Co8 makes the game way too hard

First of all, I understand mostly how D&D work. At least the board gamish version, you move, roll to attack if you get X on a Y sided die you hit/miss
and if you hit you roll a Y sided die to determine the damage you do plus bonuses and minus negatives. And second of all I don't want to hear any of the 'The game is suppose to be hard, that's how it was made' bs because this is way past that. Ever since I downloaded Co8 I havn't been able to get past the Moathouse. I have 7 level 3 characters, 2 Fighters, 1 Cleric, 1 Druid, 1 Sorcerer, 1 Ranger, and 1 Barbarian and in the fight against Lareth's goons I miss and miss and miss and miss. Out of roughly 60 attacks done by my people between the time their entire side is flat-footed, till all my people are dead, I hit 6-7 if not less, killing maybe 1 person depending on if the damage is spread out or across multiple enemies, whilst their entire side, out of all their attacks, hits 90% of them, 50% of the hits being critical hits and this is all before they call Lareth out because after killing one guy somehow they think they are getting their asses kicked. Parden the language. Back when my game actually worked on my computer, I could make it inside the temple down to the 2nd level in the basement without even trying and now this? (and before any of you say well why dont you just uninstall Co8 and play the normal game? Well that's simple, because so far the only way I can play is with Co8, because when i try and start up the base version it crashes before the cinimatic and yes I have tried various ways of making it start including disabling the opening cinimatic.)

 

The game is not that hard. If you're having trouble in a fight like the moathouse guards/lareth one, kill a few of them and then flee from combat, rest up, and come back. That way you can kill a few at a time while not losing.

 

Are you using Grease or Sleep at all? Those spells greatly simplify that fight. So could Charm Person. Honestly, it just sounds like a tactical problem to me. When you do win that fight, make sure you save right afterward.

 

oh yea the moat house is tougher for a newB to the game

I would also sugguest flanking, *wow no rogue in party is maybe unwise at this time also*

bring long spears or fighters with spiked chains

using reach weapons is a big bonus in this fight, aslo because your enimies use the same.

dont forget to use the five-foot steps around them,
other-wise you provoke attacks of oppertunity.
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having deflect or snatch arrows feat, is great early in the game, and later game.

if you had a rogue, they could fire sneak ranged attacks,

but since you have none, use charm spells on the cross bow men.

also suggest you bring your grease, and missles of magic.

*charm big plus there

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also sneaking your party into this battle for a surpise attack is best.
disbacth the hall way, then sneak into the main room, without taking notice, to
spring your final attack.

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you could also by-pass this fight all together by using a ring of invisability.
but no spoilers from me.

 

With that many characters that early decent equipment could be a problem as well- did you do any of the Hommlett quests (better gear could be had if you did)? Spell selection might be an issue as well, not to mention feat selection at character creation- Improved Initiative is an amazing feat (I get it for all my characters). Also, this isn't a fight you want to charge headfirst into- let the enemy come to you and pick off the archers ASAP (Charm Person, Sleep, Grease or Magic Missile will all work wonders here...).

 

I find that casting Stinking Cloud from the scroll that can be found earlier in the Moathouse makes that fight much easier.

 

1) Don't rush into the room and go all superhero on them like it's a movie. Hold your ground near the entrance. Two tanks with high AC out front, perhaps a third with reach behind them. Archers and spellcaster types behind them firing arrows, dumping area spells, and healing. As the tide turns you can roam into the room and start flanking and sneak atacking.


2) Making Scrolls for prebuffing everyone is invaluable. All of the spells listed here are 1st or 2nd level and should be affordable to scribe.

AC: Once your AC is high enough they can't hit you unless they roll a 20, and from there criticals are rare beacuse they need to roll another 20.

- Barkskin: +2 AC.
- Cat's Grace: +2 AC to most, depending on armor type.
- Mage Armor: +4 AC to unarmored, and a +1 or +2 bonus to light armored guys.
- Shield of Faith: +2 AC deflection bonus.
- Shield: +4 AC to Mage of Sorcerer.
- Protection from Evil: +2 AC agianst evil.
- Reduce Person: +2 to AC, only use on non-combat types.​

Example: A Monk with a normal AC of 15 (+3 for DEX, +2 for wisdom) is going to get hit about half the time in the battle. After Barkskin (+2) , Cat's Grace (+2), Mage Armor(+4), Prot from Evil (+2), and possible Owl's Wisdom(+2), his AC will be about 27, and he will get hit only on a 20 usually. (Depending on your spellcasters, you may not have all of those spells available, but you should be able to get his AC to well over 20)
​

GENERAL PROTECTION:

- Protection from arrows: DR 10 against arrows. Their archers will be useless.
- Blur: 20% chance opponents will miss you before even rolling their attack.
- Cure Moderate Wounds: Don't mess around with scrolls of cure light wounds, it's usually not worth the turn.​

OFFENSE: Now that they can't hit you most of the time, you can buff so YOU can hit more effectively.

