Hey guys I know some of you have been complaining about the difficulty of the Demons and Demigods quest. After a couple of tries, I managed to complete the evil battle vs four avatars of St. Cuthbert solo. It was surprisingly easy at the end. I was playing with a CN cleric19 of Obad-Hai/fighter 1 (chaotic evil party). First of all, you can prebuff before the fight, since the encounter is triggered by talking to Lady Asherah after the dinner. I cast 10+ stoneskins (from a wand), extended righteous might (important), extended divine power and haste (from wand or boots) before the fight. The weapon of choice is Scather/Fragarach with power attack on maximum. If you use it as a two-handed weapon (no exotic weapon proficiency), you can get up to +70 guaranteed damage from power attack alone, plus all the strength modifiers, etc. Armor and shield don't matter, since you'll get hit anyway. Anyway, once the fight starts, run away from the avatars and draw 1-3 of them after you. The avatars have a reach of 5 feet, whereas you have a reach of 10 feet. Thus, you should take a 5-foot step before every full attack and the avatars will only be able to do 1 attack per turn each. Once you don't have to face ~15 attacks per round from each avatar, the battle becomes almost too easy. The same strategy should also work for Iuz, although a CG character may be able to go toe to toe and finish them off all at once with inifinite AOOs. I've attached a screenshot below. Enjoy!
How did you get a chance to buff up the party like that? Not sure if the experience was the same for all parties, but there was no pause between talking to Lady Asherah at the house and dinner. So any spell lcasting had to be done before talking to Lady Asherah at her house. None of the spells cast (e.g. stone skin by my 20th level wizard) lasted, their duration was up before going to dinner. Only spell that didn't was Hero's Feast. If I had been able to buff up, the encounter would not have been nearly so hard.
Talking to Lady Asherah at her house led to a cutscene (black screen), after which I ended up in the Spruce Goose Inn with her. I could buff up there and talk to her to trigger the fight or sometimes the dialogue would trigger automatically after a delay. In either case, I had time to prebuff.
On a similar note, even if you don't have time to prebuff, you could always teleport out of the Arena (helm), buff, come back and kick St. Cuthberts' asses.
The teleport spell doesn't work in the arena and you can't flee combat through the doors, I've tried that. You can teleport to the elemental nodes using the gems. However, when I did that, the only way back to the arena was to talk to Lady Asherah, which caused the same problem, can't prebuff the party, all over again. There's no pause in the action that I notice with Asherah at the Spruce Goose Inn. Maybe I need to try another party alignment, so far I've only made it this far with one group.
After several tries I was able to defeat four avatars of Iuz I tried prebuffing (prior to talking to Lady Asherah) but found those buffs did not last. The first several times after the Blank screen, it would immediately go to dialog. Then send me off to fight Iuz. However, last night, after the cut blank squeaky bed scene, dialog did NOT start. I was just standing around in the house. I quickly took this chance to buff up (Stoneskin on all, Haste on All, Enlarge on some, Bless, Heroes feast on all). Then I started the dialog when I was ready. Not sure why this happened this time, but glad it did. I think I was moving characters away as cut scene was ending. (not really on purpuse, I th ink just mindlessly was pressing buttons as scene ended) Fight I took a slightly different tactic. After trying to hurt Iuz with spells, and wasting many spells I tried something different. Spell casters would summon in as many creatures as possible (mostly earth elementals)> This served as distraction and they took the majority of hits from Iuz. Pretty much every turn some casters would summon something and surround Iuz. Fighters do NOT stand "toe to toe" 5 or 6 attacks with massive damage from I uz is just too much to take. 5 step rule after one attack, limits Iuz attacks on you. A couple of times I took full attack, but that is risky as it leaves you open to full attack from Iuz as well.
Yeah, I'm not sure why there's a difference with our games. I was able to prebuff before the fight and also teleport out using the Helm of Teleportation. I could then reenter the Arena and the avatars were still there, waiting for me.
Always a very, very BAD idea. Cutscenes and fades tend to be very sensitive, and trying to issue commands and/or additional input to the game while its processing them will almost always result in hangs or other bad things happening. ToEE is not a real-time shooter/action-game, so don't treat it like one. "Mindlessly" should not be in your vocabulary here, and any time you manage to squeak some action in via exploiting a delay of a second or two you're almost certain to screw over the experience for yourself. It's meant to play out the way it's playing out. Let it happen. Tips: If you see a fade or a cutscene starting, don't do anything. Just watch - it's supposed to be immersive and entertaining. If you enter a room and an NPC is standing there but doesn't say anything for 1.465 seconds, don't rush over and start clicking. Wait an additional 1.327 seconds. If by then they don't say something to you, it's probably okay to initiate contact with them. I deliberately set delays to auto-conversations because it looks and feels stupid when NPCS immediately jump all over you the very instant you enter their house/room/cave/inner snactum/whatever. Again, let it happen. If you manage to pre-buff in a scenario where it's not really supposed to be possible but you are meta-gaming based on past experience, you are gaming the system and most likely diluting and harming your experience, if not wrecking the encounter entirely. Settle down and Let. It. Happen. If you find some battle/quest/scenario simply impossible (such as Demons and Demigods), complain about it here on the forums and maybe we'll adapt it. Don't look for workarounds or exploits, because it wasn't meant to be worked around and exploited and what you're doing is essentially a cheat. If cheating your way through something is your thing, okay, but it's not something I'd be particularly proud of and it's definitely not something I want to offer you support on. If I know you have cheated your way through something, I will basically ignore your cries for help. When in doubt, always remember the mantra: "I will let it happen."
How? PA lets you take penalty equal to your BAB at most, double for two-handed weapons, that's +40 tops, how do you get to 70? Is that some specific mechanic at work there?
As I posted in another thread, at level 20, you can set your power attack up to 20 (full BAB class). Cast divine power twice and you should be able to set it to 40. The bonus is doubled for two-handed weapons to give a potential 80 bonus damage. The cleric I used only had a BAB of 15, so 2x(15+20)=70 bonus damage per hit.
Aha! Thanks! So divine power lets you increase effective BAB, that's what I wanted to know. :dribble: The goofy grin you see above is me realizing my character build allows for that.
Well, if anyone is curious, it is indeed possible to go toe to toe with 4 avatars of Iuz using the strategy I described above. You have to be careful since their crits/sneak attacks may go through all the stoneskins. Then just stand there and take their hits - hitting them with infinite AOOs when they hit you. I had to cast Heal once during the fight, but otherwise it was quite easy.
