

Early targeting of their cleric seems pretty important. My battle went much longer than it should've because he kept using heal spells.

I used a bunch of haste potions, but can't remember if it really helped much or not. Otherwise I tried to buff with things that would help me with saving throws and stoneskine to try to reduce the damage.

 

I also do the thing where I save the slavers for nearer the end of the game. They are tough and I like to have a few more levels than 12 or 13. I also like to sneak an invisible character or two or three up behind this group. I buff up before this group as well and among other things, like the stoneskin and displacement combo on everyone in my party. This still leaves my group vulnerable to spells so I concentrate on the lady in their group first. Once she is gone, I will continue to concentrate my attacks on one member of their party so I reduce their numbers more quickly. While I do this, I have my cleric hang back and heal my party (much like their priest does).

Also, potions are nice but they tend to expire much more quickly than the spell equivilent.

 

Never tried it myself, but has anyone ever tried to dominate/charm some of the slavers to work for you and be a target of their friends attacks? I will have to try that out in my current game, though I am some distance and levels from that encounter.

 

I have started to like the summoned critters, with augment summoning to buff them. Using them along with my crew spreads out the damage done to your party. Ancient elementals have great hit points and as giant targets can help draw the fury of the slavers away from your group. With a high enough summoner, you can bring more of them as the first ones drop.

 

Dominate a few monsters and bring them with you. Head to the 3rd level of the temple and rest there. Randoms include troll, ettin, and hill giants. I prefer the trolls, since everyone does regular damage to them, so even if they go down, they keep targeting them. Since they are dominated, they are considered party members, and thus can go in the 2nd slot.

 

Good points GG and the idea of the trolls is an idea I wonder how well that encounter would hold out.

 

Just reran the encounter and getting the jump on them makes a huge difference. I'm not high enough level to use the high level spells that end it quickly. Can't use my go to (fireball) because of the kids so I used displacement and stoneskin pretty effectively. Disintegrate also helped get the cleric before he could get a second heal spell off.

All I needed to do was to survive 2 finger of deaths and I had them.

 

Does anyone know the order they use to target the finger of death? Seem to want to go after my elf rougue first and them my wizard.

 

Not sure of the order, but I would think they will go after some of the closest targets and then spell casters.

I am about to go after them with summoned creatures to take off some of the heat from my fighter. Guess I will see if they can be the targets of the spells and can be my Red Shirts.

 

I took them on at 8th level. Mistake!

But the next time, I didn't want to listen to that sorceress so I took the dialog option to attack. It still didn't go well, but they did not get their prebuffs- or as many- completed.