- Bull's Strength: +2 hit and damage.
- Bless: +1 to hit for all.
- Magic Weapon: +1 to hit and damage.
- Divine Favor: +1 for clerics only
- Enlarge Person: Gives you reach, and increases weapons damage, but lowers your AC by 2.​

Note that the duration on most of these spells is short, so do your buffing and then immediately rush into the encounter.​

3) Make scrolls for area spells that will affect as many of the bad guys as possible with one spell:

- Sound Burst
- Glittersust
- Grease
​

 

I love this fight. It's one of the few where the layout of the battlefield is really crucial, with that doorway. Can't see into the room without being shot at, can't get a foothold in the room without being longspeared to death. I always want to try to lure them down the tunnel one by one. I agree that the modpack makes this harder- guards waking their sleeping comrades and Lareth joining in sooner being the things that come to mind. Have you opened up the dice roll monitor to see if your luck with the dice really is much worse than the enemy's. Click on the d20 at the bottom rigt and click on the blue-highlighted wording to see results of attack rolls.
7 PCs makes it a bit trickier here as you can't bring all your firepower to bear without entering the room which is dangerous, and you limit your effectiveness by only being 3rd level. You're also a bit low on magical flexibility and your 4 fighter-types are still outnumbered by the enemy fighters. When I ran a 3 PC party I hit this fight at 5th level, at which point Fireballs made it trivial.
Options for your team: does your sorceror have Web? If so, slide him down the initiative order until immediately after your druid. Use your tanks to hold off the bad guys in the room. Cast web to trap as many as possible. Have your druid to use produce flame to hit a webbed foe with a ranged attack. Immediately after (this is why you juggle initiative), recast web. If you had a wizard you could do this almost indefinitely with scrolls; can still do it 3 times I think with a Sorc3.
Summon something inside the room to draw attacks away from your front line. Target things like sleep and web on it to have maximum targets in the area.
Give your barbarian a polearm and have him hack his way in, with as many buffs as you can put on him and someone behind pouring cure potions on him. Enlarge person if available.
Consider recruiting Furnok and have him sneak/ walk in invisible and attack the Lieutenant with the longbow as a first strike, then flank the polearm guys who guard the doorway.

 

Also, if the game is too hard at this point, recruit Elmo. He's basically in Hommlett as an easy mode for people who are having difficulty.

 

Nearly mentioned Elmo alongside Furnok, but figured the problem here is of getting all those melee types positioned correctly in a tight space, so simply adding another wouldn't help much. He's 4th level iirc, so not a huge step up from the current set up if hired now. Good for earlier on in the MH if you want to get stuck in early.

 

I managed to finally beat the battle but kept getting killed right after by Turuko and his band because all my party members were already injured, my sorcerer's spells were already mostly used up, and I couldnt rest in the place because i would always get attacked, luckily i managed to finally beat them all with only 3 incapacitations on my team although all 3 of them were dangerously close to being killed (one had -8hp and the other two had -9)

 

Congrats!

I would suggest running thru the encounter several times to get a feel for how your party works together best. See what you did differently that made you win. It will help in the future when you run across similar encounters at the temple.

As for the Turuko ambush, yeah that's nasty if you aren't expecting it. I have three suggestions to make sure your spellcasters never run out of spells:

1) Make scrolls
2) Make more scrolls
3) Make even more scrolls

Keep a backup of 5 - 10 scrolls of each spell you use often like Magic Missile, Sleep, Cure Wounds, Fireball, basically anything you use often. Once you have enough scrolls, you're spellcaster basically becomes a sorcerer that never runs out of spells.

Tip: Sell off most of your scrolls every few levels to refresh the spellcaster level of the scroll. For example, if you reach 5th level and make magic missile scrolls, which should give you 3 missiles, they will only give you 2 missiles if you stack them with old magic missile scrolls you made at 3rd level.

 

Ha! I remember having the same experience the first time I triggered the moathouse ambush, though I think I just about escaped with PCs down but not dead the first time round. A real 'help, this game is fighting back' moment.