The Balor fight really needs to be nerfed.

So true! Good mention - I forgot about GrH's benefit vs fear.

In some low level party balor fights, that can be crucial. It's possible to get more if you can kill some of the ice node rogues before they get the chance to use their GrH pots. This means you need to disable and kill them before the first round, though.

 

I eventually just cheesed the battle by getting my fighter next to him at the start and save-scumming until I landed 4 consecutive attacks in the first round and made the saves vs Fear and Charm. I had my fighter buffed with Spell Resistance, Heroism, Enlarge Person, Haste, and Invisibility.

I could have reloaded an earlier save and went in better prepared, but I hate when a battle requires meta-knowledge to win, and that one definitely does unless you're overleveled or *extremely* lucky. One of the things I love about ToEE is that very few battles require meta-knowledge if you're a good player and familiar with the rules. The Balor fight is an exception though.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even in PnP or BG or some other game, it doesn't require meta-knowledge to know that sometimes you can't win every battle [unprepared]. It doesn't require meta-knowledge to suspect that a Balor is a very dangerous opponent.

Running away is an option. Scout and not fighting is also an option.

This battle is not forced upon you, and there are many alternate exits. Plus, success in this battle is not important to any plot or quest progression in this module.

In fact, in the old 2nd edition module, I am unsure that the Balor would have been beatable. The Balor was stupid-powerful in that edition with a vorpal sword = characters probably had to rely on Fragarch and so much luck to have a chance.

 

I have never been able to pick-pocket the Balor for the fire Gem which you need to complete the quest to destroy the skull

 

Oh, that's true. I forgot that there is the quest to destroy the skull to make Zugg weaker which is the very good alignment path. I usually just keep or sell the skull + gems.

But iirc, you don't need all 4 gems in the ToEE game to have Pishella destroy the skull. (I've only destroyed it once a long time ago). And 30% reduction in HP to zugg is not a game-changer. There is a slight dialog change when meeting zugg and some epilogue additions.

 

I didn't say every battle. I said very few battles in ToEE require meta-knowledge, and that's true.

Thing is, my full party + 3 NPCs were at level 11, and this is a game that was originally designed to cap at level 10. For it to be that difficult even with a party that's beyond the intended max level is a little extreme.

While that may be true, (except for those who want the fire gem), it's irrelevant to my statement.

 

I wasn't aware of that. So you're saying Co8 made the fight harder than it originally was to compensate for the other changes to the game?

 

Was the Zuggtmoy fight also increased in difficulty? I found it a lot harder than I remember it being years ago. She was healing to full health like every 3 rounds. Is that supposed to happen and is there no limit to how many times she can heal?

Also, is there no limit to her summons as well? Once the fight reaches a certain stage, she's summoning more fungi every round. There were literally 20-something summons onscreen at once. There were even multiple fungi stacked on top of each other in the same spaces. Or am I encountering a bug?

 

Yeah, I'm almost positive Zuggtmoy got buffed at some point. She has almost 600 hitpoints, and that's right after destroying the Golden Orb. She didn't used to have that much HP.

 

Of course, in the original 1st ed. PnP module there is no Balor and I have had Pishella tell me she needs all 4 gems (of course that was the first time I played the game before Co8)

 

My point was that in 2nd or 1st edition and with the limited equipment of this module, a Balor was mostly impossible. The original Balor format is searchable, if curious.

And Zuggtmoy was likely impossible without having destroyed the Golden Orb first for more drastic effects. Yet she's not near so dangerous with 3.5 rules and the current ToEE implementation. I can't find the exact stats as I don't have the original module, but she was likely somewhat similar to Iuz in multiple class stats. ie, ~10-20 level caster (arcane/cleric).

With 3.5 ruleset, it is [imho] completely fair game with a 10th level party and all the extras that 3.5 brings. It is also easy to make equipment and there is no lack of access to protection spells/items/vendors. Newer versions of temple+ add more 3.5 classes/prcs and feats to further increase the offset.

Even with the much anticipated IWD adaptation, I suspect that 3.5 will dramatically change the dynamics of the Marilith battle (as an example)...which was considered fairly challenging by 2nd ed rules, even with a party that had lots of magic items.

 

IWD adaption? Tell me more.

 

https://co8.org/community/forums/icewind-dale-total-conversion.108/