Is this game supposed to be insanely hard?

Is there an easy way to "Ready Action against Approach"?
e.g. in Pool of Radiance I just did hit "G" to "guard" and my PC attacked the first enemy that came close to him.

 

Look closely at the image; see the 'Z' next to Ready vs Approach? This game allows you to set your own hotkeys for various options from the radial menus, by using cntrl + the key you wish to designate as the hotkey.

Well then, you should have no problems at all, right? Cheers.

On a more serious note, I'm betting it's been a while since the OP played a core books only game starting at lvl 1, which is what TOEE is basically; as others have suggested, you might want to consider recruiting some NPCs like Elmo and holding off on the Moathouse a bit with a lvl 1 party, etc. You don't have access to ToB, Complete series of books, PHB2, Flaws/extra feats, etc in this game; heck you don't even have all the Core stuff available. With a lvl 1 core party, you'll get thrashed occasionally at the Moathouse, especially if you play on the harder mode (25 point buy).

 

This is new. I don't remember any of this up to Modpack 5.0, and it definitely wasn't Vanilla. :scratchhe

 

Yeah the slapping people awake was added in the mod. Unfortunately PCs can't do the same =/

Its been a looong time since I last played vanilla, but I'm pretty sure Lareth always had Obscuring Mist.

 

Oh, Lareth. He might, I'm not completely sure. But I never fight him in the same encounter as the guards, so I thought there was one of the guard mooks referred to as using OM.

 

Yeah, Elmo really makes all the difference. He has more health than your normal level 1 party combined, so it's like bringing five more characters to the battle. If he doesn't do it (due to some strange party setup maybe), you can also take Fruella with you.
If you really, really don't want to, you at least have to have the right spell selection for your wizard. For instance, I always take the uncontrollable laughter spell as it can incapacitate even big guys like the giant in Emridy Meadows.

Edit:
I just remembered the Balor battle. Elmo gets you really far but even he is no match for the Balor. Since this thread is on the topic of insanely difficult battles, I might as well ask here instead of opening a new thread: Are the any strategies to defeat him without those two incredibly powerful swords?
I never liked using them since them since they're kinda like godmode cheats. And then I ran across the Balor. There was no beating him. He deals massive damage, has spell resistance, has damage resistance, has tons of health and on top of all that he summons other demons. It's the single most difficult enemy for me in the entire game. Does he have any weaknesses that I can use to take him down legally (meaning without the swords)?

 

Doesn't he also spread fear among your party?

I'm pretty sure this battle is discussed in depth, you might have to search for nodes, or balor to find the thread.

 

The short answer for the Balor: holy composite longbows and at least one enlarged character with a (holy) reach weapon.

 

The game is actually insanely easy even at the lower levels all u need is common sense : at least 2 melee competent chars that stress high str and constitution and 1 or 2 support chars that either stress archery or magic(defensive if u lack the numbers and quality or offensive if u got numbers and/or quality)
At a raw basic minimum(at wich u can effectively slay all with acceptable odds of failure) u would have smth along the line of : 2 fig or barbs of wich at least 1 knows how to cleave or trip and they both have either a shield for extra ac or a reach weapon to shamelessly exploit. As far as support goes at least a clerik or druid is required; for ex a plant domain cleric gets to cast prot from evil and shield of faith on top of bark skin and as a result yr melee guys tend to be unscarred by any roll that isn't at least a 15; on the offensive side of things a even a puny command of fall on most opponents equals a deth sentence and a free cleave for one of yr melee goons.
To add insult to injury u may as well employ 2x wiz or sorcs to shower the enemys with stuff like sleep,grease glittherdust and later on fire balls and cloud kills and should there be anything left alive or not crippled enough to make u laugh u can always have a ranger x/fig x employing a wicked composite longbow(str 18 for overkill factor) and possessing the proper feats and favored enemies to ensure at least 100 dmg per round to anything unfortunate enough to draw its attention.
Then later on theres always the up yr ante factor involving stuff like fully crafted equipment infused with a plethora of elemental dmg sources, a rogue doing WTF!d6 for damage on regular bases just because he flanked and thers allways that nasty assed spellcaster that now sports perversely enhanced spells in ways to sick to even describe by a sane person.
All in all theres maybe 3 to 5 combats in this entire game that can be described as hard and one as brutal(the retirement battle against the deities avatars) otherwise unless using extreme self imposed restrictions(like no sor/wiz/druids in party, no direct dmg spells and no mass spells) the game turns into a snore fest after only the second or third run trough(by this time all the fun is sucked out of it by finding yrself snarling at the misserble rags of the harshest foes simply because they had the audacity to be still left standing well' into the second and perhaps the third round of battle under an inhuman barrage of necromantic and elemental down pour of endlessly overenhanced spells reminding you of some silly action figure on tv that somehow manages to dodge machinegun bursts while casually sipping hes coffe right before he decides to returns the favor and wipes them out in industrial size quantities as easily as brushing away the dust from hes shoes looking mildly impressed by the fact that dust had the nerve of appearing on hes perfect shoes)

 

WTF!d6 .... Priceless.

ROTFLMAO

 

I said "The Master", so yeah I was talking about Lareth. He's called "The Master" until you find out his real name.

I forgot to mention that he's very trigger happy with Sound Burst after he throws Obscuring Mist up. The damage is minimal but the stun affect can be disastrous. It can be easily prevented with the Bard's Countersong. Silence might work as well though Lareth has a pretty good Will save IIRC.

Also depending on how the battle plays out, Lareth can summon some spidery friends. They can be a hassle with the STR damage their posion can deal but they're nowhere near as dangerous as the other enemies.

Most of what you mentioned isn't even applicable for the Moathouse... which is what the TC is having trouble with >_>

As mentioned before, Holy weapons are the best way to tackle him. Casters are pretty screwed over here since he has spell resistance, impressive saving throws and resists damage from most attack spells. His Touch AC is atrocious though, so touch spells (Like Disintegrate or Vampiric Touch) are somewhat effective. ... Though I wouldn't use the melee touch spells on him unless your caster is fully decked with all kinds of buffs. Shout is also capable of dealing full damage to him.

 

IIRC the giant is to large for ottos irresistable dance

 

Tasha's Laughter he means, not Otto's Irresistable Dance, which isn't available anyway til high lvls (is the spell even in the game now?) when the giant would be trivial to waste a spell on.

Tasha's works fine on giants, just have the bonus to save as a drawback since chances are your caster isn't Type: Giant, but it's will save isn't too great and the effects of the spell if it sticks means the fight's over.

One of the many reasons why Enchantment rocks this game. Great way to take most melee type humanoids (including bugbears) out of the fight while not having to worry about them drinking those potions so you can steal them.

 

Works like a charm - I set it with CTRL-G to use G to guard and instead of fiddling with rightclicking and going through two levels of the radial menu I just hit "G" now. Thankyou :thumbsup:

 

I forgot about Tashas, should've mentioned how great it was! How could I forget!? I always use a Bard in every playthrough =(